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Nikon Responds to Encryption Claims
ader writes "In a rare response to public complaints, Nikon has released a statement clarifying the use of encrypted white balance information in the NEF raw data from its digital cameras. They point out that this 'proprietary' format is accessible through the use of their 'proprietary' SDK, which is freely available to 'bona fide software companies' on written application. In other words: open source coders can butt out."
An OS project coder could be a bona - fide developer - nothing says Nikon wouldn't provide one to an OS project.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You take a photograph, you think its yours, taken with a camera you bought, of a subject you chose, with all permissions sorted.
However you then find there's an extra little catch.
You can only access your picture with software that your camera maker has decided to approve.
You didn't agree to any of this, it didn't warn you on the box, nobody told you that the pictures are only your subject to some extra pre-conditions and you had reasonable expectation that the camera would not raise artificial obstacles to you getting at your picture.
And this situation is somehow supposed to be acceptable?
Why are they doing the proprietary bit in the first place? Wouldn't they want their product to be as widely useable as possible?
Widely used by photographers and graphic artists, but not widely used by Kodak and other competing camera manufacturers.
"They point out that this 'proprietary' format is accessible through the use of their 'proprietary' SDK, which is freely available to 'bona fide software companies' on written application."
Pardon me, but Fuck' Em with a spoon. They shouldn't receive the support of the open source community, nor should they receive the support of the non-Nikon software community. If they like the bed they're making, then we shouldn't deny them the long-term pleasure of lying in it.
So, somebody explain this to me. What am I missing here?
DMCA prevents the creation or distribution of a tool that defeats access control measures for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to protected content.
Or something like that.
The white balance information is part of the image data. It's unique to each photo. It's the data that's created when the photographer takes the photo.
The person who will be gain access via a white balance plugin is the person who has the raw image data--typically the photographer, unless he gives the file to someone else.
The photographer can hardly be accused of using such a tool to gain access outside of his rights.
Further, since the tool is freely available to any "bona fide software developer" for the asking, it can hardly be described as an access control measure.
In short, it's the photographer's freakin' creation. Who the hell is Nikon or anybody else to say what he can or cannot do what he produced?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
no, just in the USA
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
How would the white-balance information people's digital photos qualify as Nikon-owned property?
AFAIK, the DMCA is there to protect copyright and data colateral to taking a photo should be technically owned by the camera's operator.
Nikon can own the patents or trade secrets behind how to use the data but the actual data's ownership/copyright should clearly belong to whoever took the snaps.
This is not too many steps away from Microsoft claiming it owns all code and software written or compiled using VisualStudio tools.
Yet, hacking your own (and purchased) X-Box is subjected to DMCA infringment?
As much as I and other readers hate to admit it, the DMCA protects proprietary properties that is "explicitly" locked down with security. In other words, it's one thing to reverse engineer, but it's quite another to "hack" encrypted security according to DMCA.
Life is not for the lazy.
Yeah! That's how we took down Microsoft!!
Amusing, but Nikon does not have a 90% lock on cameras and people that spend over $1000 on camera equipment tend to not be ignorant consumers.
The article appears to disagree with you:
Really, this is much ado about nothing. You have to get "approved" for a PalmOS SDK too. And for an Amazon developer token. Heck, to be hosted on Sourceforge, your project has to be "approved".
In all reality, I suspect the approval process really just makes sure you're a developer and not just some fly-by-nite company that's a front for Kodak and Canon market research. And possibly also checking that you're not Kim Jong Il trying to bring top secret Nikon encryption to the Axis of Evil. When The GIMP or Debian or Mandrake or SuSE or Redhat is turned down for an SDK for no good reason, then I'll believe it's a conspiracy. For now, I'll chalk this whole debate up to uninformed wanking.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
A format is not "property". Does Nikon own the pictures I take with my camera? No? Then why the hell can't I read the white balance information in them?
My picture, my property. Ability to read my picture? Also belongs to me.
May not be the way it is right now, but it's the way it damn well should be.
