this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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287
Brother Says It Was Falsely Accused Of Bricking Printers That Use Cheaper Third-Party Ink Cartridges (www.techdirt.com)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

But is it a lie?

Here's what I've seen so far:

  1. Rossmann reports on claims about Brother blocking third party cartridges on auto-updating firmware, and not providing older firmware
  2. Brother denies intentionally blocking third party cartridges

There's still the claim about the older firmware. If it was available, it would be pretty easy for customers to prove that a change in the firmware caused issues w/ third-party cartridges:

  1. cartridge works fine
  2. upgrade
  3. cartridge doesn't work
  4. downgrade
  5. cartridge works fine

That doesn't prove it was intentional, it just proves it was the firmware update that caused the problem. If users want to stick w/ an older firmware, they should be allowed to, because Brother shouldn't be able to decide what firmware they use.

The broader point here is certainly valid though, I'm just unconvinced that it's applicable. Why should we trust Brother on this when they make the way to prove the issue nigh impossible?