1D X has traces of 1D C firmware but Magic Lantern 'will never touch 1D series' as Canon threatens potential hackers with legal trouble

[chauffeurdevan]

Wow, even Black Magic have some license agreement against modifying, reverse engineering, decompiling,etc... for the Cinema Camera :

 

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/detail/register/download/?sid=27541&pid=27542&fid=33840&did=33847&os=win&alt=true&sdk=false&beta=false&archived=false

 

License.rtf inside the installer

 

6. The Software is owned by Blackmagic Design or its suppliers. Title, ownership rights, and intellectual property rights in and to the Software shall remain in Blackmagic Design and/or its suppliers. You agree to abide by the copyright law and all other applicable laws of the Australia, United States and other applicable jurisdictions. You acknowledge that the Software in source code form remains a confidential trade secret of Blackmagic Design and/or its suppliers. You may not, permit unlicensed persons to use your copy of the Software, modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works based on the Software, copy the Software, rent or lease, rights to the Software, or remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Software.
 

[OverCranked]

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/firm-e/eosdigital7/firmware.html and others...

 

You shall not assign, sublicense, sell, rent, lease, loan, convey or otherwise transfer to any third party, or copy, duplicate, translate or convert to another programming language the Software, except as expressly provided herein. You shall not alter, modify, disassemble, decompile or otherwise reverse engineer the Software and you also shall not have any third party to do so. You shall not modify, remove or delete a copyright notice of Canon contained in the Software.

Except as expressly provided herein, no license or right, express or implied, is hereby conveyed or granted by Canon to you for any intellectual property of Canon.

2. OWNERSHIP AND COPYRIGHT:

The Software is copyrighted and owned by Canon. You agree and acknowledge that Canon transfers neither ownership interest nor intellectual property in the Software to you under this Agreement or otherwise, and that Canon retains all right, title and interest to the Software.

 

... I never  signed or hereby acknowledged to any of the above at the time of purchasing any of Canon or other cameras. Non of this is enforceable nationally or internationally because they are not signed and acknowledged by purchasers at the time of purchase. Also every camera sales personal will be considered accessory and called in for witnessing. I'm sure you can imagine the mess. It is not enforceable.

If it was nobody could use third party parts in their cars or high-end electronics and for sure ML could've been taken down long ago.  

Almost every car ( automobile ) come with similar mombo-jombo but they don't force you to sign those pages ( some of those forms even don't have the place for signature or name of purchaser. 

 

Something that you, Bruno the Canon man and a few overzealous sales reps don't get is the fact that ML is bringing extra sales to the brand. Think about it for a minute or two. Canon is not going to shoot themselves in the foot or the wallet. 

[FilmMan]

Interesting discussion.   The 1DX is not an inexpensive camera.  Will there be someone willing to hack it?  Is it even possible?  I used to get really pumped about Magic Lantern and hoped for them to achieve more and more.  They did achieve a lot.  I was hoping for true 1080p, hoping for 422 mjpeg, etc. Has it occurred?  Nope.   It isn't as easy as I thought or as people thought.  Read thru the Magic Lantern forum and you'll see this.  Magic Lantern has said to the public, they'll be staying away from the 1DX.   I think most know the answer as to whether any possible "hacked" upgrade will occur to the 1DX.  That is the reality. 

 

PS.  Did anyone see the 4K 24p GoPro hack with the interchangeable lens?  How about the Red Scarlet to the Epic hack?  I didn't either. 

[Bruno]

... I never signed or hereby acknowledged to any of the above at the time of purchasing any of Canon or other cameras. Non of this is enforceable nationally or internationally because they are not signed and acknowledged by purchasers at the time of purchase.

Seriously? I never signed a contract for any piece of software I bought, but the copyright laws still apply, that's nonsense.

http://www.informationweek.com/software/enterprise-applications/open-source-copyrights-legally-enforceab/210004154?nomobile=1

[OverCranked]

That was hilarious... yeah you got me! 

