According to Fujifilm, using any non-licensed program (including Fujifilm’s own SDK) “to connect to, or control, any compatible Fujifilm camera, will void the camera’s limited product warranty.” I spoke with Fujifilm and confirmed this to be true. I was also told that they only give licenses to large corporations “like Adobe.” I bring this up because more and more, there are programs and apps that can connect to your Fujifilm camera, to remote control it or push Recipes to it, and so forth. Very few of these seem to tell you that doing so voids your camera’s warranty. I was also told by someone at Fujifilm that each time you connect, a marker is left in the camera, which Fujifilm could find to prove that a non-licensed program was connected to the camera.
Personally, I would be extremely cautious connecting any Fujifilm model that is still under warranty to any non-licensed software or app (anything that’s not officially from or supported by Fujifilm). Depending on your country, X-series gear can have up to a three year warranty, and GFX up to five year. You may want to look into the specifics of your camera and country to determine the exact length of your manufacturer warranty; for a lot of people, it will be just one year.
I bring this up because most of these programs and apps don’t tell you this. The developers are well aware (or at least should be) that if you connect your camera to their software it will void your warranty, but I think they’re afraid that if you knew the risk, you’d be less inclined to use their program, and they’d be less profitable. They’d rather be a bit shady than lose potential customers. The risk that they themselves are taking is that if your warranty gets denied and they didn’t disclose to you that using their app would void the warranty, you could hold them accountable (although good luck with that). My guess is that thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of Fujifilm photographers have unknowingly voided their warranty—they are completely unaware, and might be learning about it for the first time right now. That’s terrible, and it should be unacceptable.
With some of these programs, it’s even more shady than that. For example, many of them aggregate Recipes; however, some of the creators of those Recipes have no idea that their Recipes are even in the apps, and much of the time they are not even given credit, which is a shame. Worse, many photographers (who create Recipes) have their photos in these apps without permission or even credit (in other words, illegally). Someone who doesn’t even make Recipes is profiting off of those who do, including off of their photos. You’ll find tons of my Recipes, and when I’ve asked them to be removed, I have been told that there’s nothing technically illegal about it, so pound sand. That might be true (there could be a strong plagiarism argument), but it’s not cool in the least to do so. Someone who doesn’t even make Recipes shouldn’t be profiting off of those who do. With regards to my photos, that’s a daily (and uphill) battle to get them removed. If you’ve ever created and published a Recipe anywhere on the internet, there’s a good chance you’ll find it in at least one of these programs, and maybe your photos, too.
My Fujicolor 100 Gold Recipe and my photo used without permission or even credit in someone else’s app.
I’ve hesitated to say anything because some will take this as sour grapes. They will think that I’m just upset over competition. Look, there are legitimate creators doing wonderful things for the community, and I’ve happily pointed them out and linked to their websites or channels many times on Fuji X Weekly over the years. I’m for the community, and I think it’s great that so many are not only using Recipes, but are creating them, too. It’s a wonderful thing, and I never imagined that all of this would grow and grow and grow so much. It’s truly an honor to have a front-row seat. What I’m saying is: does that non-official-Fujifilm program that connects to your camera, whether software or app, tell you that by doing so your warranty will be voided? If not, that’s a big problem. You should be made aware, and from there you can make an educated decision to connect or not connect. If it’s hidden in the fine print, that’s an issue, too, because few actually read the fine print, yet it absolves the developer of responsibility.
Of course, Fujifilm themselves deserve some blame. You should be able to push Recipes into the Custom Settings presets (C1-C7 for most cameras, C-C6 or C1-C4 for others) right from the X App. You can do it from X RAW Studio, but it isn’t obvious. For that matter, there should be a mobile version of X RAW Studio. There’s a lot more that Fujifilm could and should do to make adding Recipes to your camera easier (something I’ve encouraged them to do, and even offered my assistance with). And maybe it’s a bit my own fault, too, because I’ve spent more than a year trying to go about all of this “the right way” by attempting to work with Fujifilm on something that was highly unlikely to ever work out, and ultimately didn’t. Because of this, my own implementation of a similar feature has been delayed and delayed and delayed. I desperately want to avoid voiding your warranty. If I did make something that would void your warranty, I would make everyone very well aware and not hide it, so that you could make whatever informed decision that you’re comfortable with.
