Please read the existing threads in the ACR subforum.
Chris,
I edited your message to include the link
Ian
Adobe and Bibble are two different organizations with different goals, objectives and risk assessments. Just because Bibble does something does not mean it would be prudent for Adobe to do the same.
unless they can explain how another competitor can do it and flaunt it @ the same time.
4 words that respectivly start with the letters: DMCA
DMCA only bars attempts to decrypt that involve access to protected copyrighted material. Nikon doesn’t have a copyright on the image with the color balance as shot; the photographer does. And it’s unlikely that Nikon could claim copyright on the unencrypted color balance itself, which is not a creative work. There’s a court decision finding that reverse engineering the chip in ink cartridges to determine the ink level did not involve copyright violation because a few bits of code representing the ink level did not constitute a creative work.
Nikon doesn’t have a copyright on the image with the color balance as shot
but i’ll bet they do on the actual structure of the format of the file. just as adobe went after the russian programmer who broke the pdf encryption (not because they owned what was protected, the document, but they owned the pdf format), expect nikon to go after bibble and the other guy who cracked and posted it. they’re staking their position ahead of time with that press release.
There’s a court decision finding that reverse engineering the chip in ink cartridges to determine the ink level did not involve copyright violation because a few bits of code representing the ink level did not constitute a creative work.
big difference between ink levels and proprietarily encrypted data in the formal structure of a proprietary file type.
as a wise man once said:
"The ranger’s not gonna like this Yogi…"
From what I’ve seen here, the issue is not the file structure, but the use of a proprietary code for the color balance or white point, which was described (I think by Chris Cox) as "encrypted." I don’t think there is any copyright violation involved in reverse engineering an unencrypted file format. How do you think Adobe or anyone else manages to read proprietary (i.e., undocumented) file formats for which no SDK is available? One tries to make sense of how the bytes are arranged and extract the image in a meaningful way, which may or may not be completely accurate (one wouldn’t know for sure unless one had access to the file format specs). If the file itself is encrypted in order to protect the file format itself from prying, then cracking the encryption might violate the DMCA, to the extent the file format is a creative work entitled to copyright protection or to the extent the encryption is designed to protect copyrighted content to which the cracker does not have access rights.
he issue is not the file structure, but the use of a proprietary code for the color balance or white point, which was described (I think by Chris Cox) as "encrypted."
that IS the file structure. and reverse engineering to break encryption is explicitly covered in the DMCA. i’m not saying it’s a good thing, just that my money is on nikon using the DMCA to go after those guys but it’ll be a test case for sure. my personal feelings are that the DMCA does more harm than good and should be either rewritten or scrapped and replaced by something that takes consumer rights into account AS WELL AS copyright holder rights.
If the file itself is encrypted in order to protect the file format itself from prying, then cracking the encryption might violate the DMCA, to the extent the file format is a creative work entitled to copyright protection or to the extent the encryption is designed to protect copyrighted content to which the cracker does not have access rights.
that’s it. you’ve got it. that SECTION of the format where the white balance is stored IS encrypted. reverse engineering/breaking that encryption allows nikon to use the DMCA.
