[RAMAGE] – How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps (printer companies hate this!)

It was fine until my yellow ink cartridge (allegedly) ran out, and the printer stopped printing in color. I soldiered on with the black cartridge. Until one day I tried to print a return label (in black and white!) and the printer decided it wouldn’t. Not until I replaced the yellow ink cartridge. Fine. I paid 207 goddamn dollars for replacement cartridges, put them in, and discovered that HP region-locks its printers.

If you need a refresher: region-locking is a form of DRM mostly used by media and software publishers so they can sell the same content at different prices in different regions. If you buy a DVD in Europe, you need a DVD player that can play Region 2 discs.

DVDs and Blu-rays are region-locked. (CDs aren’t, which is probably why DVDs are.) Game consoles used to be. Streaming media is region-locked. Software is often region-locked. Kindle books are region-locked unless the publisher requests otherwise. But outside of, like, entertainment devices, it’s rare for hardware to be region-locked. Except, as it turns out, printer cartridges.

The genuine HP ink cartridges, for which I paid as much as I paid for the actual printer, would not work with the printer they were designed to work with because I bought it in a different part of the world. It wasn’t even a cheaper part of the world unless we’re talking healthcare or midcentury furniture.