Random and weird software I've written.
My nikon camera (I own a D100 and a coolpix 5700) is my property, not nikon. If I want to take a little bit of driver code that they provide it, and debug it, fix it to work on 64 bit, or just audit it for security, I should be able to do so.
I would expect to be able to give that to other people who also own nikon cameras, given that their camera is also their property. Note that this code is pretty much useless to people who own other cameras, and companys like Canon know enough about things like white balance that they don't give a rip about nikon's code.
Nikon is in the business of selling cameras, not writing device drivers. If the drivers were freely available, and people could write new and interesting software based on it, this would HELP them sell cameras, not HURT them. For the same reason, Nestle gives away the tollhouse cookie recipe - they are in the business of selling chocolate chips.
Nikon has both property and moral rights over their software.
But...do those "property and moral rights" extend to the photos that are taken by the person using the software? Does Nikon "own" the white-balance information of the picture taken by the photographer?
If so, Nikon is basically saying "Buy our camera and use it, but you don't own your pictures".
It'd be like (in film camera terms) buying Kodak film, taking pictures, an then Kodak telling you that you don't own the negative.
Actually, the software contained by the camera cannot be disassociated from the intended and actual function of the camera. As a result, it is difficult to justify the legitimacy of any associated software license that may restrict my ability to use the camera in its normal function, an idea which is clearly opposed to the doctrine of "first sale".
Nikon is increasingly lagging behind Canon in terms of innovation. Just look at their respective current DSLR offerings, and Canon's stuff is better by any technical definition. Nikon's newest DSLR offerings are marginal improvements and little evidence of real innovation.
I see this as a clear indication that Nikon is top-heavy and full of staunch conservative bureaucrats unable to move with the times. Management sits in a high castle out of touch. The badly translated but clearly terse verbiage used in this press release further demonstrates Nikon management's mode of thinking sounding similar to what IBM's board was capable of in the 1970s.
The very notion of "bona fide" software developers is pretty ugly and necessarily implies that some software developers aren't good enough to be working with Nikon. While I'm not particularly worried about open source in this regard - although unlikely, Nikon could just make binary libraries and not share their proprietary algorithms.
No, my concern is that "non bona fide" developers likely include independent raw CCD photo processing software vendors like those making Bibble, Pixmantec Raw Shooter Essentials, D1SLR and other similar software packages. These applications are designed to decode the raw CCD data from digital cameras using algorithms and color science developed by their respective vendors independently of Nikon. With varied results, but in many cases producing better or at least equal results to Nikon's very expensive Nikon Capture software which is particularly awful in terms of workflow and cost.
Nikon Capture feels similar to Sony's proprietary software in terms of stability and design clarity. These japanese giants produce an incredibly poor grade of consumer software, light years behind the technical quality of their hardware and so obviously I'm interested in having 3rd party software support for their very good hardware.
The "official" Nikon mesage is that these measures exist to protect the quality of the decoded images. That's very nice of them. But the pictures belongs to the photographers and photographers should be free to choose the software they wish to use for processing those images even if that means the colors are decoded differently from what Nikon's own best lab technicians have come up with.
Just as an example, CaptureOne is one Nikon compatible application - it does a superior job of handling moire CCD color noise on Nikon D1x, far surpassing Nikon Capture. Bibble handles colors on Nikon D1 subjectively better than Nikon Capture. Locking out these competing products is simply an awful measure that will not benefit consumers at all.
There can be only one explanation for Nikon's decision, and that is to produce more orders for Nikon Capture and license revenues from libraries included in commercial products from vendors choosing to use Nikon's official way of doing things. That's purely selfish of Nikonand serves consumers interest in no way!
I don't know how those libraries work, but from this press release I'd at least assume that they essentially output RGB data processed the Nikon Way, so you'd have pretty much the same result as using Nikon Capture, even if the library is embedded in a different program. That just means you won't be getting a second opinion and photographers using Nikon hardware won't be enjoying much creative freedom.