EDIT: I found this which works like a charm: http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/laser/72904

This post is unashamedly a total rant about printer DRM. If you don’t enjoy a good rant, you’d better stop reading now.

I have the relatively cheap Samsung ML-2240 laser printer. It recently started running out of toner so I ordered a new cartridge.

RANT ONE: I can’t just buy the damn toner to refill it, you need a whole new drum cartridge, wasting perfectly good hardware. What the fuck?

I plugged in the cartridge and turned on the printer. Its light frustratingly stayed red, which means something is wrong. I plugged the old cartridge back in to check the printer wasn’t broken, and the light went green (albeit with a low toner light).

Hmmm.

I contacted the people who sent me the cartridge and complained. After a few back and forth emails, it turns out that my printer has got regional DRM and because I bought it in the UK it won’t accept cartridges from here in Australia.

RANT TWO: My printer has got fucking regional restrictions on where it can be used. What the fuck?

RANT THREE: I did some reading and it turns out that the chip also has a page counter in it and will lock out the cartridge when it gets to 1500 pages! What the fuck?

I ended up mail ordering a hacked cartridge chip from a UK retailer to replace the one in the Australian cartridge, so that it can be reused in the UK printer. I was shocked by what I read in the instructions:

RANT FOUR: If the chip thinks the toner cartridge has totally run out of toner, it permanently bricks the cartridge. What the fuck?

DRM – DEFECTIVE BY DESIGN.

I’m done with Samsung. Here’s a message to the Samsung printer people: