Cryptography Research looking to curb ink cartridge piracy

Granted, we've never had too much luck with those knockoff ink cartridges ourselves, but that doesn't mean that printer (and therefore, ink) manufacturers aren't looking to halt sales of the profit stripping units in any way possible. Aiding them in their quest is Cryptography Research Inc., which is currently developing "chip technology aimed at helping printer manufacturers protect this primary source of profit." Essentially, the CryptoFirewall chips would make it harder for printers to utilize counterfeit or "off-brand" substitutes, which leaves consumers stuck sans a choice and left to pony up whatever they must in order to get that essay turned in the next morning. The company claims that its technology will be ready to cripple new printers sometime next year, but hey, the hackers in the crowd are just salivating for yet another challenge.

[Via Slashdot]

[kingofwale @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:13AM]

how about NOT charging so much for ink, so people can actually afford it?

heck, if your printer steals up to 66% of the ink anyway. why should I support it?

[Chuckles McGee @ Jul 2nd 2007 11:03AM]

Well, people actually can and do afford ink. Manufacturers charge whatever price will let them get the most money from the greatest number of people.

"heck, if your printer steals up to 66% of the ink anyway. why should I support it?"

Well, um, you do support it, I'm guessing, probably because the value of having X printed pages is greater to you than the cost of an ink cartridge-whether or not 66% of the ink gets wasted.

[OnlyShawn @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:58PM]

chuckles...you're missing the point..."afford" doesn't mean anything in envy-laced "corporation-as-evil" rhetoric.

All you have to do is to complain that corporations make too much money, and you are subsequently the de facto hero of consumers.

e.g.: Oil.

Please, people...read some economics. Please stop practicing this rhetoric of envy. Companies are a HUGE part of your lives. It would do you some good to listen to some appropriate experts on the role of profits and losses to a corporation. I recommend "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. You may not agree with it all, but at least you might stop spouting baby-Marxist responses to industry...the very industries that have given you so much, and freed up so much of your time for this website not only to exist but to be focused on what it is focused on.

[Jonathan Abdo @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:16AM]

^ True

[Jacob Theby @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:34AM]

It depends on the company and the toner really. If you divide the cost by the number of pages printable...its usually not THAT expensive, you just have to look at it that way :)

[Hastings @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:36AM]

I work at a retailer that sells huge amounts of ink (amongst other things) - it accounts for 50% of our daily sales. The margins are HUGE, we make sometimes as high as 70% on our off-brand, and 40% on tried and true manufacturer cartridges.

[MdP @ Jul 2nd 2007 11:01AM]

This is absolutely FALSE. Ink cartridges are where all the technology is. That's why they can give away the printers. The printer hardware has little to do with the resolution of the document printed. It's all in the head. I've worked at many a retailer, and doing so, get to see cost on everything in the store. Print cartridges always cost just a few dollars less than the retail price. It's not the retailers doing the huge markup. It's the manufacturer.

Granted, companies like Canon are expempt from this since they usually have replacable ink tanks and semi-permanent print heads.

[Hastings @ Jul 2nd 2007 12:01PM]

I said "sometimes as high as", not "always". The Canon BC-02 sells for $45 CDN at my store, our landed cost is $22 cartridge for example. I didn't even talk about the printers, those are just given away by the manufacturers to reel in money from the consumables.

[furious gnu @ Jul 2nd 2007 1:35PM]

MdP makes a good point. Printer hardware technology hasn't changed all that much in years, except in the print head, although I would say that there even more strides being made on the software side of things. Both of these are pretty high margin return opportunities for manufacturers.

[Jason @ Jul 2nd 2007 11:25PM]

Yeah, it's the razor/blade business model. Give away the razor, then charge tons for the blades.

[OnlyShawn @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:46AM]

...yet another example of free markets being killed by businesses. If you happen to think that we 'free marketers' are 'corporate lackeys', you're oh-so-mistaken. Businesses are no friend of free markets, as evidenced here...but consumers should be. The thing is, though, and allow me to prophesy...IF this technology catches on, some companies will use it...some, however, will choose NOT to use it (brand x), and market their printers as such, and will likely make a killing because people will realize that they still have choice with 'brand x', and will vote with their money.

