Is the EULA on my new $30k RED cinema camera legal?

RED has always had all sorts of BS licensing gobbleygook. When the first RED cameras finally became available, the software absolute shit. They had all sorts of stuff in their license agreements about not reverse engineering, not redistributing, et cetera.

I had to figure out many parts of their software and make wrappers and separate tools so that queues could be started and run without monitoring, because their software would famously have an error, then just stop, making batch transcoding a full-time job.

I intentionally posted all sorts of things that were in violation of their license agreements in hopes that they'd take note and try to make a stink, but they didn't, probably because they didn't want to raise awareness of how badly their software sucks by fighting with people who were making it better.

The company has always pretended to be much more grandiose than they really are (see their attempt at making a cell phone), but really, they're just OK.

Honestly, though, the quality of their codecs suck. The color information just isn't there. You can watch Netflix and immediately tell which things were shot on RED, because they'll be grainy (which they think is a feature) and will lack nuanced color. Compare with anything shot on, say, Arri ALEXA, and you'll never look at RED the same way again.

All of this is to say that the company probably won't do anything nefarious that would get tons of negative attention, but they do always think they're the Next Big Thing, so you never know when the crazy will outweigh the careful. If it were me, I'd return it.

Looks like boilerplate to me.

4 is telemetry, with a catch-all that any data may be transmitted - which is necessary if a crash dump might contain image data.

5 is updates, with the catch-all that updates may break stuff or remove features (often buggy features or features too rarely used to be worth maintaining).

Pretty standard stuff for anything containing software, and perhaps because the camera is so expensive they feel obliged to cover their arses even more.

RED Cameras are good and widely used, iirc - probably worth giving them the benefit of the doubt as they’ll not want to damage their reputation and profits by abusing their T&Cs.

AFAIK these EULAs are legal. In reality, RED isn't exfiltrating their customers' video (the files are enormous so people would notice) and they would go out of business if they did. Probably every product has some objectionable clause in their EULA which no one reads, so you're better off not reading it and moving on with your life. If you want to be a freedom fighter, go work for the EFF; if you want to make video, make video.

I have been under the impression that EULAs have not really been tested in court and that there is probably some reticence to actually attempt enforcement in case the result would invalidate the practice of EULAs altogether.

Normally, when you agree to a license, it is available for review and is agreed to before the purchase has been completed. Software EULAs -- presented after purchase -- seem more like a mugging.

Would be lovely to provide or deny consent for each of those actions detailed in the EULA -- the EULA becomes configuration.

IANAL but I read "information about .... content" as metadata, not the data itself.

Also, based on the size of the videos that thing must make, I don't see any feasible way they could or would exfiltrate the video content you're shooting.

If $30k is at stake, it might be better to spend a little bit more money and ask a professional lawyer.

EULA is normal, no worries there.

But if you are worried about someone stealing your footage, why would you even allow this camera to access Internet? I do sensitive amateur porn, and it stays strictly offline with air gaps. It is not that hard, just a bit unconvinient.

IANAL. If this actually matters to you, you should talk to one.

If you want to do your own research, a good starting place would be https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/adhesion-contract.asp

IANAL so my opinion doesn't matter,but none of these sound shocking enough to me that i would expect it to be illegal.

> It seems like I must be misunderstanding this because I can't imagine professional videographers being willing to consent to such blatant violations of their own customer's expectations of privacy and discretion.

All contracts are negotiable if you have enough money/power.

1) You misunderstood. The relevant part is "technical, diagnostic, usage and related information". Note it doesn't say 'video' anywhere there, and even it did it wouldn't hold up court.

Write to the company and ask for clarification and an option to opt-out.

This has three benefits: 1) they may give you additional information what exactly they are doing 2) they get information that their customers find it suspicious and may clarify it for everyone and 3) they may actually add an option to opt out

I'm sure it's the cyoa language like most Eula have. The bad publicity from actually enforcing stuff like this or attempting to enforce it is something most companies don't want to deal with but they stick this nonsense in anyway just in case.

Most of this looks fairly boilerplate ever looked through like a Windows license agreement or something. Even the agreement for purchasing this product probably has very similar languages as well.

The legal president around most of this is actually contract law. The sneaky thing is though they try and push this after you've already made the purchase which allows it to be questionable at best but then you have to fight it.

What you should do is sue the company for the time and cost that you sunk into compatible peripherals because they did not make this as an agreement up front. Seems the only way you would have known that you were required to agree to this was my purchasing the camera and turning it on. But again that's more cost and you're ultimately just ending up lining the lawyer's pockets so they're happy to write agreements like this because they get paid on both sides of it.

Ultimately the best solution is one we will likely and never see which would be an update to the Magnuson Moss warranty act. Something that would take these one-sided eula's and toss them right out the door. Something in there that would be if the company no longer wishes to produce or fix software updates for a product they must immediately release to any owner of the product and this can include second or third hand owners all of the source and the build tools and build chains so it can be maintained. I'm really afraid something like that will never happen simply because at the time of the Magnuson Moss warranty act that primarily dealt with automobiles but extended to other things as well people knew how to work on their automobiles for the most part understood the parts understood that aftermarket parts could be built and worth a thing and it was fine to reverse engineer those and make copies of them. All automanufacturers also released complete engineering diagrams of their vehicles and complete repair and assembly manuals for the vehicles and due to the idea that the manufacturer and the people who had to maintain them were completely separate entities.

Considering how little people understand that software is as an integral as a component to an electronic device as spark plugs are to a gasoline engine we will never see an update to include this idea that it's not just hardware that can be repaired and not violate the warranty it's the software as well.

