A joke as old as time...well, as old as McDonald's ice cream. For years, it was an absolute crapshoot whether pulling into a McDonald's could net you a treat that involved the McFlurry machine. It was always breaking, and it always took forever to get fixed. It only ever happened to me once: at the McD's near the Highway 10/East St. Germain Street intersection. I had a hankerin', but was informed that the McFlurry machine was broken. I just left.

The running joke that inspired a website to help us avoid McDonald's with broken McFlurry machines has been finally thwarted, and we can thank the United States Copyright Office and a group called Public Knowledge for it.

The U.S. Copyright Office Saves McFlurry Lovers From McFlurry Machines

A quick backstory: the McDonald's McFlurry machines are made by a company called Taylor (unrelated to the Taylor guitar company). Taylor owned exclusive rights on the machines, and were therefor the only company legally allowed to work on them.

If an official Taylor repair tech wasn't available...that McD's just had to wait until one was.

The U.S. Copyright Office finally took a look at this BS and granted an "right to repair" exemption for companies like McDonald's. That new rule took effect yesterday (10/28/24), so look for your local broken McFlurry machine to finally get fixed.

A group called Public Knowledge filed the exemption request after techs from iFixIt.com took a McFlurry machine apart and found that fixing it really wasn't very hard.

FINALLY.

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H/T: The Verge

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