# Will Third Party Firmware Void Your Canon Warranty?



## Canon Rumors Guy (May 27, 2013)

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<p><strong>Are you covered if you use Magic Lantern?

</strong>DIY Photography did a great article on third party firmware and whether or not it voids your warranty. They did it for various brands including Canon, Nikon and Panasonic. Of the three, only Canon is “okay” with you using third party firmware and your warranty will not be “voided”. The only catch is if you “brick” the camera and it’s related to third party software, Canon will not cover that repair.</p>
<p><strong>Canon’s Response</strong>

<em>“There is no such thing as “voiding” the Canon warranty, there are simply repairs that are covered, and those that are not.</em></p>
<p><em>For instance, the repairs for a failure of the buttons on the back of the camera within the warranty period, on a camera that does not show any evidence of mishandling or misuse, would likely be covered. Repairs for a camera that is “bricked” or otherwise having issues directly related to using a third party firmware would not be covered.”</em></p>
<p><strong>EOS-1 Bodies

</strong>Canon doesn’t mention anything about EOS-1 bodies and third party firmware in the above story. However, I have been told Canon would take legal action against anyone publicly releasing unauthorized firmware for the EOS-1 bodies, so this is probably why we haven’t seen any development of such software.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.diyphotography.net/dear-canonnikonpanasonic-can-i-use-custom-firmware-my-camera" target="_blank">You can read the entire article at DIY Photographer</a></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
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## J.R. (May 27, 2013)

Canon Rumors said:


> EOS-1 Bodies
> 
> Canon doesn’t mention anything about EOS-1 bodies and third party firmware in the above story. However, I have been told Canon would take legal action against anyone publicly releasing unauthorized firmware for the EOS-1 bodies, so this is probably why we haven’t seen any development of such software.



The inquiry was made with specific mention of a 5D Mark II so I don't know why Canon would have responded mentioning anything about EOS-1 bodies and third party firmware. 

Any reason why you feel that Canon would treat the EOS-1 bodies from all their other cameras? 

FWIW, ML website says this on the reason for not supporting the EOS-1 series - 



> The EOS-1D and Cinema series of Canon cameras fall outside of ML project scope because of their prohibitive price and narrow user base.


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## neuroanatomist (May 27, 2013)

Sounds like CRguy's reference to 1-series bodies is a separate communication from this one. Also, it seems unlikely that ML would state, "The 1-series and Cinema bodies are out of our project scope because we're afraid Canon will sue our pants off if we touch them." (In fact, both reasons are probably true for ML.)


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## J.R. (May 27, 2013)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sounds like CRguy's reference to 1-series bodies is a separate communication from this one. Also, it seems unlikely that ML would state, "The 1-series and Cinema bodies are out of our project scope because we're afraid Canon will sue our pants off if we touch them." (In fact, both reasons are probably true for ML.)



I think I'm missing something here. From the original post it is apparent that Canon doesn't have a problem with ML being run on its Cameras ... why would Canon sue if only for the EOS-1 cameras and not the others? After all, a hack is a hack.


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## iKenndac (May 27, 2013)

J.R. said:


> I think I'm missing something here. From the original post it is apparent that Canon doesn't have a problem with ML being run on its Cameras ... why would Canon sue if only for the EOS-1 cameras and not the others? After all, a hack is a hack.



Canon seem to be a lot more protective of the EOS-1 series. See the "Third Party Firmware?" section of this post, for example: http://www.canonrumors.com/2013/01/inside-the-canon-eos-1d-c/


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## Meh (May 27, 2013)

From a legal perspective, nothing can ever "void" the warranty on a product per se. However, this seems to be a commonly stated issue for many products. For example, car dealerships often tell customers that if they don't perform the standard service work their warranty will be voided. Absolutely untrue. The warranty is a legal contract and can not be voided. What is true, is that if damage is caused by user negligence the manufacturer can refuse to cover said damage. So, continuing the car example, if you don't change your oil and the engine seizes because the oil has turned to equal parts syrup and sludge, they can refuse to cover the repair.

Therefore Canon's response is quite correct and honest. If you install ML and the use of ML damages your camera, they don't have to cover. But if ML is not the cause of the damage, they must honor the warranty.

As for Canon threatening legal action only for firmware hacks on a 1-series but not on other bodies that seems strange. I seriously doubt that's their official position. If ML is not supporting 1-series bodies it is far more likely that they just didn't want to put the work into writing code for 1-series bodies when for video the 5D2/3 is the much bigger market.


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## Albi86 (May 27, 2013)

Meh said:


> Therefore Canon's response is quite correct and honest. If you install ML and the use of ML damages your camera, they don't have to cover. But if ML is not the cause of the damage, they must honor the warranty.



+1

One thing I don't understand about the post: what does it mean that "only Canon is OK" with that? Other companies will refuse to even touch your camera if you installed a 3rd-party firmware - even if it has nothing to do with the damage?


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## Sella174 (May 27, 2013)

Canon Rumors said:


> ... Canon would take legal action against anyone publicly releasing unauthorized firmware for the EOS-1 bodies ...



Yeah, and Ford is going to sue Fiesta owners for fitting Regal tyres. Honestly, what's next ... the threat of legal action for the use of non-Canon lenses, unauthorised brands of CF cards and/or not "upgrading" within six months of the "replacement" model being announced.


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## Meh (May 27, 2013)

Albi86 said:


> Meh said:
> 
> 
> > Therefore Canon's response is quite correct and honest. If you install ML and the use of ML damages your camera, they don't have to cover. But if ML is not the cause of the damage, they must honor the warranty.
> ...



They probably can take that position but not formally say "your warranty is voided". Never underestimate the cleverness of people who want to take a self-serving position on an issue. They could simply claim that part of their service process is to run diagnostic software and any unauthorised firmware would interfere.... blah blah blah.

The fun thing about our legal system is that anyone can do anything they want and your recourse is to sue them and that takes a lot of money and time with an uncertain outcome. And referring back to my above point about being "clever for self-serving purposes", lawyers are the worst of the bunch.

The saving grace is that if you did sue them they would settle very quickly rather than spend the money defending and risk getting a ruling that they must change their policy. If they settle with you and fix your camera/car/whatever they can keep on taking the same position with other customers and just deal with the few who scream the loudest.


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## Sella174 (May 27, 2013)

iKenndac said:


> Canon seem to be a lot more protective of the EOS-1 series.



Obvious. It's because all Canon cameras use (basically) the same processor, so if you decode/hack the firmware of the 1D-series, then you can enable all those nice things on Rebels ... like button re-assignment.


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## neuroanatomist (May 27, 2013)

J.R. said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Sounds like CRguy's reference to 1-series bodies is a separate communication from this one. Also, it seems unlikely that ML would state, "The 1-series and Cinema bodies are out of our project scope because we're afraid Canon will sue our pants off if we touch them." (In fact, both reasons are probably true for ML.)
> ...



A hack to the 5DIII adds features without hurting Canon's bottom line. A hacked 1D X that functions as a 1D C...Canon doesn't want.


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## iKenndac (May 27, 2013)

Sella174 said:


> Yeah, and Ford is going to sue Fiesta owners for fitting Regal tyres. Honestly, what's next ... the threat of legal action for the use of non-Canon lenses, unauthorised brands of CF cards and/or not "upgrading" within six months of the "replacement" model being announced.



Your analogy is fairly flawed. A more fitting car analogy would be Ford suing Fiesta owners for altering the software in the car's ECU.

The issue here isn't the users — Canon will never sue the users. The issue is with the developers of Magic Lantern. You enter some very tricky ground when you start reverse-engineering proprietary products that're covered by intellectual property laws. If you can prove that you've done a completely black-box reverse engineer (i.e., you did it completely on your own by observing the product(s) you have) then you're legally protected from lawsuits. 

However, if there's even a _whiff_ of some inside information being used - be it a confidential informant from inside the company or unearthing some leaked document and using the information therein, you get into very hot water very quickly. 

I imagine Canon are happy to let things slide a bit for "lesser" cameras and Magic Lantern etc. However, _if_ their stance on the EOS-1 is indeed what this thread is discussing, Canon's legal team will be looking for any possible way they can put pressure on the developers of Magic Lantern.

To be honest, I don't blame Magic Lantern's development team for keeping away from them. Sure, this all may just be smoke and mirrors from Canon, but from their point of view, it's not worth it. Someone posts a tip on their forum that helps development which later turns out to have been from an internal document? Bam - lawsuit.


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## Sella174 (May 27, 2013)

Meh said:


> The fun thing about *our* legal system is that anyone can do anything they want and your recourse is to sue them and that takes a lot of money and time with an uncertain outcome.