[steve @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:49AM]

too bad your average consumer doesn't think this way. They'll either go with a name brand they know, or what the sales guy tells them.

[Paul @ Jul 2nd 2007 2:07PM]

@steve

The reason most consumers go with what the sales person tells them is that not everyone can be an expert at everything.

Your doctor sure knows a lot about how the human body works, but I bet that if you ask him to swap out your hard drive in your computer, he would look at you like you were crazy.

People expect the sales person to know what they are talking about, and many do, as long as you ask the right sales person. If you go up to the 16 year old kid and ask him a question, don't be shocked when he gives you bad advice, but if you ask the guy who looks like he has been around a while, the advice is not always bad.

The end truth is just to be smart, if you are making a big purchase like a computer do your own research first then go talk to the sales people. If you are just buying printer cartridges, I think you are pretty safe just asking the person working for help.

[OnlyShawn @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:58PM]

@ steve....and yet, amigo, while I agree with your assessment of non-technofile consumers, history has borne out, time and again, the fact that people will vote with their money, and bad companies who make bad decisions tend to go out of business or are forced to re-evaluate.

Individuals tend to, on the whole, make smarter monetary decisions than you might think.

[Sporkinum @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:46AM]

95% of the crap most people print doesn't require color. Most people would be better off with a laser printer. Ink carts are good for around 500 pages. A toner cart is good for 3000 to 10000 pages. I just got a brand new 8000 page toner cart from ebay for $15 shipped.

[steve @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:47AM]

well, this is crap. Without competition, they get to charge whatever they want. Next time I have to buy a printer, I know what to avoid. Now, what manufactures are buying into this tech?

[patsy @ Jul 2nd 2007 2:50PM]

Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark. If you steer clear of those, you should be fine.

[Jay @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:50AM]

I agree with kingofwale. There is no fair reason for the high cost of ink. Half of the time the ink cartriges are half full, and I am "required" to replace them in order to print. I think I'll go back to using a pencil.

[Frank @ Jul 2nd 2007 11:16AM]

"Printing" is sooo 1997.

[Jobos @ Jul 2nd 2007 11:16AM]

It's not the ink that costs an arm and a leg, it's the cartridge. I've seen a website where it teaches you how to refill your ink cartridge by hand (which a monkey could do, really). This seems like a viable solution to me. You just have to worry about what kind of ink you buy.

[SuperChuck @ Jul 2nd 2007 12:16PM]

Did I miss some serious lapse off anti-trust laws?

It seems every other day I hear about some company developing some new technology in order to artificially fix a price. It shouldn't matter if it's oil or ink.

[OnlyShawn @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:57PM]

...this actually wouldn't be a trust. It's just a decision by an individual company.

trust: any large industrial or commercial corporation or combination having a monopolistic or semi-monopolistic control over the production of some commodity or service.

In this case, this is not a trust, because nothing is stopping other companies from NOT employing this technology. In essence, if HP decides to do it, there's nothing that keeps Lexmark from not using it. IF this ends up being more successful for Lexmark (and, if you look at the history of 'monopolies' and collusion instances in any industry, you will see this borne out) to NOT include this technology in their printers, HP will lose (remember how companies are profit AND LOSS businesses? not just 'for profit') money, and be forced to change their ways.

So...really, this could only become a trust if there were some sort of legal means of enforcing the technology on other companies...you're misunderstanding what a trust or monopoly is, in this case.

As I think about it, this is actually a possibility of real good: if HP pursues this, and enough people get pissed off about it, there's a good chance that people will start demanding/using ink cartridges from non-mega-companies, at lower costs and equivalent quality.

Again...a triumph of the market...so long as the government stays out of it. The danger will be when enough people get pissed off about 'high ink prices' and demand that the government 'do something' (as they have with gas prices). Oh, please, let us not repeat the consistent and predictable error of price controls.

[RJINAZ @ Jul 2nd 2007 12:26PM]

I don't bother buying ink cartridges.
With the cost of a printer at less then $80 and the combined cost of new ink cartridges at close to $70, screw it and just get a whole new printer.
I print a lot of color, so I tend to run out of all the ink around the same time.
This is what will be filling the landfills... disposable printers.

[Martintek @ Jul 2nd 2007 12:28PM]

Actually, can you really call this piracy? If you fill your injet cartridge yourself, are you breaking some civil or criminal law?

