Your Camera’s Warranty Might Be Voided
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.
