Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

It's Canon/HP/$MANUFATURER shenanigans - nothing inherent to inkjets. I think the better solution is to buy from more ethical printer companies, like Brother.

I have since gone to a smarter printer with an Epson ecotank. Their ink is decent price and it works fairly well. Sadly The model I got requires custom drivers. Though they do have models that support PCL6/ postscript. The model I got also allows for larger paper sizes, but it does not handle it very well in the firmware.

If you do need the drivers often you can unzip the installer and look for the .INF file. Installing from that will save you from the crappier parts of the software.

cat myfile.pdf |nc printername 9100

They've always worked for me.

I also don't let it connect to the internet as it has a fixed IP and no gateway.

Also none of this cartridge subscription business and I've always been able to buy the cheap unbranded cartridges on Amazon or Ebay for a fraction of the HP ones that must be made from solid Platinum or something...

Good to hear I have more companions on the same boat.

Why aren't companies being found criminally negligent with the CFAA when they force poison-pill "upgrades" that remove stated features from the original device?

How is this functionally different than the crypt-ransomware we see in the news?

They only tend to be a bit picky about the WiFi networks, so better to use with a cable.

One thing I did notice, though, is that it will start complaining and bugging you about replacing the toner before it actually runs out. There's a well-known way to reset that check, though, allowing you to print until it actually runs out.

This is all true, but it seems lasers have had their day for the occasional use printer. We have an Epson EcoTank, and all manufacturers have equivalents. The hardware has been absolutely flawless - 12k pages of ink in the box, not a single jam after 10k pages, ink is something like $20 for 10k pages and child could refill the think without making a mess. They make you pay for the privilege of not nickel and diming you after buying it by charging at least $200 more upfront, but I'd take that any day.

But, for Epson at least, the simplicity of pcl6 / ps isn't there. You have to use their drivers, which often only exist for Windows. That shouldn't happen because they support "driverless printing", which is really just another printing format that supplants pcl6 / ps. They all support "driverless printing" because they need to check the "print from mobile" tick box, and they can only get it by supporting this new format.

In theory, this should be great for open source because this new format started life as the internal format used by CUPS called "CUPS Raster" [0]. It was then taken up by some mob called the "Printer Working Group", made more device independent, and renamed "PWG Raster", which CUPS supports. In practice, so far, I've never had the joy of seeing a driverless printer to work with CUPS - despite the fact that phones do work with the printers. It needs more time in the oven, I guess.

Mindboggling. Here we are, after 30 years of trying to come up with standard way of doing the apparently simple job of telling a printer how to put ink on paper, and we still need more time in the oven. Unbelievable.

[0] https://www.cups.org/doc/api-raster.html

Even on Linux?

Lobbying. These industries are worth billions of dollars. They can afford lobbyists who will go to politicians and influence the law making process. They essentially buy the laws that they want. Copyright duration is essentially infinite now thanks to these guys. Also illegal to reverse engineer thanks to these guys.

Billion dollar corporations protecting their own interests at the expense of the public's interests. Such a nice democracy we live under.

As for the time between adoption and enforcement - there has to be reasonable time given between for everybody to adjust to the new regulation.

A lot of us have been conditioned to think you "just can't" modify things like firmware, or OSes, (or increasingly in phones/tablets, user-space). But for Stallman's generation, hardware devices were 100% owned, repairable and hackable by their owners. Only software and the abuse of it could so comprehensively change a hardware device from something you obviously own, to something which in a real sense you don't control or even realistically own anymore. Apple is leading the charge in this as other companies itch to pile in.

Every manufacturer the world over is right now wondering how they can turn their one-time sales into a recurring revenue stream.

Case in point: the Bosch e-bikes now offer a 'Bosch account' to supposedly access premium features on the bikes which in a sane world would be included in the purchase price and which really do not require an online account or service to begin with.

I'm certain that laws attempting to curb specific abuses such as with these printers will be like playing whack-a-mole, but perhaps after enough moles get whacked hard enough, the culture might start to change course. One can wish anyway.

Fast forward to today, I have never owned an inkjet printer. Over the past 30 years I’ve owned a total of 3 laser printers. The second was in 2005, because I wanted a scanner. The third in 2014, because I wanted network. So each one has lasted around 10 years each, and not because they broke, but because I wanted new features.

I have forever told anyone asking my advice on printers to avoid inkjets. When they do, they have problems with the ink, either drying out or having to replace them all the time.

I agree, inkjets should’ve died a long time ago. The only reason to buy one in the past was if you were on a tight budget and had to have color. But nowadays, color lasers are dropping, or it’s super easy to send something off to X to print it for you.

