Slashdot Mirror
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."
Why are they doing the proprietary bit in the first place? Wouldn't they want their product to be as widely useable as possible?
"open source coders can butt out"
I am sure this can be trivially reverse-engineered.
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
This has been / is being discussed quite a lot on various Nikon-related boards. Unfortunately, Nikon is one of the least consumer-responsive companies I've ever come acrosss, to the point where even "Nikon Pros" - pros who exclusively use Nikon gear and evangelize for the company for free - are often not heard by the company leadership.
Unfortunately, this would seem to suggest that Nikon will be even less willing to listen to open source developers...unless they're loud enough to raise a stink in the mainstream media to some extent. Nikon's announcement about this issue is proof that bad publicity gets their attention...let's hope that there's enough volume to the (well reasoned, intelligent) complaints from the open source community.
I know I'd rather have some options when it comes to software. I use Nikon's commercial software, Nikon Capture, and it's very, very good...but competition is always a good thing.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
Instead of encryption, it'd be useful to have the camera digitally sign images, so you can have traceability from an image back to the camera that made it, "proving" that no photoshop magic happened inbetween.
Most Nikon DSLRs will save as NEF or JPG, but the quality of the image one can produce using NEF-aware software is superior to even an uncompressed TIF because the NEF contains extensive additional data about shooting conditions (think EXIF, but better) in addition to the raw data from the CCD.
Most serious Nikon shooters I've talked with shoot using NEF (i.e., RAW), archive those, and work with their images as TIFFs after using a good NEF-aware converter like Nikon's Nikon Capture for post-processing, printing, etc.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
hmmm.
You are confusing compressed and LOSSY compressed. TIFF is a lossless compression (if it even has its compression turned on), which does not ever lose any detail.
JPEG of course is generally a LOSSY compression system, although it does supprot lossless compression, this is almost never used.
TIFF compression, by the way, will help almost zero on photographs, it is an RLE system which only really helps on noiseless images.
I really wonder when camera makers will clue up and switch to PNG for lossless and JPEG2 for lossy, both of which are LARGE improvements.
Of course, the reason that there is some value in RAW formats is that some sensors support morethan 8bit colour, and SOME raw formats actually preserve this, but that is actually not as common as many assume.
The number one reason for RAW formats is that people feel more 'elite' when they used them, and purchase the associated large storage media, etc.
Most people would be much better served by actually learning how to take a reasonable photograph in the first place.
It is interesting with companies like AMD, Nvidia or HP Printers etc who have made competitive advantage out of catering (to some extent at least) to GNU/Linux/BSD and other ubergeeks. I suspect the average person who supports Free Software buys way more than the average amount of hardware and gadgets. We also read things like this and vote with our feet. At some point the balance will swing enough to make a real difference to the profit line - if we are not at that point already. The days of begging for drivers are past; the time of punishment for lazy manufacturers has begun. Seems no-one told Nikon to flee from the coming wrath..
My little Linux and tech blog
Fewer than 1/100th of slashdotters who would have gone to that link from the main article will use this one, so it's kinda pointless, but here is is anyway...
How to get a Nikon Software Developers Kit (SDK)
In other words, they are NOT doing this for their own benefit or to create lock-in or control of how images taken on their cameras may be used, but are doing it for camera owners, or so they say. Seems a bit bogus here...
A nikon owner myself. Get to make some recommendations at work about a camera, and a chance to move some dollars in a different direction. Actually think enough technical people making recommendations could make a difference.
My guess is that Nikons definition of 'bona fide software companies' is 'software companies able to pay a lot for their proprietary SDK'.
Probably Nikon thinks that Adobe is very 'bona fide', and thus has to pay a high price for their SDK. It is likely Adobe saw this high price as extertion, and refused to pay up. When Adobe told Nikon that their proprietary format was already known to the public some stupid lawyer at Nikon probably threathened Adobe with DMCA action if Adobe did not pay for Nikons SDK.
Of course this is all speculation, and I don't care much about what actually happened.
What I care about is Nikons attempt to keep their formats locked up. Nikon does not seem to realize that they have a lot of good competition.
For me the conclusion is clear: No Nikon cameras for me or any of the customers using software we produce.
I am a firm believer in consumer reviews. Meaning, when I am about to buy something I attempt to find people who own it, eavesdrop on people talking about the item in retail stores, read the online boards, etc.
