For those of you who might not be familiar with Keurig DRM, here’s the deal: Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (the company that makes Keurig coffee brewers) has been the top dog in the single-serving coffee market for years, selling little plastic pods that come in over 200 licensed varieties. That’s where the company makes most of its money, similar to how printer companies make most of their profit from ink refills. But ever since a crucial patent expired in 2012, competitors have been free to produce generic K-cup pods that retail for anywhere from 5 to 25 percent less than those made by Keurig.
Obviously, other companies selling cheaper versions of the same product hurt Green Mountain’s bottom line. In an effort to block out the competition, the company implemented a sort of physical DRM system into its new coffee machines. This system works by reading a special kind of ink on the lid of Keurig-brand cups, and if a K-cup doesn’t have this special ink, Keurig 2.0 machines will reject it and refuse to brew your coffee.
Implementing this tech was a pretty cutthroat move, but now one of Green Mountain’s competitors is countering with some bold tactics of its own. The Roger’s Family Company, owner of Gourmet-Coffee.com and maker of off-brand K-cup pods, is distributing a device called the Freedom Clip, a retrofittable clip that snaps onto Keurig 2.0 machines and permanently disables Green Mountain’s DRM technology by perpetually bamboozling the sensor into thinking everything is peachy.
And the best part? You don’t have to pay a single cent to get one. We’re not sure if the Roger’s Family Company is being really generous here, or they’re doing it for legal reasons, but regardless of their motivation, Freedom Clip is completely free.
Sign up here, and Roger’s will ship one to your door, free of charge.