Keep bashing Canon and you'll go far around here Mr. OverCranky.

Sorry kiddo ! I didn't realize I was having a serious dialog with a kindergartener. My apologies to you and your Mom.

[OverCranked]

Seriously? I never signed a contract for any piece of software I bought, but the copyright laws still apply, that's nonsense.

http://www.informationweek.com/software/enterprise-applications/open-source-copyrights-legally-enforceab/210004154?nomobile=1

 

This is the biggest misunderstanding. These " notes " passed onto consumers are not LAWs. They try to be for sure but  even the baddest legal teams of these corporations cannot take a consumer to any national or international court with them. There is something reminding people about copyright laws there is completely something else attaching a case to it and then successfully arguing in a court.

Even if they could they wouldn't. Consumers will turn their backs on them. From your local sales person that sold the camera all the way to head of marketing departments in Canon will start a riot on the company also.

Again - these hacks and performance enhancements are good for sales. There has been rumors about possibilities of hack codes being leaked by the OEM manufacturers to advance their cameras ahead of the competitions in the market. A bit far fetch but you get the picture. 

In the case of BMCC that Chauffeurdevan in #61 brings in to the discussion, by digitally agreeing with the software agreements you are complying with the terms and conditions of the case with a digital signature. That is different, and still very taxing to the BlackMagic to bring to the court if case lost sales. I'm sure BlackMagic will smile at unprojected sales coming in as the result of hacked firmware instead.

 

You know - as you said it many times, you go ahead and buy it as you deserve it. Many people wont.  No matter from what vantage point I look at it, it looks like Canon are going through some major troubled waters and captain and the crew are in panic state. This ship is going down and that's sad because I was a Canon fan. 

[OverCranked]

Can't you understand that's not the point here? The point is not what you do with the camera you buy, it's the features you're stealing from a camera you DIDN'T buy.

 

This is the point you don't get : Those features already exist in the camera I paid for - I just activate them. ( In the case of 1Dx vs 1DC this is just theory until proven )

GH2 is an inferior camera to all Canon DSLRs in OEM format but the high bitrate is crippled as it is. If I mod the thing to work better for me then good on me. In fact by public opinion hacked GH2s surpass all Canon DSLRs unless ML installed on them. Many Pro shooters bought 5D II relying on ML. I'm not sure if you are doing Canon a favour here.

 

And all n all this could be waste of time if Andrew's theory about the hardware in these cameras turn to be wrong.

[Leang]

[jgharding]

:D

 

MaXINE! Please make a thread talking about how and what you did here TO MAKE A MIRRORLESS 5d and what sucesses and issues you had! This hacked up 5D is far more indie interesting than the "let's take the piss" 1DC...

[Bruno]

I'm not sure if you are doing Canon a favour here.

Never tried to, you just had to come up with ridiculous arguments and accusations to weaken my opinion, which is just what it is, you're free to disagree, no need to question my education or bring my mom to the discussion though. It does say a lot though...

[Mirrorkisser]

Thanks for taking a closer look at Canons fingers. I would not say that other companies on all fields and in all areas do the same, but once i find out, i stop buying products by those companies.

 

Of course there is a mass who does not give a donkeys about a companies ethics etc, but i think more and more people get aware of such politics, thats why we need investigative journalism. 

 

I am through with Canon for now...

[Andrew Reid]

What Canon are doing here makes no business sense to me. They make a healthy margin on the 1D X as it is at over $6k, imagine the sales leap had they enabled 4K video on it.

 

So they are going to sell how many 1D C's? 2000 of them? Mostly in one country. Does that seem like a good reason to piss off the 40,000 who would have bought a 1D X for 4K video? Does that seem like a good business decision, really?

 

Aside from the morally repugnant profiteering and loss of reputation such a cynical product results in for Canon, they have had to cripple their core business to satisfy this tiny niche of Hollywood cameras. We all know the video on the 5D and 1D X is not as good as it should be. It is just as well their competition is so utterly clueless and weak. Nikon anyone? Sony? Red have had 4K cameras out for what seems like a whole era and the Japanese are only just now bringing cameras out.

 

Essentially when you can produce a camera that does 4K and make a nice profit on it at $6k, it just shows how weak the competition is when Canon can still be a market leader and DISABLE the entire feature, instead selling it for double the price to a select few. 4K isn't mainstream yet, but when it is Canon won't be able to sell a 4K DSLR for $6000 let alone $12,000.

[Bruno]

So they are going to sell how many 1D C's? 2000 of them? Mostly in one country. Does that seem like a good reason to piss off the 40,000 who would have bought a 1D X for 4K video? Does that seem like a good business decision, really?

 

That was not the discussion and I never disagreed with that. There's loads of products out there that I would love to have for half the price with the companies still being able to make a profit out of it, but the point is they cost what they cost and I can't afford them. They do have their reasons to price them like that, the main one being "because they can".

 

Threatening with or suggesting hacking those cameras as a solution and in our own benefit was my main issue with your post, as it is ethically and legally wrong. I know damn well Canon wouldn't take legal action against independent people hacking their cameras, but they could shut down a site like ML in a heartbeat if they wanted to. ML knows this and reminds its users constantly, they can barely afford a camera body let alone a trial.

[jgharding]

Essentially, these large companies are currently the only ones in a position to mass-produce and sell reliable 4K cameras, and they won't do it cheaply until the hand is forced. Even Red, remember the timing of the Red One price drop, alongside the release of a certain new cinema camera?

 

As with RAW and the like, it's only when the competition is serious that the big boys will bother to compete. It took Sony an age to move into large-sensor video, in comparison. They spend a long time working out how to milk each new phase of development for every penny it's worth.

 

Reliability is very important. I've stuck with an ageing 550D (now worth what, 250 quid?) for ages because it has never, ever failed me in any way, while my two good friends with GH2s have a had all kinds of workaround, tweaks, corrupt files and so on to deal with. I know that isn't everyone's experience, but their experience meant that I stuck with lower resolution rather than deal with buggering about.

 

That's why people will buy Canons like the C500 (footage looks a bit ugly to me so far) and 1DC, because they know how it works already, and that it will work. Personally I have my limits when it comes to piss taking, and won't buy purposely crippled high-end products like the current Canon batch of 420 8-bit cameras. I may as well stick with 550D, or get a 600D and use the new All-I 100mbps patch from Magic Lantern Daily builds along with the Mosaic anti-aliasing filter.

 

If BMD had been able to pump out a ton of their cameras on time straight off, for example, I think we'd be seeing a RAW Sony or Canon sooner, but since they aren't yet competition due to the as-of-yet dire delivery speed, we shall have to wait for a response from bigger and far more risk-averse  manufacturers.

 

Good thing is that with BMD, Digital Bolex, Ikonoskop etc we are seeing more companies create such niche products. hopefully one of such products will appear at a hilariously low price and be simple, functional and reliable, then we can watch the big players do an RIM (Blackberry) and suffer for their stubbornness...

[OverCranked]

Look at the posting you made in #57. You said :

 

" That was hilarious... yeah you got me! 

Keep bashing Canon and you'll go far around here Mr. OverCranky. "

 

 

You get what you deserve kiddo. You don't like to get splashed, then don't start a pissing contest.

i just brought the reply to your level of principals. 

 

Never tried to, you just had to come up with ridiculous arguments and accusations to weaken my opinion, which is just what it is, you're free to disagree, no need to question my education or bring my mom to the discussion though. It does say a lot though...

[Andrew Reid]

That was not the discussion and I never disagreed with that. There's loads of products out there that I would love to have for half the price with the companies still being able to make a profit out of it, but the point is they cost what they cost and I can't afford them. They do have their reasons to price them like that, the main one being "because they can".

