You might think that Hewlett-Packard's most important profit generators are AI servers and cheap laptops, but you'd be wrong: more than half of HP's annual profits last year came from its printing division, which completely blocks third-party ink cartridges Another lawsuit, in the form of a class action suit, alleges that HP has a monopoly on printer ink.

As Ars Technica reports, the lawsuit demands that HP issue an injunction, ultimately requiring HP to disable Dynamic Security and allow owners to use non-HP replacement ink cartridges. It also demands more than $5 million in damages and a trial by jury.

This is not the first lawsuit against HP inkjet printers that have become responsive to cartridges made by other companies, and the company has already settled such suits and paid out significant cash to compensate users whose printers have become unusable.

HP's attachment to dynamic security and printer ink subscription plans has not been compromised. As technology consumers around the world print fewer pages each year, HP and other printer manufacturers are turning to somewhat authoritarian methods to maintain profitability. [Dynamic security was introduced in 2016, and printer ink DRMs have predictably reacted, with complaints about not being able to use their favorite cartridges in directly owned printers bubbling up through social media and eventually leading to lawsuits.

And despite paying more than $1 million in damages in the EU, for example, HP shows no signs of changing its tactics, even when HP's CFO said that the company was "really proud" of its success in increasing the profitability of its printing division. Branded inkjet cartridges have always been the main source of revenue for the division, with the printers themselves being sold with little or no profit.

This is ostensibly the same model that Microsoft and Sony employ with their game consoles: sell the units as cheaply as possible, sometimes at a loss, and recoup it all through online services, accessories, and game licensing fees--the Xbox and PlayStation, Can you imagine the uproar if they refused to run games not sold directly by Microsoft or Sony?

In 2023, Hewlett-Packard's printing division will have sales of $18 billion and profits of $3.34 billion. Unfortunately for inkjet enthusiasts, such revenues mean that dynamic security is very unlikely to disappear.