McDonald’s may finally be able to fix its epidemic of broken ice cream machines.

McDonald’s is often criticized, apparently forever broken ice cream machines may soon become a thing of the past.

October 25 US Copyright Office Copyright exemption granted it gives restaurants like McDonald’s the “right to repair” broken machines, bypassing digital locks that prevent anyone other than the manufacturer from fixing them.

The vanilla cones, sundaes and McFlurries at Golden Arches are made on Taylor machines, as they have been for nearly 70 years. Back in 1956, future McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc entered into a handshake deal with Taylor to supply milkshake machines as McDonald’s exclusive supplier.

Taylor owns the copyright to its machines, and in the past this meant that if one of them broke, only its repairmen were legally allowed to repair itAccording to a 2021 Wired article. This is due to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)A 1998 law criminalizing the creation or use of technology, devices or services that circumvent access controls on copyrighted works.

In 2020, amid public outcry over broken machines, the developer created “McBrockenMap, a website using data from the McDonald’s app that shows where ice cream is located. “currently unavailable” provide real-time updates on how McDonald’s ice cream machines are performing. As of October 29 McBrocken reports that 14.72% of McDonald’s stores do not currently sell ice cream.

In July McDonald’s USA told TODAY.com. Sales data over the past few years has shown that its ice cream machines operate about 95% of the time nationwide, depending on location.

In 2018, an application called Kitsch was created to help restaurant owners troubleshoot their machines without having to call a technician, but in 2021 McDonald’s sent notifications to franchisees warning them that this technology could cause injury to workers, according to the New York Times.

McDonald’s did not immediately respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment.

The exception granted by the US Copyright Office took effect on October 28 and was jointly petitioned by a website focused on repairs. iFixIt and advocacy group Social knowledge. In 2023 iFixit documented its demolition McDonald’s cars and said he spat out several “meaningless, illogical and seemingly random” error codes, but there was nothing he could do to fix it.

US Department of Justice Antitrust Division and Federal Trade Commission submitted comments in support of the petition.

Although the full request was not granted, commercial cooking equipment at the retail level received an exception that would allow third parties to bypass digital locks on repair machines.

Meredith Rose, senior policy adviser at Public Knowledge, said the Copyright Office’s decision will lead to “an overdue shakeup in the commercial cooking industry.”

“There’s nothing vanilla about this win,” Rose. said in the statement. “Releasing commercial food preparation equipment at the retail level will spark a flurry of third-party repair activity and allow businesses to better serve their customers.”

Rose says that despite the tax exemption, selling or trading the digital master keys that allow people to fix these machines is still illegal.

“Even though users and independent repair services are officially authorized by the federal government to pick locks to repair these machines, they still cannot legally purchase the tools to do so,” Rose told TODAY.com via email. adding that, in theory, anyone who hacks a digital lock would have to create their own from scratch.

“Congress needs to legalize these tools so that people can actually take advantage of these exceptions,” she says.

For its part, Taylor says it doesn’t expect any changes to the current methods for servicing or repairing its equipment for customers, distributors or service teams.

“We are aware of recent reports regarding the U.S. Copyright Office’s recent waiver decision and how it may change the way Taylor equipment is serviced and repaired,” a Taylor spokesperson told TODAY.com in an email. “Our customers already have many different options and flexibility in how they choose to service or repair Taylor equipment.”

The spokesman said Taylor is reviewing the details of the release and expects it to be consistent with current practices.

The company says it makes its parts available for purchase to machine owners or service technicians even if they are not Taylor certified. The representative also says that most of the maintenance on its equipment is done outside of the machine’s warranty period.

“We are all proud of the long life and reliability of our equipment, sometimes decades, and how our customers value the quality of our equipment,” says a spokesperson.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com