The fun thing about the legal system where I live, is that (in this case) Canon must show monetary loss due to 3rd party firmware _before_ they can sue.


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## Meh (May 27, 2013)

neuroanatomist said:


> J.R. said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Fair point. The release of the 1DC opens up a nice little market for a firmware hack. Still a tiny market though compared to 5D2/3 bodies used for video.... so maybe not worth getting into a battle with Canon.


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## Meh (May 27, 2013)

Sella174 said:


> Meh said:
> 
> 
> > The fun thing about *our* legal system is that anyone can do anything they want and your recourse is to sue them and that takes a lot of money and time with an uncertain outcome.
> ...



That's generally true in most jursidictions... if you are suing for damages you must prove the damages. However, if there is any law, or interpretation thereof, that might disallow a third party from hacking their code they could seek an injunction without claiming damages. And yes, it is fun


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## Sella174 (May 27, 2013)

iKenndac said:


> I imagine Canon are happy to let things slide a bit for "lesser" cameras and Magic Lantern etc. However, _if_ their stance on the EOS-1 is indeed what this thread is discussing, Canon's legal team will be looking for any possible way they can put pressure on the developers of Magic Lantern.



Actually, according to the legal system where I live, the very fact that Canon "allows" ML on "lesser" cameras makes it impossible for them to sue regarding the 1D-series ... the rule of tacit consent of the whole.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (May 27, 2013)

Sella174 said:


> Canon Rumors said:
> 
> 
> > ... Canon would take legal action against anyone publicly releasing unauthorized firmware for the EOS-1 bodies ...
> ...


 
If you modify Canon firmware and distribute it, you have breached their patents or copyright as well a the user agreement. You can modify it all you want for your own personal use.

If you put cheap tires on your car, and they explode and kill you, Ford won't sue you. Why do you think they would? They also won't rebuild your car if you put defective tires on it, you need to go after the tire maker.

If you modify the tires, and that causes them to fail, they won't be replaced. Some modify tires by cutting down the treads to get better performance out of them.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (May 27, 2013)

iKenndac said:


> Sella174 said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah, and Ford is going to sue Fiesta owners for fitting Regal tyres. Honestly, what's next ... the threat of legal action for the use of non-Canon lenses, unauthorised brands of CF cards and/or not "upgrading" within six months of the "replacement" model being announced.
> ...



They are ot reverse egieerig the firware ad ruig a ew oe they are just hookig i ew code o the ouside. Whe usig L th

ahh da i guess 'fiig' y keyoard failed ahh dar


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## Archangel72 (May 27, 2013)

I think Canon should put more effort and deal with more brain and optimize firmware for 1D series instead of pursuing one who could actualy make better software.
They think that we, users are idiots. 
I am very disappointed with the fact that I payed for 6.000,00 $ camera that has a "less power" in video quality than 5 year old 50d that cost 350$ and with ML hack becomes raw video monster.
I feel like spaceball... quote: "Wait, what happened, where are they??? I don't know sir, they must have hiper jets out there! And what do we have on this thing??? Cuisinart ??? No sir... (we have 1Dx) ;D Well, find them, catch them... end of quote.
So Canon, what do you say? What do we have in here? How will we catch 50D, or 5DMarkII, or 5DMarkIII... they must have raw video, and what do we have ???
I suppose that we 1Dx owners are 6.000,00$ succers !!! 
Good job Canon... nicely done...

http://youtu.be/mk7VWcuVOf0


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## optikus (May 27, 2013)

Hello,

I expect the situation of the Magic Lantern developpers will deescalate in that way, the extended features of the Canon - cameras and the possibility to extend them by oneself also if - if - warranty is void is an advantage for Canon in selling their products and keep the value and image of this cameras on a constant high level. Perhaps not concerning the last model of a series, but what mess shall happen if someone will install ML on an 50D? He can increase video capabilities of his EOS equipment - perhaps he will akquire additional material and, with growing personal competence he will get more - and he will get, ... from Canon according to his present equipment. Compared to other brands in the market this effekt of feeding the sheep on and then having them in the own customers clan is not the fastest, but one fo the most reliable marketing strategies in this expoding market with every second a new produkt. And I'm shure - they know this.

Joerg


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## Marsu42 (May 27, 2013)

Fyi: From everything I read on the Magic Lantern forum, Canon service doesn't even care if you have managed to brick your camera and have even left the sd card with ml in the camera - obviously it's not worth the hassle to argue with the customer to them. 