I don't refill and have no desire to do so. I doubt that the home consumer is their target though. It appears to be directed at third party re-manufacturers. By putting cryptology in place, the OEM's have a legal process to follow when going after third party re-fillers.

[ericthebikeman @ Jul 2nd 2007 12:55PM]

Didn't Lexmark try this only to be smacked down by the courts?

[ericthebikeman @ Jul 2nd 2007 12:53PM]

Couldn't they kill off home refills as well? Simply adding a chip with a counter to the cartridge would disable refills. Mitsubishi has been doing this for years on their dye-sub printers. You could probably eek out a few lower quality prints by rewinding the cartridge but a Dallas iButton locks this out.
Exhausted counter = no prints
No Counter = no prints

[KC @ Jul 2nd 2007 12:56PM]

If this technology is to be used to stop those knock-offs from being sold as originals, then I'm all for it. But if this is going to be used to stop us from using non-original replacements, then I'll just boycott the manufacturer. Simple.

[Bizam! @ Jul 2nd 2007 1:43PM]

It was just a matter of time...Ink Cartridge DRM. Let's put DRM on everything! :(

[onbox_james @ Jul 2nd 2007 2:23PM]

I guess DRM on printers would only forbid you to print copyrighted photos :P

[bolerobell @ Jul 2nd 2007 2:32PM]

The Printer companies are playing the same game as the game console companies: Sell the printer/console at a loss and make up for it in ink/games sales. However, when you do something like that, you get these wretched situations where games/ink have outrageous prices and the manufacturers do everything they can to protect game/ink sales. I don't know who thought up this whole twisted way of doing business, instead they should just sell electronics for their true price instead of creating weird market situations where you have to lie and manipulate your consumers to protect your consumables sales.

[James @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:03PM]

The problem here is that the printer companies are by and large selling a high-tech, relatively durable product (the print head) bundled with a very, very cheap, low-tech consumable product (the ink and the housing). That's why I got a Canon i960 a while back -- the print head is a separate object from the cartridges, which are basically little sponges full of ink in a plastic box. The cartridges I get from ink4art.com (not a plug; I've had good experiences but my dad was very unhappy with his HP-compatible carts from them) are 12 for $45, shipped -- two each of six colors. The prints look exactly the same as manufacturer original ink, but cost about 1/4 the price. If the print head wears out (hasn't for about 4 years/several dozen ink carts), I can replace that with a Canon original.

And that's the way it should be -- if a part is high-tech, buy it from a reputable source. If something is a low-tech commodity (unit cost for the ink itself must be in the double-digit dollars per gallon), buy it from whoever sells it cheapest.


I agree that this crypto nonsense should be a violation of anti-trust laws. If it isn't, I still think there should be some legal requirement to disclose the inclusion of such technology in a prominent place on the packaging. Of course, anybody who's buying a printer should check the price of generic ink beforehand, but it doesn't relieve the printer manufacturers of their ethical burden...

[Matt @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:24PM]

HP claims that counterfeiting (that is selling an off-brand or remanufactured cartridge as a new OEM cartridge) is a big problem in Asia, and is the justification for these advanced chips - not to put remanufacturers out of business. However, if they do this and in the process make it impossible for people to have their cartridges refilled, there's gonna be a fight. I'm sure there is some anti-trust law that can be used to sort this out. Consumers ought to have the right to choose, and HP has even publicly said this. I own a Cartridge World store so obviously this type of thing concerns me a great deal. HP considers us a competitor, and to put us out of business with these chips would be to compete unfairly (in my opinion). We remanufacture ink and toner cartridges, have a very high success rate, and save consumers and businesses A LOT of money. Plus, we offer expert advice on cartridges and printers - the kind you don't get at big retailers. Consumers and small businesses will be hurt if remanufacturing is no longer an option.

I don't know how big of a problem counterfeiting is. Perhaps this is just a smoke screen to maintain HP's market share. Since franchises like Cartridge World have come out, all the manufacturers have lost market share, and that will only continue as awareness of our service increases. I'm sure they're doing this to regain that share. Still, until HP actually does this I still support them more than the other manufacturers. Lexmark is the worst by far; they sue companies in our industry and also threaten to sue people for having their cartridges refilled - look at the fine print on a lexmark cartridge, it says something to the effect of "by opening and using this cartridge you agree to return this cartridge back to lexmark for remanufacturing". They don't want anyone else to remanufacture it, just them. If that isn't unfair competition I don't know what is. Knowing this I have no idea why someone would purchase a Lexmark printer.

[Ben @ Jul 2nd 2007 7:10PM]

It's so funny that someone from Cartridge World should add a comment. I had a very interesting experience with a refill store (shall remain nameless) while servicing their printer.

Customer was getting pronounced scratches in the OPC coating of the imaging drums (1ea for CMYK). Each one is a $200 part, in a $5000 printer. I spent several hours troubleshooting this machine, and found that the customer was using refill toner.

After replacing all of the imaging units (under warranty, and paid for by the manufacturer) the issue kept returning. After all was said and done, I purged the auger tubes of the refill toner, replaced it with genuine manufacturer toner, and the issue cleared.

Customer was told by the cartridge store that it was NOT the toner causing the issue, and refused to pay the bill. They were very upset, and the manufacturer actually covered the repair under warranty just to keep them happy. Somehow, the refill store convinced them that they changed their "formula" of colored sand, and they started using it again. Low and behold, the drum failures returned almost immediately, and they AGAIN tried to blame the manufacturer!

So my question to people like Matt is; Why is it unfair for manufacturers to refuse to support 3rd party cartridges (of which they have ZERO quality control), but it's perfectly fair for refill companies to tell their customers that their toner is just as good as the original stuff, and will work flawlessly? Printer companies spend millions of dollars inventing new formulas of toner and ink, what makes you think some crap refill mixture will ever be as good, and on top of that, how can you blame companies from covering their butts when we all know what kind of 3rd party stuff is out there?

[Chris @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:37AM]

Ink prices are outrageous. Me and my father have a hoard of Canon Pixma ip4000 printers we got off eBay when they were discontinued, specifically because we can replace all 5 ink tanks for like $15 CAD. Even though the cartridges are clearly 3rd party, the print quality is still pretty darn good.

The greatest device we ever bought however is our b&w laser printer. Two years later and numerous pages printed, and my family still hasn't exhausted the original toner. The funny thing is the "replace toner" light has been on for about five months now.

[Matt @ Jul 3rd 2007 1:16AM]

Well, my first reaction to your post was to not even respond. You seem to be seeking a way to deal with your frustrating situation by subtly attacking me ("people like matt") wtf?. I'm sorry about your and your customer's experience, but it hardly could be considered typical with quality remanufacturers, of which I am one. Anyway, if you actually care, let me address your points...

First of all, I can only guess that the toner was some cheap, china-made, low grade crap, and indeed damaged the imaging units. My guarantee extends to the printer. If that happened at my store I would've paid for the repairs, and removed that cartridge from my product line until I found and fixed the problem (I like to keep customers, not lose them). But I would first have prove that it was, in fact, the toner. I would definitely talk to an engineer and find out precisely why that toner caused the damage, and make a reasoned and moral decision based on that information. I can honestly tell you we've rebuilt plenty of color toner cartridges for the higher-end printers like the 5500 - with no damage to the customer's equipment. Granted, I don't shop around for the cheapest toner in the aftermarket like some "refillers"; I go to one source who works with chemical companies and their engineers to develop OEM-quality, or almost-oem-quality, chemical color toner (and by the way, it's not made out of sand). Admittedly, our industry is still in the process of getting up to speed with color toner like it did with monochrome, but the process is more complicated and costly and thus will take more time. However, there are well-funded companies out there like Static who provide high quality aftermarket color/black toner that WILL NOT HARM YOUR PRINTER. You just have to stay away from the bottom feeders who offer cheap crap. I would like to know the store location so I could talk to them and find out who was supplying their toner for that product. Please tell me because we all need this important information in order to identify and eliminate the bad suppliers out there, and thus raise the standards - ya know, to be helpful instead of vindictive, accusatory, and angry :) I would suggest that any consumer or business speak to the owner of the company and make them to earn your trust by asking good questions and getting good (and honest) answers. And whatever you do, don't buy online. In the event of a problem, there is just way too much seperation between the customer and the faceless online company.

Finally, regarding the philosophical point your raised: HP should not have paid for the repairs if the toner damaged the printer. I don't understand why they did. Yes, the law states that a company cannot tie it's warranty to customers buying only their consumables. However, if said consumables cause equipment damage, the costs to repair THAT damage are NOT COVERED UNDER THE WARRANTY. Doesn't that seem fair to you? Because that's the way it is by law. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson-Moss_Warranty_Act) It sounds like you fundamentally disagree with the law (which is fine by me, feel free to share your ideas on why). Why doesn't HP state your position instead of publicly supporting a customers choice to use aftermarket products under the warranty conditions within the guidlines of the Magnuson Morris Warranty Act? Moral cowardice? PR reasons? Maybe you're right, but the bottom line is if you rebuild toner cartridges you back up your product - period. If you caused some damage, fix it. If you don't, you will lose customers and your business. It's simple. It sounds like the store failed to meet it's obligation in that sense, and that's unfortunate, but don't paint the entire industry with this broad brush. Do you think that we are just ruining printers around the world everyday? Do you realize that the remanufacturing industry owns 30% of the toner market? How in the hell could we ever earn that much market share and survive as an industry if we just killed printers all the time and made the OEM's pay for the damage? Does that makes sense to you? Yes there are bad apples, but you can't write off this industry as a whole because of your single bad experience. Even if you had more experiences, again -bad apples.

Let me just end by saying that if you have standard office printers/copiers/fax machines that print standard documents in black you are CRAZY to buy new cartridges when you have good companies available who provide replacement cartridges that work as well as new ones. Trust me, you could never tell the difference between the print of an OEM cartridge and a well remanufactured cartridge. Why would you spend all that money when you don't have to? Now, if you're a printing or marketing company with high-end expensive equipement to print your materials where the color print quality is paramount, I can understand you not wanting to use aftermarket toner as it just isn't quite there yet for those extremely high (and unique) standards. It really depends on your situation, but generally remanufactured cartridges are WAY more preferable to new ones. I know if I were in charge of another business I'd be saving the company a lot of overhead by choosing a good remanufacturer. Oh, and I'd be helping the environment by reusing cores instead of putting them in some landfill where they take 400 years to decompose, or by sending them back to the OEM where many end up in some third world nation to burn and pollute the waters/air and cause disease to children.

Please contact me at [e-mail] and give me more details of your bad experience if you don't want to share them here.

[Matt @ Jul 3rd 2007 1:45AM]

Chris, that's a great printer. I have one of those at home and use our refills to print everything from emails to high quality photos, and they come out GREAT. Those canon ink tanks are awesome, as a refiller we never have to worry about printhead or electrical-related problems. Unfortunately, the latest canon ink tanks have sophisticated security authentication chips which are nearly impossible (at this point) for our industry to emulate w/o violating patents, so to use refills you need to disable the ink level monitoring system, which the software walks you through when you put in a cartridge that still reads empty. It's still totally doable, but not as elegant as yours where the printer behaves the same as it would if you were replacing it with a new cartridge.

[Brad Dangerfield @ Jul 4th 2007 1:43PM]

This is so rediculous. I say put all the printer manufacturers out of business. They suck you dry paying for ink cartridges.. 30 dollars for one???

The ink in them costs less than 1 cent. ONE! At least be reasonable with pricing.

Greedy People.

[Shibathedog @ Jul 6th 2007 2:31AM]

Theres no excuse for ink cartridges to cost as much as they do, i mean really they are cheap as hell to manufacture. These companies are just greedy and now they want to force some kind of monopoly on ink and probably start charging even more. I buy all my ink from super media store for like 1/10 the price, and there is a very slight difference in quality but with the massive amounts of money i've saved i really dont care.

[Matt @ Jul 7th 2007 12:21PM]

BEN:

I haven't heard from you. Are you going to try and be helpful or not?

[Tracy @ Jul 20th 2007 1:27AM]

We are the print consubable producer from china, and i think our products are competetive enough not only the quality but also the price, the ink cartridges such as EPSON color 400 is just $0.68(one color), and the continuous ink supply system for this is just $3.8, our products can save so much.If you are interested in import this, please contact with me, this is my MSN still email [e-mail] , i am Tracy, waiting for you inquiry. and best regards to all.