Discontinuation bricking

Discontinuation bricking occurs when a product is rendered non-functional ("bricked") because the manufacturer has decided to discontinue it. Discontinuation bricking usually occurs in products that require a connection to a remote server hosted by the producer. The product may become bricked if the company decides to shut down services or goes out of business entirely, without allowing the consumer to substitute those services with alternative and/or self-hosted solutions. End-of-life for a product does not require the product to be bricked.

Discontinuation bricking, similar to planned obsolescence, harms the consumer by making a product they paid for eventually stop functioning, resulting in loss of ownership of the product as its functionality is stripped away. This forces the user to buy a new product.

After a product has been bricked, a consumer may wish to repair their product and return it to a functioning state. De-bricking a product is not impossible, but it can be difficult depending on the severity of the problem. Consumers will inevitably look to third parties for methods to bypass the bricking, which may expose them to security and safety risks. Bypasses may end up being expensive, with more complicated, server-dependent products requiring potentially complex server infrastructure.

Due to section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), if there is a software lock put in place by the manufacturer that prevents the user from de-bricking their product, it would become even more difficult to do so, as it would, in most cases, be illegal for someone to de-brick, or teach them how to de-brick, their product.

Products are often resold on the internet and may be put on sale before discontinuation, leading to the occurrence of valid information that becomes invalidated afterwards, causing false advertising. This has many implications:

1. Sellers may be utterly unaware of the discontinuation, resulting in their product becoming bricked, and they will continue to sell it, potentially harming their reputation once the product becomes bricked.
2. Buyers may be unaware of the discontinuation and purchase the product, only to find it does not function.
3. Customers may learn about the discontinuation and decide to sell the product without providing adequate details, even without any malicious intent.

Discontinuation bricking will generate e-waste, as the product will no longer be functional, and consumers will be forced to discard it.

Discontinuation bricking typically occurs when a remote service that the product relies on for complete functionality is shut down. The risk of discontinuation bricking occurring can be assessed beforehand by observing warning signs, such as:

• Product requires an internet connection to a remote server: If a product requires a connection to a remote server for functionality, there is a risk that the company may shut down the server, rendering some, if not all, functions of the product inoperable. These connections may be necessary because:

• Product requires remote authorization: The Product only works if you can receive approval from an authorization server. If the authorization server shuts down, logins will become impossible. An unusual example is the Spotify Car Thing , which stopped functioning after Spotify unauthorized the Car Thing from interacting with the Spotify App API.

• The product has features that depend on remote sources: If the product is unable to access remote information due to server outages, it may become bricked.

• The product relies on a phone application to work: Updates to the app may remove support for the discontinued product. An example being the Spotify Car Thing, which stopped functioning after Spotify unauthorized the Car Thing from interacting with the Spotify App API.^[1]

• The product requires regular physical input: For example, HP Inc. printer ink has a DRM mechanism that forces consumers to use HP ink exclusively and does not allow third-party cartridges. If HP goes out of business or decides to stop producing its ink cartridges, any printer dependent on it will become bricked, effectively discontinuing the printer, even if not explicitly stated.
• Remote initial activation of any kind (e.g. phone based code or internet based), even if the product is CD based, has a perpetual license and requires no internet connection to run. Rosetta Stone recently bricked their legacy CD products and downloadable software by taking down their activation servers and refusing to give user activation codes over the phone.

• Spotify Car Thing
• Sonos
• Telstra TV (Roku-Powered Streaming Devices)

• Planned obsolescence
• EOL - end-of-life product
• Stop Killing Games
• Rosetta Stone bricks legacy perpetual license CD software
• List of products bricked by discontinuation

• Remote disabling