Brother Industries, Ltd. manufactures and sells communications and printing equipment in Japan, the Americas, Europe, Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, Africa, and internationally. It operates through Printing & Solutions, Machinery, Domino, Nissei, Personal & Home, and Network & Contents segments.
Seemingly due to changes in corporate and financial direction, Brother has initiated a 3rd party consumables lockout on some printer models. This follows similar practices from manufacturers like HP & Dymo forcing a "Dynamic Security Feature" (DSF) via firmware updates thus limiting the end user to official Brother sanctioned replacement parts only.