HP gets slapped with yet another lawsuit for blocking printers using anything other than its own inky liquid cash cow
You may assume that Hewlett-Packard’s most essential revenue generator is likely to be AI servers or low-cost laptops, however you would be improper. Over half of HP’s annual earnings final 12 months had been fully all the way down to its print division, with no small due to its Dynamic Safety printer firmware improve that fully blocked all third-party ink cartridges. Cue one more spherical of litigation, within the type of a lawsuit aiming for sophistication motion standing, claiming HP has created a monopoly on printer ink.
As reported by Ars Technica, the submitting is requesting that HP is given an injunction that finally requires it to disable Dynamic Safety, thus permitting homeowners to make use of non-HP alternative ink cartridges. Oh, and the small matter of greater than $5 million in damages, and a trial by jury besides.
This is not the primary authorized case in opposition to the modifications to how HP’s inkjet printers react to third-party cartridges, and the corporate has already paid out vital sums of money to settle such lawsuits and compensate customers for not with the ability to use their printers.
Not that any of this has dented HP’s love of Dynamic Safety and printer ink subscription plans. Tech customers all over the world are printing much less every year so HP and different printer producers have been turning to considerably authoritarian strategies for retaining the income rolling in.
Dynamic Safety was launched again in 2016 and the printer ink DRM was met with the type of reception that you just’d anticipate, with frustration at being unable to make use of no matter cartridges one appreciated in a immediately owned printer effervescent up via social media till lastly boiling over into lawsuits.
And regardless of paying over 1,000,000 {dollars} within the EU as compensation, for instance, HP exhibits no signal of adjusting its techniques. Definitely not when its chief monetary officer was “actually proud” that it managed to boost the revenue margins of its print division. Branded inkjet cartridges have all the time been the principle income in that sector, with the printer itself being bought for nearly no revenue in any way.
It is ostensibly the identical mannequin employed by Microsoft and Sony with their consoles: Promote the models as cheaply as potential, generally making a loss on them, however claw all of it again via on-line companies, equipment, and sport license charges. Are you able to think about the uproar in case your Xbox or PlayStation refused to run a sport if it wasn’t immediately bought by Microsoft or Sony? Properly, that is precisely what is going on on with HP’s printers.
In 2023, Hewlett Packard’s print sector generated $18 billion in income and $3.34 billion in earnings so a few million {dollars} right here or there for paying off lawsuits is barely going to register. Sadly for inkjet followers, that type of revenue means Dynamic Safety could be very unlikely to vanish.