Example pictures: https://geekanddad.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/

Inkjet technology is fine, it was the exploitation of it by HP which lead to copy cats that really made it ridiculous.

I've got an HP inkjet wide format plotter (36" wide) that was built both before HP was all in on ink as a profit center and built by a different division (plotter division). It has been a reliable workhorse for over 20 years now and while I don't use HP ink any more (they don't sell it) third party ink works fine.

I replaced my desktop printer with an Epson Eco-tank printer. They claim it comes with 2 years of ink (at my rate that is probably 4 years :-) and they the ink is not expensive. So there are people trying this model of "let's not bother screwing people on ink" and I'm trying to reward them by buying their printer.

Never ever ever buy a cartridge inkjet printer.

instead buy a tank printer (eg Epson Eco-Tank). They are more expensive. You fill up the ink from a bottle.

Cartridge printers are sold at a loss and designed to make a profit from the cartridges. This is why printer manufacturers are constantly fighting third-party cartridges with unnecessary firmware "upgrades". Additionally, the printer will use some of that ink to clean the printer heads so the printer will run out of ink even if you don't print anything.

Also, retail printers are typically sold with less-than-full ink cartridges.

It's a good example of how consumers buy based on price rather than value. But don't confuse cartridge vs tank inkjet printers. They're completely different beasts.

> I really don't see a reason for inkjet printers to exist, I hope they will disappear from the market.

Perhaps you should investigate why they exist. Seems too naive to wish for their disappearance due to lack of knowledge.

https://www.precisioncolors.com/

I've been using these for years for Photo printing. Can vouch for excellent quality and affordable price. You need a color calibrator to calibrate these inks + paper.

It's probably possible to design an inkjet printer that actually works as well in the real world as a laser printer, but it would threaten the business model of all the printer manufacturers so I'm not holding my breath.

That said, once you get up into the (semi-)pro photo/art printers, they're fantastic for that application. i.e. very much not an office printer. The ink per ml in the bigger cart sizes is often one or more orders of magnitude cheaper. You still need to run them enough to keep the heads nice and clean, but they also usually have decent auto-cleaning support built in to help maintain the print head so long as it's getting used periodically.

The HP cartridge holds an approx 9ml, so that gives an idea of how long those bottles should last(Also colour is 9/3 ml colours). Once these are done, I can just go ahead and get just a few more bottles which drives the price down further.

I've had no issues in printing apart from the first time I had done it. I obviously would recommend getting one of those brother Ink tank ones, but there's no need to trash an HP if you can figure to do this and keep a backup cheap maintenance printer.

Btw, I still use the stock cartridges that came with the printer, saving on a ton of cash and pain of hunting for cartridges.

P.S: I've tried this on 2 other models too with no issues

The thing is pretty cheaply built so it's janky as all get-out, but ink included, I haven't touched the expense of the cheapest laser printers— maybe half. I'll upgrade when its limitations outweigh the benefits.

(watch out— it won't work on every model. It looks like some cartridge companies sell refillables for models they know won't work without official cartridges, so do some reading!)

In SF you can print at the library which I've done once.

The ink is very inexpensive, you can purchase individual ink bottles (about $3 per bottle, and on average will last about 1000-2000 pages) and not the whole set, and the printers actually were built quite tough.

Sure, they're more expensive than the cartridge-based ones (4-5x the price), but one gains economy of operation + more well-built devices.

Now, it is true that inkjets are fussy and you need to keep printing with them to keep them operational, but I managed to clean out a very dry nozzle twice with nothing more than a pack of lint-free paper, some specialized cleaning fluids, a pack of syringes, and a thin rubber tube, simply using guides found on the Internet. And I haven't had any mechanical failures yet that weren't caused by the paper feed roller being worn out (which is expected) despite both printers being used daily for years.

Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe Epson did really good with these two models in particular, I don't know.

I print infrequently, but need to have color prints available at any time for family, so I got a color laser printer something like 15 years ago. It has wireless so it's on our wifi and I've never had any issues with it, nor have I even run out of the original toner.

It was definitely worth it, I never want an inkjet again.

They're still useful for cheap printed confections. You can use them with edible ink and paper. It's quite nice to print photos on cakes and stuff.

I had a laser printer before at home before, and it's slow to warm up, tonner is 10x as expensive as refilled ink head and I kinda fear the tonner particles getting into the air and I breathing them. Page output is similar for much higher price.

Quality is better, but for home use I'd only consider laser printer if I was still making PCBs at home.