I cannot tell you how many times I have been in Fry's Electronics (or some other store) talking to a customer about something and they left with a different (better) product than they came in for. The reason is that I don't work for Fry's and have nothing tangible to gain no matter what they buy. I simply like seeing "good tech" survive, and so I thoroughly evangelize companies that treat me well. I do the opposite for compoanies that treat me badly. I can say for sure that IWILL has lost more than 10 sales because of me. IWILL XA-100 had a 40% failure rate (at the local Fry's), and they did not step up to the plate and recall the damned things. I got stuck with one, which was traded out for two others in unopened boxes with no success.
I have a feeling Nikon is going to lose sales, because now I can use the "I" word that scares Joe Sixpack so much. "Incompatible"... I'll also use another word that is designed to scare Mr. Sixpack, "Proprietary".... I can then go on about how my Olympus takes wonderful pictures, and is "compatible" and "not proprietary" and will work with all kinds of software. Heck, I didn't install the Olympus software, and even lost the disk with the software on it and can still get my pictures. And then mention that most other vendors are open and just work, and express puzzlement at why Nikon hates it's customers...
This generally works. While I am aware that I may only stop 5 or ten sales, if 10 people did this, it would be 50 to 100 sales, etc, etc. Furthermore people buying the non-proprietary item who are happy with it, will warn their friends away from that vendor. This is viral in nature. It does work, however it is dependant on how many people take part.
This vendor screw consumer atitude really bends me out of shape...
Oh BTW, my sister in law's purchased new Ford Focus has transmission problems at 38,000 miles. It also has had the brake system recalled, twice. Currently it eats brakes every 10,000 miles. This is just the beginning of the list. Since Ford has been very little help, they are seriously considering painting the car yellow, and writing the word "lemon" on it.
Unfortunately, while this is trivially reverse-engineered, it's illegal in the US to reverse engineer anything that can "bypass protections" -- which is so vauge that it basically boils down to "it's illegal to reverse engineer anything".
If someone did reverse engineer this, Nikon could have that entire project shut down for violating the DMCA.
So software developers are terrified that Nikon will wield the DMCA scythe at them if they reverse engineer the white balance encryption algorithm? How would Nikon have any case when the content in question is owned by the creator, not Nikon?
To my thinking this is another clear application of interoptibility, so I don't see how the DMCA could apply especially given the ownership of the "protected content".
Wow, you're quite anti-raw it seems.
.jpegs, I generally don't have to bother with raws. You can trust that the camera got all of the photons, and you can interpret them correctly when you get home.
I recently bought my fist D-SLR (D-rebel XT). I started out shooting jpeg and it worked just fine, but after trying raw a few times I just couldn't go back. The after-the-fact exposure controls are just too fabulous. They're also not terribly large files. About twice as big as a jpeg on fine quality. So for scenes where I might want to exposure bracket with
I think they're only about twice as large as jpeg's because they're not de-mosaiced. They have 12 bits per pixel, instead of an RGB value per pixel.
So, will that software run on any system I have? It looks to me like it only runs under Mac OS X, and Windows. That means, in order to run it at all, I have to invest several hundred dollars in a copy of XP and many hours of my time re-partitioning a software RAID system just to run it.
Sorry, if you can't tell me how your stuff works, you're not really selling it to me, it's just on loan until you decide to stop providing service and support for it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
If you want a successful example of 'the geeks' pushing 'the sheeple' into something, check into Google's history.
The only viable alternative to Microsoft for home/SOHO users at the OS level is Apple's. You don't agree? Puke up the Kool-Aid, it's interfering with your thinking.
You want to take down MS? Push Apple and OSX. Or fix Linux.
The main reasons why Linux is not a viable mass-market alternative are:
Tech Public Policy stuff
Ok i was following this on the first article, and now i am even more confused. How does the DMCA 'legitimately' cover this. (Im not referring to its typical fraudulent and over board use [see lexmark])
Nikon cant seriously be claming copyright protection on *other people's* photographs.
And in any case, like the lexmark issue, this is about reverse-engineering for compatibility. Which IIRC is not actionable under the DCMA. NIkon is merely being obstructionist here. Adobe did this as to splash bad PR on Nikon for being dicks, and as far as i can tell, its working. By having to issue PR to defend their position means they are feeling heat, as opposed to ignoring it and making the public drink their swill.
Nikon's reply is all smoke and mirrors. What they're not telling you is that their API wont allow access to the RAW image data that Adobe needs to get their product to optimally function. It's much like those undocumented API calls that M$ had in their OS for awhile to make their product better than the competition.
Stick with Canon. At least they don't try this crap.
WH
"My guess is that Nikons definition of 'bona fide software companies' is 'software companies able to pay a lot for their proprietary SDK'."
Nikon does not charge anyone for the SDK. While they make a big deal about 'bona fide' developers in the announcement, I've seen a couple of folks in photography forums who got the SDK from Nikon for no other reason than to toy around with it.
