A How-to Repair Company Wants To Fix One of Summer’s Biggest Problems: McDonald’s Broken Ice Cream Machines

September 1, 2023

The frequent breakdowns of McDonald’s ice cream machines, which have inspired numerous memes, are now being tackled by iFixit, a repair company. iFixit is seeking a copyright exemption to repair these machines, highlighting the overly complex error codes and a service contract between McDonald’s and machine maker Taylor that restricts repairs. This issue is considered a right-to-repair matter, and iFixit is working with nonprofit Public Knowledge to petition the U.S. Copyright Office for an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow independent repairs of the machines.