A broken one McDonald’s McFlurry The machine, arguably one of life’s greatest nuisances, has finally been resolved thanks to a court ruling.

McDonald’s franchises have been unable to repair soft serve ice cream machines themselves because the manufacturing company Taylor owns the copyright and exclusive rights to repair the machines – until now.

THE United States Copyright Office obtained a copyright exemption last week that gives restaurants the “right to repair” machines by bypassing the digital locks that prevented their repair. The inability to make timely fixes has been a bane on customers’ existence, so much so that there is a problem third party website called McBroken.com which tracks their availability.

The exemption, which takes effect Monday, was requested by advocacy group Public Knowledge and repair website iFixIt to allow third parties to bypass digital locks on machines for repair purposes. Although the entire request was not granted, commercial restaurant equipment received a slight exemption.

Public Knowledge and iFixIt teamed up on the issue after the latter group took apart an ice machine and find “Lots of easily replaceable parts.”

The decision will bring a “long-overdue shake-up to the commercial food preparation industry,” according to Meredith Rose, senior policy advisor at Public Knowledge.

“There is nothing vain in this victory; an exemption for commercial retail food preparation equipment will spark a wave of third-party repair activity and allow businesses to better serve their customers,” Rose said in a statement. statement.

McDonald’s and Taylor did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Broken ice cream machines have tarnished McDonald’s reputation so much that even competitors make fun of them for that. And maybe a solution can’t be found quickly enough: Nearly 15% of ice cream machines are broken Monday, according to McBroken.

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