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Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

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Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#51

Post by nsmnsf »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #22
mikegioia wrote: post #4

I actively try to dissuade people from buying Keurig machines, or any "coffee pod" machine and this is just another reason why. Aside from the fact that the coffee is watery, the pods just add such an unnecessary amount of garbage to something that doesn't need to generate any waste. I think the concept is cool but re-usable pods are the way to go. This is stupid of Keurig.

I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work, and .01 lbs from my morning k-cup. My time has value, and I am not going to waste it greenwashing.

> I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work

Yes... that is also a problem.

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#52

Post by sliverstorm »

mikegioia wrote: post #4

I actively try to dissuade people from buying Keurig machines, or any "coffee pod" machine and this is just another reason why. Aside from the fact that the coffee is watery, the pods just add such an unnecessary amount of garbage to something that doesn't need to generate any waste. I think the concept is cool but re-usable pods are the way to go. This is stupid of Keurig.

to something that doesn't need to generate any waste.

What do you consider used coffee grounds? Product?

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#54

Post by teach »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #15

Does anyone know of a source for generic K-Cups that are decent quality? I seriously thought about doing it as a startup as it seemed untapped when I was looking.

This may not be what you're asking, but my wife and I have found that San Francisco Bay's single serve coffees[1] are quite good (better than most K-cups) and are cheaper since they don't use Keurig's design. A win-win from our perspective.

We buy them at Costco.

[1] http://www.sanfranciscobaycoffee.com/index.php/thoughts-on-o...

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#55

Post by joesmo »

"Such lock-out technology cannot be justified based on any purported consumer benefit, and Green Mountain itself has admitted that the lock-out technology is not essential for the new brewers’ function. Like its exclusionary agreements, this lock-out technology is intended to serve anticompetitive and unlawful ends."

This is not different from any other DRM mechanism. Unfortunately, that also makes it legal.

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#56

Post by SDGT »

Spearchucker wrote: post #13
mikegioia wrote: post #4

I actively try to dissuade people from buying Keurig machines, or any "coffee pod" machine and this is just another reason why. Aside from the fact that the coffee is watery, the pods just add such an unnecessary amount of garbage to something that doesn't need to generate any waste. I think the concept is cool but re-usable pods are the way to go. This is stupid of Keurig.

I have a Lavazza machine from AEG. The coffee is amazing, so the pods don't bother me anymore than my printer cartridges that I can only buy from Epson. It's a hoop I jump through because the perceived value obtained is worth it. Conversely, I drive a 3.0 CSL because I won't drive something with a chip in it that I can't control.

M3 CSL? Jesus you have my dream car.

Unless you have an e9. If that's the case, my jealousy just went through the roof.

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#57

Post by superuser2 »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #11
giarc wrote: post #5

Keurig is free to do what they want, just as a consumer is free to choose whichever coffee maker they want. Maybe this will blow up in their face, or perhaps given their market share it will all work out.

This practice isn't what copyright was intended for when it was written into the constitution. The idea is that copyright is a time-limited monopoly to make money of immaterial property, it mustn't serve to lock out the secondary market for printer cartridges and coffee.

There is no indication that copyright is the mechanism here. What copyright was intended for is not remotely relevant.

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#58

Post by magic8ball »

To play's devil advocate and stop the circle jerking, let's do an intellectual exercise and try to think about why this might not be the dumbest decision ever. Maybe it could be more than just a ploy to increase sales of 1st party cups. Maybe it's about Quality control.

I grew up playing a lot of Nintendo games. SNES. N64. Gamecube. Wii. There was one thing I noticed about it. Nintendo always made the best stuff. They made the best controllers. The best games. The best memory cards. I had a 3rd party memory card that said it stored "56 blocks." But if you tried to put more than 20 on it, you'd sometimes find your data magically lost in the morning.So despite the GNU/Linux ethos (I'm typing this on a Linux machine), freedom to use 3rd parties does not always give a better user experience. More than that, I found Nintendo also had to approve every single game and accessory that was compatible with their system (seal of approval). So even that was considered the good stuff. This seal keeps a certain floor of quality control. Back in the days of the Atari, people were making all sorts of shit for it. Stupid consumers would buy it, use it with their Atari, and be frustrated. Nintendo forbade this and made sure everything that was associated with their product met a certain standard, thus giving a good experience. So maybe, Keurig will use their DRM for this. A way to help consumers, perhaps, figure out which cups are good.

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#59

Post by ignostic »

This case doesn't have anything to do with DRM as the title suggest. It's more clear in the article: "the java-bean equivalent of DRM". As far as I can tell it's actually just allegations of patent abuse and anti-competitive vertical integration.

Keurig had a patent on the technology for both machine and pod. That patent expired in 2012, allowing third-party vendors to start making pods. Treehouse Foods argues (among other things) that Keurig is changing the design of their machine and the pods. The allegation is that the new design doesn't have any practical purpose other than to maintain the patent on pods for several years.

If true, this is going to be an interesting case. Keurig can change the design of their machine whenever they want in theory, but can they do so for no other reason than to maintain their own market share? They'd be effectively forcing everyone to pay them to compete at all so long as people buy new machines.

Drug companies often employ similar patent tricks in order to maintain their dominance of a market via extended patents, patents on new uses for the same chemical, and slightly-altered and somewhat improved chemicals. Consumer groups have complained about this for years, but nothing serious has changed yet.

Re: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker

#60

Post by wffurr »

sliverstorm wrote: post #52
mikegioia wrote: post #4

I actively try to dissuade people from buying Keurig machines, or any "coffee pod" machine and this is just another reason why. Aside from the fact that the coffee is watery, the pods just add such an unnecessary amount of garbage to something that doesn't need to generate any waste. I think the concept is cool but re-usable pods are the way to go. This is stupid of Keurig.

to something that doesn't need to generate any waste. What do you consider used coffee grounds? Product?

Yes - they make great compost.
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