Anyway, I need to end this post. I truly hope nobody gets hosed by an unknowingly voided warranty. Make whatever choice that you want, but I do think it’s beyond time for someone to say something publicly, so at least you know the potential consequences of the choice that you are making. I’m sorry that it has to come from me, I’d rather not be the messenger. I’ve put this off for a very long time hoping that something would change, but it seems to only have gotten worse with time.
Edit: I want to add a few quick things. First, you should learn the warranty laws that are specific to your country and state/region. Some places have stronger protections than others, some of which may prevent your warranty from automatically being voided just because you connect to an unlicensed program. Second, just because technically speaking your warranty has been voided, that doesn’t mean that Fujifilm won’t still honor it. They may or may not—in my estimation, depending on exactly what the problem is, there is a good chance that they will honor it. Third, even if they don’t, you might still have legal options (I’m not an attorney, nor am I an expert in warranty laws). I am only trying to make people aware of the potential risk, because they should absolutely be aware that there is a risk.
To be clear, they can put whatever they want in their warranty policy. That does not make it enforceable. The EU, for instance, has a very ironclad warranty rule, and it’s enforced at retail. If the hardware fails for any reason it must be replaced for 2 years. If they claim the user broke it, they have to prove the actions the user took are what broke it. EU rules do not permit a user to sign away their consumer or personal rights, so this warranty term is unenforcable, and since returns/exchanges are handled at the point of purchase, it would be really difficult for them to enforce it anyway.
In the US it will vary by state. Many have fairly strict rules which again cannot be signed away.
In other words, people need to look up their local laws and see what their rules are. Fuji cannot override state and national law.
Side note: That bit about it supposedly recording that an unlicensed app connected sounds fake to me. If concerned about it, just reset your camera before handing it in. Factory reset is a function in the firmware and if it kept info there that would be a data security issue (and likely run afoul of multiple privacy laws globally).
I agree that local (country and state/region) should be researched. I know that Fujifilm has had internal conversations about this, but I have no idea what was decided. I would think that if the issue is unrelated to the software (such as the lugs on some early X-E5’s that were lose), that they would honor the warranty no questions asked.
As far as the side note, I’m just relaying what I was told. Maybe Factory Reset erases it, I have no idea.
Pretty sure under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act they can’t do this unless they can prove the software damaged the camera. This has been tested in court and held up for years I think.
People quote the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act on the internet routinely, yet warranty claims are denied regularly. Maybe if Fujifilm denied the claim (and I’m not saying that they will, they very well may still honor the warranty) and you sued them, you would win. Is anyone really going to do that, though? I doubt it, unless you just have a lot of money sitting around to spend on attorney fees.
Ritchie – just rereading this I saw the point about these apps taking your recipes. I actually had no idea they were doing this. This is wildly wrong and if one of them (or all) are doing that, I want nothing to do with them. I’m a proud supporter of your work and a Patron. If you are comfortable “naming and shaming” the apps I will gladly delete them and tell them exactly why
Well, thank you, it means a lot. There are some apps (like film.recipes) that are not copies of mine. That’s a good additional resource. I definitely support what Justin is doing, and am happy to point people in that direction (and have done so in the past on this website). But a lot of these apps are just other people’s recipes and photos, and the app developer is not a recipe creator (who knows, maybe not even a photographer). It’s just profiting off of other people’s work and art, most often without permission or even citation. Wildly wrong is how I would describe it, too.
First part thoroughly covered.
Second part, the realms of “Intellectual Property”.
You of course will need an Attorney.
Just lost mine, my World feared eldest bro.
100 years old.
He had the joys of registering the 1st “World Cup”. Deposited on his desk, out of the blue, by a courier.
Still got stolen later.
As Rugby players we all felt quite tainted by this trophy. After all, the ball is the wrong shape.
American football started as rugby, too.
Anyhow, ensure possession and all rights are reserved in the EXIF.