 

Threatening with or suggesting hacking those cameras as a solution and in our own benefit was my main issue with your post, as it is ethically and legally wrong. I know damn well Canon wouldn't take legal action against independent people hacking their cameras, but they could shut down a site like ML in a heartbeat if they wanted to. ML knows this and reminds its users constantly, they can barely afford a camera body let alone a trial.

 

Bruno. Listen before shouting nonsense. It isn't legally wrong. Ask Vitaliy. 100% legal. Magic Lantern as it stands does not modify the firmware code. It runs separately alongside it. Again the project is 100% legal and if Canon wanted to sue them, they really wouldn't have a leg to stand on. I hardly think "because we can" is a very strategic business decision. Also... You're trolling.

[Andrew Reid]

It isn't about getting something for half price, it is about getting something which is fully enabled for the asking price (in the case of the 1D X) and not artificially crippled to protect some cynical business strategy.

 

Videographers and filmmakers who buy a 1D X are paying for hardware that does 4K video only for it to be disabled. If you disable such a big part of the camera, where's the discount? And don't say the 1D X should cost $12,000 and that $6k represents a discount, because it doesn't!

 

Had Canon no Cinema EOS line, they would have had 4K on the 1D X and we'd all be celebrating them and buying one.

 

Anyway 4K is the least of my worries. I still haven't even got dramatically improved 1080p from a DSLR yet which is why I am now a Blackmagic Cinema Camera shooter. People vote with their feet in the end, and the Japanese companies can play all the silly business games they like, let's see where it gets them. Total financial collapse is my bet.

 

Can you imagine Blackmagic or Red going to the effort of producing a hardware that performs to a certain high level then switching it off in firmware? It isn't business it's bullshit!

[FilmMan]

Here's Magic Lantern status (from Alex the main programmer).  He is against touching the 1DX.  I cut and pasted below.  I included the web link. 

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=2902.0

 

 

Don't forget that quite a few hacking projects had serious trouble not because the hackers infringed any copyrights (they didn't, as far as I could tell), but just because they made the job easier for those who wanted to pirate things. See Sklyarov, geohot, graf_chokolo, Sony's comments on 2012 DMCA exemptions etc.

So, just the possibility of making it easier for someone else to infringe Canon's copyrights (e.g. by porting the 1DC firmware) can bring us into big trouble if we would try to port ML on the 1Dx.

=> no ML on 1DX.

 

Quote

I'm of the same opinion, but I think we should use the firmware of these cameras to learn a bit more.

 

This is not OK under neither European nor US laws afaik, because we don't have a 1DX and we are not creating any interoperable product for it, so we don't have the right to reverse engineer it.

[Andrew Reid]

Well if hacking the 1D X is illegal than the GH2 hacks and 5D Mark III hacks are too.

 

I can see absolutely no technical difference in enabling higher bitrates on the 5D to enabling 4K on the 1D C.

 

You're simply turning on existing functionality.

 

Alex I think is talking about a port of the 1D C firmware to the 1D X and that is rather different.

 

But if the 4K features are already in the 1D X and just turned off, then that is legally and technically the same as any other hack we've seen.

[FilmMan]

Here's what another ML developer says,

g3gg0

• Developer
• 
• Posts: 577

1dc and 1dx .. identical hardware .. just a firmware difference

« Reply #52 on: December 18, 2012, 03:35:49 PM »

 

we fully understand your position and agree that that this lack of feature is disappointing.
also the technical aspects would be no big deal imho.

but i am sorry to tell you, the Magic Lantern team decided to *not* develop on EOS 1D series.
we devs all agree that this is a totally different price range and we would seriously deal in business cases where we dont want to be active.
see this as a political decision, but somewhere you have to say: "stop!" and the 1D is such one.

the discussion and decision *is* already made, so even your offer of a donation wouldnt change anything.
(i personally dont want to jump into a shark tank, even for money )
i hope you understand our position.

but we of course will continue work on the 5D2, 5D3 and all the other models and will provide you
free feature upgrades for these caneras