Cricut

Cricut

Basic information
Founded	1969
Legal Structure	Public
Industry	Crafts, Electronics
Also known as	Provo Craft & Novelty, Inc. (1969–2018)[1]
Official website	https://cricut.com/

Cricut, Inc., formerly Provo Craft & Novelty, Inc., is an American brand of cutting plotters, or motorized cutting machines, designed for home crafters. The machines are used for cutting paper, felt, and vinyl^[2] plus materials such as fabric, leather, matboard, and wood. Cricut is headquartered in South Jordan, Utah.^[1]

Cricut has a history of integrating proprietary hardware and software into its machines, which has repeatedly added difficulty to customers' ability to continue using their purchased machines.

Prior to the release of the Cricut Explore in 2014, Cricut machines utilized proprietary cartridges containing designs that the user could cut and DesignStudio, a proprietary design software included with the machine.^[3] Cricut placed further limits on how customers could use their own machines by stating that using third-party software and dissembling the machine would void the machine's warranty.^[4][5]

Beginning with the release of the Cricut Explore in 2014, all Cricut machines rely on the company's proprietary software Design Space. In order to use Design Space (and their machine by extension), the user must upload images and project files to Cricut's cloud, which requires an internet connection. Files can be downloaded directly to the user's device for offline use, but only after they have been uploaded to the cloud. The offline feature requires a desktop or iOS device, making the feature unavailable to users of the Android version.

The user also cannot use the Print Then Cut feature offline despite its functionality (sending the project to the user's printer, then cutting it using the Cricut machine) being possible without an internet connection. Additionally, if the user downloads a free image from Design Space, they can only use it offline for seven days. Through this feature, Cricut can revoke access to content that was previously free unless the user reconnects to the internet, including basic shapes.^[6]

This lack of offline functionality renders every machine Cricut has manufactured since the release of Design Space vulnerable to discontinuation bricking, which has happened previously to the Cricut Mini after the discontinuation of the proprietary software Craft Room.^[7]

The user is required to create an account in order to use their machine due to its cloud dependency. Cricut's privacy policy states that it may collect "certain demographic information" such as gender and interests when the user creates an account. This demographic information, as well as a variety of information about how the user uses Cricut's products, services, and website, may be sold or used for targeted advertising.^[8]

In addition to selling cutting machines and supplies, Cricut also provides Design Space as a freemium service. The software is free to use, but several of its features and the majority of its design assets (images, fonts, and project templates) are paywalled behind a Cricut Access subscription. Subscribers to Cricut Access are further incentivized to purchase Cricut products, namely supplies, through various discounts and coupons.^[9]

Cricut is estimated to control roughly 60–70% of the United States consumer cutting machine market.^[10]

In April of 2010, Cricut sued Make The Cut LLC, the publisher of third party software Make-the-Cut, alleging various copyright violations. The lawsuit was filed two weeks after Make-the-Cut added a feature allowing users to back up their purchased Cricut cartridges. Cricut and Make The Cut settled, then support for Cricut machines was removed in subsequent versions of Make-the-Cut.^[11]

In January of 2011, Cricut also sued Craft Edge, the publisher of third party software Sure Cuts A Lot, alleging various copyright violations. Cricut alleged that Brandon Kuroda, the creator of Sure Cuts A Lot, reverse engineered DesignStudio in order to create his own software in violation of DesignStudio's end-user license agreement (EULA).^[3] Cricut and Craft Edge settled, then support for Cricut machines was removed in subsequent versions of Sure Cuts A Lot.

In July of 2018, Cricut discontinued its proprietary design software Craft Room, citing the end of support for Adobe Flash. This resulted in the discontinuation bricking of the Cricut Mini, which relied on Craft Room to function, six years after its release in 2012.^[7] Owners of the Cricut Mini were directed to view the device's warranty booklet, but the warranty only lasted for up to one year, which made customers who purchased their Cricut Mini within five of the machine's six years of life ineligible for a replacement.^[5] Additionally, all other devices that could previously use Craft Room would only be usable with proprietary cartridges.

Users could download images from Craft Room for archival and transfer purchased assets to Design Space, but they could not do the same for projects, forcing them to recreate their projects in Design Space before the Craft Room servers went offline or lose their designs. When Cricut announced the discontinuation in April of 2018, it requested that users not buy a subscription to Craft Room due to these plans when it could have simply discontinued sales of the subscription. This made it possible for someone unaware of these plans to purchase or renew a subscription for software that would be inaccessible less than two months later.^[7] Instead, Cricut offered a $75 discount on its newest Explore machines to users with devices affected by the discontinuation of Craft Room, meaning the majority of these users would only be "remedied" if they purchased another Cricut machine.

In March of 2021, Cricut announced a change to their Terms of Service, so that users without a Cricut Access subscription can only upload up to 20 images to the Design Space app per calendar month.^[12] Because users have to upload projects they want to cut to Cricut's cloud, this change would lock customers without a subscription out of using their purchased machine. Online backlash was significant enough that the CEO reverted this announcement a few days later.^[13]

Main article: Cricut replacement warranty policy

In 2023, YouTuber Buy it Fix it bought a secondhand Cricut Maker 3, which was still under warranty, and alleged Cricut had failed to offer an option to repair the product. They instead offered to furnish a new device and instructed the consumer to dispose of the non-functioning device. Buy it Fix it further alleges Cricut bans the serial numbers of the devices due to be disposed, making them impossible to use with their proprietary software, effectively ruining any chance of repairing the device in the future.^[14]

• Cricut replacement warranty policy