Licensed Print Cartridges?

[Ben]:	Licensed Print Cartridges?	Discuss This [0 comments so far] View Comments
I was picking up a new print cartridge for the printer at home last night. While I was browsing the aisles looking for the right cartridge, I noticed some of the boxes were tagged with a special notice. In the world of software you rarely will own a product that you purchase. More often you will pay for a license. That license allows you to use the software in a specified manner on a specified number of computers/CPUs/locations by a specified number of users. If any of those conditions change, you typically have to get another license. It would seem that LexMark has decided to apply this reasoning to printer cartridges. They actually have a notice of license on the back of the box stating that the cartridge is designed to fail after a certain (unspecified, as far as I could see) number of prints and that by opening the box you agree to a license that prohibits usage after it fails whether or not there is ink left in the cartridge. Over time I've grown accustomed to licensing software and it doesn't bother me tremendously. I do make an effort not to violate the spirit of the license, even if from time to time I might violate the letter (i.e., temporarily installing a game on two personally owned computers to play it multiplayer). On the other hand, licensing a physical object that comes into my possession is harder for me to swallow. Pretty silly, if you ask me.