487
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] philpo@feddit.org 32 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

For everyone in the EU who bought their product within the last two years directly from Bambu Land or from a German reseller:

Stay calm. There is a very highly probability that German customer protection laws will cover your asses - Bambu Lab EU is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and German customer protection laws goes beyond EU rules and applies to you.

I am currently working with three other enthusiasts, one being a lawyer -working in a different field, though- to clarify our options and will also talk to a customer protection agency.

Short explanation:

  • German customer protection laws enable the customer of any online shop to "check" the sold product for 14d in a way they would check the product at a real world shop. The feature set and sales claims provided at this time do provide the base for finalization of the sale.

  • The seller (!= Manufacturer!) has to provide a warranty for two years - for 6 months the burden of prove that the fault was not present at the delivery falls towards the seller, for the remaining time to the buyer. As BL does communicate the chanhe openly this is not an issue.

  • BL furthermore claims that some uses fall outside the "intended use". This is completely irrelevant - that is only relevant if they claim that they cannot provide warranty due to use outside the intended use. They still cannot reduce the feature set.

  • Which holds more merit is the claim of BL that they are reducing a side feature/unintended feature. This explanation has, in the past, been used a few times in court successfully,but lately it has not been accepted anymore - even App connections for cars have been deemed a "base feature" that might play a significant role in choosing a car. It especially has not merit in cases when this defence is used to force a user to give up their (sensitive) data.

  • BL also has a five year update policy in their TOS (which is mostly invalid otherwise,though) - and blocking users from updating if they don't want to loose features and give up data is also very likely a breach of contract.

  • There are also GDPR and market law implications that need to be considered.

What does that all mean? What can happen in the end?

It is highly unlikely that this proceedings can change the course of BL - these companies don't give a fuck. But it might force them to basically reverse the sale (you would need to pay them for the actual use, though - but that is miniscule). Of course BL can also close their office in the EU and try to only sell from outside the EU - but that will put a very large crosshair on their back in terms of customs and taxes.

I keep you updated.

[-] binom@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

thank you for looking into this and sharing your findings!

[-] philpo@feddit.org 2 points 6 hours ago

The updated blog post does change the legal position they have maneuvered themselves in within the EU.

Also,they are basically lying in their post:

We want to make it absolutely clear that all of these claims are entirely false: Bambu Lab will remotely disable your printer ("brick" it). Firmware updates will block your printer’s ability to print.

While:

Due to the importance of these updates, your product may block new print job before the updates is installed, and will immediately provide update notifications to help you understand the related information.

(TOS 7.4)

Additionally the required certificates of course have a expiry date and after that you won't be able to connect outside of developer mode.

Legally, they are also in hot water with their "no support" developer mode at least within the EU. First of all they can't remove support for functions that were present at the time of the sale. Additionally denying support within the warranty period for use that is within the normal use even if developer modes,etc. are used is considered illegal - they can ask Samsung, Google and Sony about their experience in court for those cases, they all failed.

this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
487 points (100.0% liked)

3DPrinting

15976 readers
814 users here now

3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io

There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml

Rules

If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)

Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS