The group, which teamed with iFixit to request the exemption last year, said the government ruling will "free the McFlurry." Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Meredith Rose called the decision a victory for "franchise owners, independent repair shops, and anyone who's had to bribe their kids with a chilly treat on lengthy road trips."

McDonald's ice cream machines have developed a lousy reputation for being broken when you visit the restaurant, largely due to strict copyright laws that

There are days where it feels like nothing will ever change and the best thing you can do is just learn to tolerate mediocrity. Today is not one of those days. Public Knowledge announced that the US Copyright Office granted an exemption request from the non-profit public interest group and the DIY repair site iFixit to allow McDonald’s franchise owners to hire a third-party to repair their McFlurry and soft service ice cream machines.

An unlikely theatre for an act in the right-to-repair saga came last year in the form of McDonalds restaurants, whose McFlurry ice cream machines are prone to breakdown. The manufacturer had

An exemption by the Copyright Office will let franchisees work around restrictions to fix the finicky machines on their own.

Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it illegal to bypass a digital lock protecting copyrighted work. That can be the DRM on a video file you download from iTunes, the carrier locks tha