Granted, I'm not in the target market, but I don't understand why people keep buying RED cameras. They do stuff like this, charge an arm and a leg for what should be commodity parts but aren't, and claim dubious patent protections on things like compressed RAW video (IIRC, at least one compressed RAW image format existed prior to the release of the RED One).

With really attractive options from companies like Blackmagic, Sony, and ARRI, what's so appealing about RED?

> assessment of the implications of this license agreement correct

It is incorrect--you still have your intellectual property rights, even if they somehow download all the videos off the camera.

You're not signing away your rights to the video content.

Am I the only one reading this differently? “including but not limited to information about your [RED Camera, Camera Module, computer, system and application software, usage, content, and peripherals].” As in: information about content, not actual content.

I mean, yes, metadata is bad enough and it’s still an awful license, but I really don’t agree this suggests RED would be “capturing frames from their commissioned videos and transmitting them behind the scenes to advertisers.”

Am I the only one reading it this way?

Maybe write to Red and ask them if this means they have a right to your footage? Say that you will publish the response. Their reply could be no, yes or no/yes but... and their response will be usable in litigation, so they'll have to weigh the legal protection with the PR damage.

If they just repeat the EULA then treat it as a yes, hammer their social media comparing it to Apple's, ARRI's, Panasonic's etc. stance and let the EFF warn everyone.

> technical, diagnostic, usage and related information, including but not limited to information about your RED Camera, Camera Module, computer, system and application software, usage, content, and peripherals.

They are doing CYA here, but what they are likely collecting here is metadata, not the content itself. And very likely they are referring to data collected for troubleshooting purposes.

Perhaps get a tween to click it, or someone else that you are not responsible for. There is probably some clause to ensure that the person that clicks it passes on the licence, but that clause would be difficult to enforce. If you told a very young child to do it, then you would probably be held responsible. Outcomes would vary depending on jurisdiction too?

Edit: “You agree that RED and its affiliates may collect, maintain, process, transmit, and use technical, diagnostic, usage and related information, including but not limited to information about your RED Camera”. This implies you allow RED to have a person follow you around to watch what you are doing? They don’t limit the collection to just what to device records, nor do they limit the scope of what may be collected?

It’s a shitty modern EULA. In terms of rights to your art, I wouldn’t worry:

- for one it would be utterly impossible for them to get their hands on the hundreds of gigabytes of footage this monster will create. How would they get it? Over the internet? With thousands of customers, I think it’s unlikely. Then storing this... just the scale of it seems impossible.

- also this doesn’t mention copyright. I guess they maybe could take a video of yours and use it purely to debug stuff, maybe share with a subcontractor. But they can’t use it in any way as their own, which is probably what you care about as a creator.

To me the shitty bit would be about features being deleted, but then usually upgrades are optional and avoidable.

Maybe quit RED all together an switch to Black Magic

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/at/products/blackmagicursam...

DJI does this same bullshit on their offline, stand-alone cameras. They have to be "activated" with PII like an iPhone.

Customer-abusing behavior is becoming commonplace.

"I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

I have no clue about cameras, so I have not even the faintest idea if this can compare in any way to a professional camera, or even how far along the development is: https://www.apertus.org

This is an open source and open hardware project, working on a camera because they dislike exactly the kind of stuff you described.

This is one of the reasons why people import their camera (apart from different pricing). If you buy the EU model, you get different terms that say they'll only collect data if you approve it and for EU models you can always email dataprivacy@red.com and they'll tell you what data they have stored and how it's used.

This is normal. You are misunderstanding the legalese.

You have three options now: accept it, and move on, pay a lawyer to explain their opinion of it to you or return it. Anything else is pointless.

I'm not a lawyer. But typically any EULA that you have to agree to after purchasing (or better after opening the package) is unenforceable.

Does it even matter if it’s legal or not? What would you rather do, use the camera or spend your time/money fighting it?

I'd just use it, they have the right to collect and you have the right to prevent them from collecting/updating.

Were you presented with the licence agreement before you bought the camera? If not then how can it apply to you?

Don't quote me on this but EULAs have low legal validity and are hard to bring in court.

RED can use all of your footage... If you consider your footage indistinguishable from "technical, diagnostic, usage and related information".

Which would be a bit of a self own on your cinematography skills. In which case I suspect nobody would want to steal your footage.

What would happen if you had a monkey press accept?

Maybe return it and state the EULA as the reason?

Boilerplate, but yeah should they wish to do, well, literally anything and everything, then that EULA has them covered. And they know this of course.

film someone else pushing "agree"? seems like an obvious elegant solution

Blow a few more of your spare change on a lawyer and fine out if it’s admirable in court.

It would be against GDPR because you cannot sign away your privacy rights to get a service to work if that service does not need your private data to function - the camera does not need your data to function therefore contract not legal in Europe

Nothing you can do about it.

It is very well maybe that part of it is not enforceable in your area anyways.

Nothing they can do about it.

Dude they're not trying to take ownership of the content.

Everyone with software needs you to agree to them capturing analytics data.

You probably use google and facebook anyway, perhaps to promote your business. You have probably already signed similar agreements due to you using those platforms. I'm not a lawyer, and you should probably talk to one. Just my 2 cents.

If the EULA wasn't notified to you at the point of lease, or indeed of the transaction was described as a sale, then it's fraud as you were misled as to the nature of the product in order to provide a financial gain for Red. I think you have a good basis for a small claims court case to recoup spending on peripherals.

I think it could go either way, but sadly the establishment aren't keen on limiting they overreach of companies which mislead when they call things sales and which try to own the World through Eulas.

Thought: if their EULA is lawful then a post-transaction contract from your side should be lawful too ...? (YMMV, I am clearly not a lawyer and this is so far from legal advice.)