Ice machines in McDonald’s restaurants are so often broken down that their unreliability has long been the butt of jokes, memes — and now even a rallying cry in this year’s presidential race.

This widespread problem even motivated the creation of McBroken, a company online tracker for broken machines across the United States

A new exemption to a copyright law could pave the way for faster machine repairs, softening the McFlurry maker’s bad reputation.

Before this week, most McDonald’s ice cream makers could only be repaired through the machine’s manufacturer. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects code embedded in ice cream machines, made it illegal for third parties, such as McDonald’s employees and franchise owners, to break digital locks installed by manufacturers.

The new rulewhich took effect Monday, allows outside sellers to repair “commercial retail food preparation equipment.” This includes McDonald’s ice cream machines, as stated by media reporter 404 Jason Koebler told NPR Weekend Edition.

It’s a victory for the “right to repair” movement, which opposes companies being encouraged to control repairs carried out on their own products. THE defenders of the movement for legislation that requires manufacturers to provide consumers and independent repair services with access to their parts, tools and service information so that consumers can have their own legally purchased devices repaired. The movement prevailed when Apple announced in 2021 that it would allow customers to repair their iPhone themselves.

Although the change applies to other appliances and machines, McDonald’s and its ice cream machines have become particularly galvanizing topics, especially in the run-up to the presidential election.

Two days before the law took effect, former President Donald Trump issued a photo on of him in a McDonald’s drive-thru, with a photoshopped President Biden holding an ice cream cone, accompanied by a promise: “WHEN I’M PRESIDENT, MCDONALD’S ICE-CREAM MACHINES WILL WORK AGAIN!”

It’s possible the Biden administration got ahead of him. Federal regulators have backed right-to-repair advocates who have sought an exemption for food preparation machines. Last March, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice both submitted a comment to the US Copyright Office recommending the change.

iFixit, an online repair website, and Public Knowledge, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, requested the exemption.

“This is significant progress” iFixit wrote in a blog post celebrating the decision, but said the rule doesn’t go far enough. Although the ruling legalizes repairing the machines, wrote the guide’s Elizabeth Chamberlain, “it does not allow us to share or distribute the tools needed to do so.”

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