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Ars has the scoop on a Boston man who is sick and tired of walking into a office supply store and paying $30+ dollars for ink for his printer.
This was discussed years ago on Slashdot before we had sites like Digg and social networking was all the buzz. At the time the discussion was made that at current prices of black ink from manufacturers like HP, ink was priced at roughly $4000 per gallon. The number today looks closer to $8000 per gallon, especially when dealing with colored inks. The complete bullshit of it all is that even though these companies make 90% profit on ink sales, they continue to embed technology into the cartridges and software to tell you a cartridge is empty long before it is actually empty.
In addition to that, HP and others continue to use “destroy at all cost” tactics against 3rd party ink vendors claiming copyright infringement, DCMA infringement and other all-out bullshit to protect their nothing-but-profit industry.
For folks that want to jump on this class-action with both feet, I’d point out that $8000/gallon ink is the reason you can buy a high resolution photo printer/fax/scanner/copier for like $150 and not $450. Once HP has it’s foot in the door at your house by way of one of it’s printers you are more or less agreeing to a subscription-based model. You continue to “subscribe” to their ink, and they will continue to allow you to use their printer. The chips in the printers and print cartridges now don’t allow you to mix-and-match them or use 3rd party sources, which makes this relationship much more subscription-like than you may realize. It does help to subsidize the cost of the printers obviously… but is it worth it to you?
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September 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
How does one get in the class action lawsuit?
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
If you want to sue the shit out of HP, I’m in. I’m sick of their bullshit, just like Lexmark’s. My ink cartridge is mine to do with as I see fit and I am being denied the right to use my own property through nothing less than Al Capone style Organized criminal operations designed only to render my personal property unusable.
If you need help in this lawsuit, I will do all of the paperwork, including filing the RJI in a United States Federal District court. It should be prosecuted under the RICO act (Racketeering in Criminal Organizations). Doing so can afford those of us who HP has screwed up to three times the value of the ink cartridges we bought, every Goddamn one of them.
This nonsense has gone on long enough. I write programs and many times I have to write out sources for my code. It’s got so bad that you can’t even print out two or three source code samples anymore without paying these stinking, thieving crooks $30.00.
While I can do the paperwork to initiate the lawsuit, we will require the aid of a professional attorney as I cannot represent others in a court of law, only myself, but any attorney worth his weight in salt should be able to win this case based on the simple Constitutional concept that we are being denied our right to the free pursuit of liberty and denied our right to use our own property without due process of law.
The very fact that Lexmark and HP don’t give users any options, or instructions on how to refill their own property is prima-facia evidence of this conspiracy to screw the general public.
What HP and Lexmark are doing is no different
September 26th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Guys,
Not sure if you found this information, but to get included in the class action, first Ranjit Bedi and his lawyer would need to get people signed up to file the class action, so you might want to get in touch with him or his lawyer (I couldn’t find any contact information for you in my quick looking, sorry)
once the class action is settled, assuming it is, you will have up to 3 years to sign up under the class action and get whatever the compensation was that was agreed to.
Generally speaking, the compensation for the individuals is ridiculously small, the lawyers only concern is settling because he’ll take a portion (30-50%) of the per-person settlement and be fat and happy.
So I wouldn’t expect anything dramatic out of this if they do sue and win… HP, Brother, Lexmark, etc. will fight this to the ends of the earth because it’s their golden goose.