Should be enough for an enjoyable sue, possibly for “unimaginable sums”.
Best Rgds.
Yeah, it might end up coming to that, but I hope not. I would rather not, if it can be avoided.
People who use other peoples photos and recipies in their apps, without permission, or credit, are nothing more than thieves. >:(
I agree. In some of the apps, it isn’t necessarily the app developers themselves doing it (although sometimes it is), but it’s the consequence of the paradigm that they’ve created combined with a lack of moderation. So they are facilitating it and financially benefiting from it, while not actively doing it themselves. I don’t think that makes it any better, but that’s just my opinion.
Thank you! I probably watched the same video you watched about that app, and after confirming it also exists for Android I installed it on my phone. But fortunately I read the comment someone posted about voiding the warranty before using it to connect. I uninstalled the app right away. I was hesitant in any case because I was wondering where that whole library of recipes came from, and your article confirmed my suspicions.
I regularly use X RAW Studio to push recipes, and I do agree Fuji needs to port it to mobile platforms. There’s no reason they can’t, because the processing is all happening in-camera. It would also be great if they could make it work wirelessly but even if it required a USB-C connection it would be extremely useful. Please keep pushing them on this to the extent you can.
Once again thanks for staying on top of all things Fuji and giving us proper warning!
Fujifilm absolutely could make a mobile version of X RAW Studio without a whole lot of trouble. They could probably knock it out in a few days. I think if they did that plus made pushing Recipes to the camera more intuitive on it, that would be wonderful. They absolutely should do that, and I hope they do.
As far as connecting to an unlicensed program, if your warranty is expired, the risk is probably quite minimal. There’s always a tiny inherent risk when using something unofficial, but probably not something to worry much over. However, I would never want someone to risk their warranty over convenience. Or, at least, they should be 100% fully aware of the risk before deciding.
I’m with you on the use of recipes created by you or me or others being added to the app and shared with all users. This is valuable content being used by others for profit. Without this function, their app would be less appealing for sure. In my app, users can add their favourite recipes if they wish, but only they can see them. For me, that’s a trivial difference in programming, but stops the issue. In short, they know exactly what they are doing.
I agree, it’s very purposeful. Without yours, mine, and a handful of other people’s recipes being included without permission (or even citation!), these apps would be far, far less valuable and used a heck-of-a-lot less. Much more blatantly are our photos being used, too (we can all agree that is wrong, right?), which is unquestionably illegal (falls well outside of fair use). I’ve contemplated hiring an attorney, although I’d prefer not to go that route if it can be avoided. These apps are extraordinarily unethical in several ways (including not disclosing the voided warranty), it’s shocking to me that they have so much support, which has to be because people are completely unaware of it, that they wouldn’t support it if they only knew. These developers aren’t even making recipes themselves, they are just using everyone else (the actual creators), and are profiting off of you and I and others without consent or even at the very minimum proper credit. Very, very shameful. I have a ton of respect for you and all that you’ve done; I have zero respect for these clowns who are essentially just parasites preying on the community.
So for those users (like me) who respect and support both of your apps thru either paid app or monthly subscriptions (and who maybe don’t care about their warranty) are there any apps out there that can update C1-C7 with custom recipes from your phone that you think respect your proprietary IP? I won’t do something to jeopardize either of your IP, but I would really love a better solution for quickly loading recipes to my Fujis.
Not that I am aware of. There was one that I thought was, but then I just saw that it has some of my recipes. Sad, and disappointing.
I have been working on this feature for a very long time. It is coming to Fuji X Weekly soon. The reason why it has taken so long is that I was working with Fujifilm for about a year trying to obtain a license so that it would not void the warranty, and would be considered official by Fujifilm’s standards. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out, despite a lot of effort (even by Fujifilm). I think the legal department was unwilling to sign off on it, but others within the company were quite enthusiastic. So it’s with a lot of hesitation that I will be releasing it (hopefully within a few weeks); however, the risks of using it will be made clear, so that everyone can make the choice that they’re most comfortable with. Personally, I would not encourage anyone to use it with a camera still under warranty.