McFlurry Decision Is a Big Win for 'Right to Repair'

A decision from the US Copyright Office is a victory for "franchise owners, independent repair shops, and anyone who's had to bribe their kids with a chilly treat on lengthy road trips," says Meredith Rose, senior policy counsel at consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. The office has granted a policy exemption that gives McDonald's franchises the right to repair McFlurry machines, which are notorious for being out of service, CNN reports. According to McBroken.com, which tracks outages, almost 15% of the ice cream machines across the US aren't working today.

Manufacturing company Taylor had the exclusive right to repair the machines before the Friday decision. The copyright office granted an exemption for retail-level commercial food preparation equipment to a section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that made it illegal for franchise owners to bypass the company's digital lock on the machine to allow third parties to repair the machines, Engadget reports. The exemption was requested by Public Knowledge and repairs website iFixIt. It followed a legal fight over a WiFi-connected device that allowed owners to diagnose and fix problems with McFlurry machines.

Rose says the change, which takes effect Monday, will "spark a flurry of third-party repair activity and enable businesses to better serve their customers, " Ars Technica reports. The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation of the machines in 2021, months after President Biden directed the FTC to draft new "right to repair" regulations, reports Engadget. Donald Trump, however, appears to be trying to take credit for improvements: "When I'm president, the McDonald's ice cream machines will work great again," he said in an all-caps post on X the day after the copyright office's decision. (More McFlurry stories.)