I purchased a large format printer in 2007 to print tabloid size photos. And then I purchased another in 2015 with a scanner. I believe the large format one still worked, but it was large (obviously) and I had less need for it or space for it with kids around.

The current one is almost 7 years old. I keep looking at laser printers, but until this one actually dies, there is no point to replace it and I would lose the option to print photos.

Since I've seen a few negative experiences in this topic, as a contrasting anecdote I've had the one inkjet (Epson) for the past 15 years which has worked fine all through and been useful for printing images and also for the time I used the feature printing on discs.

If you haven't tried replacing toner without replacing cartridge (the only way to achieve this level of cost efficiency), there may be some intermediate steps that are good to know about:

https://youtu.be/HaGQlP23Fqc

I’d love a master jet but it’s just not in any way affordable / practical.

Meanwhile, I ended up with an HP OfficeJet Pro 8620 that was recommended years ago by The Wirecutter and I use HP's ink subscription service. It's never failed on me. It never jams. No fuser or toner to worry about. Ink just magically shows up at my house when I need it. The old cartridges go back to HP for recycling. It is the most reliable printer I have ever owned, and I've owned dozens of printers since the early 1980s of almost every technology. I love it. It is one of the few devices in my home that I can say it Just Works. I will be sad if it ever dies and I can't fix it.

Edit: I purchased the HP for $150 in May 2016 on closeout from Office Depot. I've been on the $5/mo or $10/mo plan since then depending upon family needs, so let's say I've spent another $500 since then on ink costs, so I'm at ~ $650 since May 2016. I've printed 16,083 pages, so my lifetime per-page cost is ~ $0.04.

Maybe my mistake was going with a cheap color laser. But I've been thrilled with this particular HP and the convenience of their ink subscription program. Meanwhile, Brother's customer service on the laser printers which failed under warranty was terrible. It was the Brother HL-3170CDW. This isn't my review, but it matched my experience, except I mistakenly bought a second printer so I could re-use supplies I already had for the model:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R32TEW142QU2G6/re...

Edit: reworded for tone. Thank you for the feedback below.

Germany requires some signing software for pdfs - though printed-signed-scanned documents are also legally valid signatures

In a certain way I kind of enjoy printing to a printer that's not near me, if it can get away with it, if I have printed something off to read over the course of a week I feel like it adds some gravitas to actually go and fetch it.

They'd still be thriving under an honest business model. There is no need for any of this. There is only greed.

It guarantees recurring revenue and guarantees the customer will have support the next day (or same day sometimes) if anything happens.

Retail customers simply pick the cheapest thing though that satisfies their needs, most of the time. It’s been the same story since the first retail shop I imagine.

It would be a great free Amazon Prime perk for the home market, where people print only a few times a year, and don’t necessarily mind waiting 24 to 48 hour for a printed document to come in the mail. I’d imagine revenue could come in from higher-quality printing options (photos, books, etc…)

Living in a small apartment, I don’t have the space to keep a printer that would only be used a few times a year, so I’d love this kind of service.

It’s a slight improvement over my last fridge which used DRM to make sure I only used their (way more expensive) branded filters.

Since early 2000s: It's been mostly Brother lasers for my small biz clients. Brother was terrible before 2000, became cheap/reliable and stayed that way.

I placed a few this year.

I’m sad if Canon reverted its game for anti-buyer shenanigans.

Admittedly I haven't done anything myself, though I admire those who have.

when I saw the headline for this article I first read it as "Canon sued for disabling scammer when printers run out of ink" :)

That would give a base to work from, I guess you start simplifying the hardware. Even if it used propriety cartridges at the start it would seem better than a commercial consumer-level printer as you could stop the 'you need all colours to print in plain black (K only)' and 'you can't scan without wasting ink getting the printer ready', etc..

??

I even have a comb binding machine so that I can assemble booklets of related published papers, which I rely on — in combination with the digital form — for my work.

Sometimes it’s just more efficient to page through and find what you’re looking for in a physical document, and reserve my screens for other information.

Furthermore, “bad for the environment” is an empty, thought terminating argument. Personal computers are bad for the environment, and you’re even worse for the environment, but that’s not an argument for eliminating computers or you.

Regardless, the "free subscription" is no longer a thing that is available for purchase. It also doesn't seem cost effective, given the miniscule print quota; a single laser printer toner cartridge yields more than a decade of prints if you were able to somehow always hit exactly 15 pages a month.

I'm inclined towards malice and not incompetence.

At any rate, if your theory is correct then they are knowingly selling a defective product. Using the scanner is not a “corner case”, it’s one of the devices’ primary functions.