Dymo Figures Out How To Add DRM To Printer Paper

The latest exploit in the world of gaming is that game developers have figured out a way to embed DRM into printer paper. This ingenious workaround has rendered it impossible for players to share their library or play back previous saves, and one player’s graphics card could potentially ruin another player’s experience when they swap in new hardware. How does this affect you? It might be time to consider your option on whether you want anyone else playing with your saved games because chances are good there will soon be only one set of legitimate files left.

Dymo has figured out a way to add DRM to printer paper. The company is using a “dymo labelwriter 450” printer and the “dymo labelmaker software 4.2.” The technology will allow users to print labels with a unique QR code that can only be scanned by the device it was printed on.

Dymo (photo)

Dymo Corporation, the printing behemoth best known for its arsenal of portable label printers, tapes, and other labeling solutions, has made the apparently simple world of label printing a little more complicated and pricey.

Dymo has figured out how to force its users to use its premium-priced labels rather than a competitor’s by introducing RFID chips into some of their latest printers, an addition that allows them to distinguish whether the device has been loaded with official or third-party labels, according to Cory Doctorow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. To paraphrase Doctorow’s title, this practically amounts to embedding DRM into paper, which is a frightening prospect given the industry’s history of maximizing profits via high-priced ink cartridges and other consumables.

According to the EEF research, Dymo labels cost $10 to $15 per roll, whereas alternatives cost just $2 to $5 per roll. Dymo’s 550 and 5XL models have the new technology.

The Worst Timeline: A Printer Firm Is Introducing DRM on Paper Right Now (EFF)

If a Dymo owner wishes to purchase Dymo labels, he or she will do so. The sole rationale for including this anti-feature is to compel Dymo owners who do not wish to purchase Dymo labels to do so. All of Dymo’s sophisticated capabilities for RFID-locked labels could be achieved without the lock-in.
Customers of Dymo are clearly enraged, as seen by the internet response. Some are congregating in technical talks on how to thwart the measure, but no vendor has stepped forward to provide a jailbreaking program that would allow you to tweak your label maker to suit your interests rather than Dymo’s stockholders.
There’s a reason for this: copyright law in the United States provides Dymo a tremendous weapon to threaten commercial competitors who help us get out of label-jail. For trafficking in tools that overcome a “access control” for a copyrighted work, such as the firmware in a Dymo printer, those competitors face penalties of up to $500,000 and a five-year jail term under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.