CCC Forum

The Times newspaper has reported that the French have discovered that manufacturers have been deliberately cutting short the working life of their printers and ink cartridges. Instead of the usual Gallic shrug of shoulders and saying "bof", they are doing something about it. In France it is a criminal offence to "reduce deliberately the lifespan of a product to increase the rate of replacement". The European Commission is considering a similar legislation on an EU-wide scale. HP, Canon, Epson and Brother, who dominate the French market, may have broken this law and prosecutors will have decide if there is a case to answer.

Welcome as this initiative is, it does not address the price of ink. Manufacturers are producing cheap, disposable printers (quite possibly at a loss) in order to sell overpriced ink which is where the profit lies. True, compatible cartridges are available at more sensible prices, but the manufacturers protect their markets by incorporating chips so that only OEM cartridges can be used. Epson in particular has been very aggressive in suing third parties who copy the chips and has been winning the court cases. Epson printers also state that a cartridge is empty although 20% or more of the ink is remaining in order to "protect the printer head from running dry". Since that would destroy the head which is not a user replaceable part, few are willing to risk using a chip resetter to get at the remaining ink.

Until someone tackles the problem holistically, not much is going to change. Given that most cartridges cost just a few pounds and the price is more of an annoyance than the cause of pecuniary distress, I wonder how much incentive there is to do anything?