Not only does Nikon not charge for the SDK, Adobe doesn't even use it in their ACR software! That's actually what this whole hubbub is about - Adobe doesn't want to use the Nikon SDK (they haven't ever used it) in their RAW capture plug-in.
The data recording the white balance setting is encrypted but the encryption has already been broken by a 3rd party RAW conversion software company. Adobe does not want to risk the legal liability that would come with their plugin breaking the encryption.
Oh, and there are also the folks who rent what they need. I ran into one such guy last month. He had a Canon 1D Mark II body, which I suppose belonged to someone... and some nice L glass he'd rented for the occasion - $75 a week or something, I forget.
I don't even have a DSLR for personal use... yet. But I've never been a fan of manufacturer-specific software for image processing, and along with various other moves Nikon's made lately, this one isn't likely to make me buy one of theirs.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Actually if you read the DMCA closely you is not criminal to decrypt the data on your own photos - you are wing so *with* the authority of teh copyright holder. The problem is that it is criminal for anyone to "traffic" in any software or product that would enable you to do so. Anyone distributing GPL code to do so could go to prison for 5 years (10 years on a second offense).
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
To make you analogy more corect, you would have a file that doesn't need to be encrypted on your computer. You createed this file by using some program and it is your work. Now the governemnt steps in and encrypts part of it and say you cannot see that.
as i mentioned above. the difference is that the person that owns the files being created chooses to do the encryption rather then a third party saying this is yours but we will only let you have part of it. The encrypted parts only apear when the user creates a picture and are a complete part of that picture(even though it is somewhat not important to have that data part). Basicaly it is the users data being encrypted.
adobe said it wasn't supporting the file format and with good reason. Many oss devopers would probably stay away from it too. They claim the license is free to use if you are a boa-fide company. What happens if this license changes tomarow and cost any company using it $2.00 for each pice of software sold using technoligy from nikons skd. Now what if there is a standard these terms may change at any time clause and after they change and charge you either have to pay or quite selling that program. I'm sur ethey cannot make it retroactive and charge you for distrobuting before you new but it could definatly take a licensed version without the clause and make it active at any time they decide to change it. you would have to choose between playing ball and pay, or not using it anymore.
My politeMy polite answer to Nikon: Fuck Off and Die. Don't ask for my rude answer...
I had been a Nikon user since mid 70's. When the D1 came out I waited a few months but eventually switched to Digital. I went through a D1 and a couple of D1x. Being both an artist and a geek, Nikon's position on its "proprietary" format infuriated me. I love to be able to tweak things. Its refusal to provide an SDK just made me want to switch away. I am a "bona-fide" developer but I did not want to make the request in the name of the company I work for. I wanted the SDK to tweak things. Many programs are out there now because of this sort of things. I did switch. Last November I dumped my entire pile of Nikon gear. 30 years of stuff all at once on eBay. Now I'm a happy camper Canon 1Ds MkII user. Nikon: Fuck off.
I'm in the process of showing them my middle finger right now. I'm selling all my Nikon gear (worth about $6K) and switching to Canon. This encryption bullshit was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Just to be rebellious and show some faith in mankind, a google for 'Nikon' produces the two top news stories about this issue. A search for 'Nikon cameras' has a story about DMCA preventing Photoshop compatability in the first three. A a professional digital camera is an expensive piece of kit (at least to me) and I'd expect people to do a bit of research before they buy one. Maybe just maybe, people will hear the voices of many pissed off developers and question Nikon's direction. People can be frighteningly smart sometimes. I'm sure that some people in Nikon's marketing / PR department are having a pisser of a time right now.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Ultimately, though, I believe the idea in question (that is, the specific actions of Nikon), is a battle between competing intellectual rights, not necessarily one between "property" and "intellectual property".
/. indicating that patent rights terminate if not defended or spouting like misconceptions -- and separating them out not only avoids the need for a term akin to "intellectual property", but also helps to avoid such cases.
Certainly. One of the impacts of the "intellectual property" turn of thought, however, is that it tends to gravitate towards the holder rather than the public: If something is one's property, one ought to be able to restrict it, do what one like with it, etc. If something is a public grant intended to promote the general welfare, then said general welfare (and thus rights of the public in general) are more in-mind when considering it.
And it's precisely this where the matter lies: The line between Nikon's rights and those of the general public. Frankly, I don't even want to move that line very much: In my ideal world, Nikon would not be forced by act of government to disclose the information at hand (though government would not prohibit 3rd-party reverse engineering and disclosure) -- rather, they would see that such actions, by empowering their customer, make their hardware more useful and thus better able to compete; and they would take such an action out of enlightened self-interest.
On the other hand, it would be reasonable to have legislation or executive policy preventing government from purchasing hardware or software except that the protocols and data formats used by the same be published, archived and freely available to and implementable by 3rd parties (which would in turn prohibit Nikon from selling these cameras to government agencies without changing their policy). By ensuring continued access, independant of the supplier's continued existance and cooperation, to data produced with the device or software, and making the set of 3rd parties able to provide solutions to enhance that access as wide as possible, such a policy would prevent vendor lock in, encourage a larger set of possible bidders on contracts where interaction with such protocols or data storage formats is necessary, and otherwise be in the best interests of both the government itself and the general public (who, as a side-effect, have access to these specifications).
Perhaps we should choose the term "intellectual rights" rather than "intellectual property", but I despair of my ability as a singular entity to effect this change in society's common usage.
Perhaps referring independently to copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets would be a still better approach. While I'll admit that there are cases where they may be delt with in the aggregate, they are different enough things that lumping them together can lead to confusion -- see the frequency of posters on
Further, a more general (and admittedly somewhat idealist) point: Were perceived inability of a single individual, acting alone, to make a substantial change in societal behaviour to stop all individuals from attempting to encourage such changes, we'd be a vastly poorer society. That one cannot change the world acting alone should be no reason not to act -- and, indeed, such inaction leaves those who are trying to change things much more alone than they would otherwise be.
Just an idea here, but what if the "answer" for this is that there is a new, soon-to-be-released Chinese camera called "Niikon" that will be in every Wal-Mart next week.
It's an idea, but TBH it falls flat when you consider the target market for the cameras affected by this are people buying Nikon's top-end pro cameras - not the kind of thing you buy in Wal-mart.
I prefer the idea that the SDK will sooner or later cost money.
You're already modded troll, but I'll try to explain it to you anyway.
Nikon has both property and moral rights over their software.
Sorry, that statement is false.
1) Software is information. (So too is the data in the picture being taken.) Information is NOT property. Property applies only to rivalrous goods, that is, things that two or more people cannot have and use simultaneously. That applies to all physical objects as well as things like positions and titles (eg, there can only be one CEO of BigCorp, Inc. at a time), but not to information. Information is not a rivalrous good. If you are listening to a song, and I go and start playing a copy of the exact same song, that in no way whatsoever diminishes the quality of your copy of the song, nor your enjoyment of it. Information (including software) is NOT property. This fact of physics must be understood if you wish to understand how copyrights and patents are supposed to work.
Thus, Nikon has no property right to their software.
2) The way that rivalrous goods work is well understood (capitalism) and left to its own devices with proper property protection works reasonably well (modulo monopolies and such). Information, however, since it cannot by nature be similarly controlled, works differently. "In order to promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts", the Constitution gives Congress the right to "secure to authors and inventors for a limited time" a government-granted monopoly on information they create (and until the 70s also registered). In return, there is a public archive of that information (library of congress and USPTO) so that once that limited time monopoly expires, the information is well-archived and available to anyone, as information naturally is in the first place. That is the LEGAL basis for copyrights and patents. However, it extends only as far as the information created by the author/inventor.
There is no "moral right" over proprietary information. It is only a legal device, a bit of legal trickery, intended to "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts".
Note that I said that copyright extends only as far as the information created by the author/inventor. Nikon's potential copyright claim on their whitebalance system does NOT extend to pictures *I* take, which under US copyright law are copyrighted (not owned, copyrighted) by me. However, because Nikon refuses to let me access that image data (my copyrighted work) without their permission (using software that they have copyrighted that they won't license to me except under very narrow terms), I now cannot access my own copyrighted material without their permission. That is a major problem.
It is the exact same issue as not being able to access your own copyrighted material in MS Word format without Microsoft's permission (which they will grant for the cost of an MS Office license and agreement to let MS break into your computer to change settings), not being able to play music which you have legally purchased without Apple's permission (granted for the cost of an iPod, and a license agreement that lets Apple break into your computer to change settings, read the iTunes license), or not being able to access your own source code without Larry McVoy's permission (granted if you promise to never consider doing anything that might compete with any of his products). It's all the same issue:
- IF copyright is valid and should be kept as is, then I shouldn't have to be beholden to someone else for MY OWN copyrighted work.
- ELSE copyright as it currently stands is bunk and needs to be trashed/reduced/reformed, in which case restricting information about how the file format works is wrong in the first place because it keeps me from getting to information I CREATED.
No matter which side of that question you're on, the bottom line is that closed and proprietary file formats are BAD. They are bad for YOU, the person writing a letter, listening to music, writing software, or
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?