But of course ymmv, even though ml can be uninstalled at any time w/o any trace of it ever been there.


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## infared (May 27, 2013)

Can anyone tell me if they know of any 5DMark III's "Bricking" (which I assume means freezing up and becoming non-responsive? ...if I am wrong about that term...please inform me)??????
I only shoot still and think that the 5DIII is one incredible camera...so I do not have a strong desire to install ML on my camera unless in the final version there are some truly compelling features for still shooters.


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## dgatwood (May 27, 2013)

Meh said:


> From a legal perspective, nothing can ever "void" the warranty on a product per se. However, this seems to be a commonly stated issue for many products. For example, car dealerships often tell customers that if they don't perform the standard service work their warranty will be voided. Absolutely untrue. The warranty is a legal contract and can not be voided. What is true, is that if damage is caused by user negligence the manufacturer can refuse to cover said damage. So, continuing the car example, if you don't change your oil and the engine seizes because the oil has turned to equal parts syrup and sludge, they can refuse to cover the repair.



Correct. And more to the point, if the door falls off or the transmission dies, they still have to cover those repairs.





Meh said:


> As for Canon threatening legal action only for firmware hacks on a 1-series but not on other bodies that seems strange. I seriously doubt that's their official position. If ML is not supporting 1-series bodies it is far more likely that they just didn't want to put the work into writing code for 1-series bodies when for video the 5D2/3 is the much bigger market.



There's probably a fairly trivial way to modify the older 1-series cameras to do 4K video, but the extra heat would cause a high device failure rate because of the lack of a larger heat sink found in the later versions. So I could see that particular hack leading to legal action, if only because Canon's only choices would be to refuse warranty service or eat the significant repair costs.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (May 28, 2013)

Archangel72 said:


> I think Canon should put more effort and deal with more brain and optimize firmware for 1D series instead of pursuing one who could actualy make better software.
> They think that we, users are idiots.
> I am very disappointed with the fact that I payed for 6.000,00 $ camera that has a "less power" in video quality than 5 year old 50d that cost 350$ and with ML hack becomes raw video monster.
> I feel like spaceball... quote: "Wait, what happened, where are they??? I don't know sir, they must have hiper jets out there! And what do we have on this thing??? Cuisinart ??? No sir... (we have 1Dx) ;D Well, find them, catch them... end of quote.
> ...


 
So you think that 50 frames of video with no audio is monster performance? Or 250 or 300 frames at lower resolution? The 50D hack is a stunt but no one is going to film a movie using it 50 frames at a time.

Doesn't your 1D X do what you bought it for? If not, you should have returned it. New cameras with new capabilities are going to keep coming out, and ML is going to hack older bodies even if they are not practical to actually use.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (May 28, 2013)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> iKenndac said:
> 
> 
> > Sella174 said:
> ...



OK now, well what I meant to say, and now can that I got a new keyboard, is:

They are not really reverse engineering the firmware. The camera still runs the original firmware straight from Canon. It's not a replacement version that they figured out how to write themselves. There is way too much that have no clue about with how DIGIC and the sensor works to even begin such a task. They simply load the regular firmware plus hooks and extensions that they wrote from the ground up.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (May 28, 2013)

dgatwood said:


> Meh said:
> 
> 
> > From a legal perspective, nothing can ever "void" the warranty on a product per se. However, this seems to be a commonly stated issue for many products. For example, car dealerships often tell customers that if they don't perform the standard service work their warranty will be voided. Absolutely untrue. The warranty is a legal contract and can not be voided. What is true, is that if damage is caused by user negligence the manufacturer can refuse to cover said damage. So, continuing the car example, if you don't change your oil and the engine seizes because the oil has turned to equal parts syrup and sludge, they can refuse to cover the repair.
> ...



I suppose switching on a module of code that had been turned off (4k and such, assuming the code actually is in the 1DX firmware, and it might not be, at least not the most recent versions of it) could be perhaps considered something like breaking copy protection and maybe on tricky ground.

If the code is not in there or if they simply, in any case, wrote their own code to drive it all (which I don't think they know enough to do) then it should be fine and Canon could say nothing about it. But the developers said they don't want to get involved without unlocking things that are clearly sold as different tiers since they said they don't think it is right (even if perhaps some thing the 1DC thing itself is wrong and foolish). Some might also be afraid that if they push too much Canon might encrpyt stuff in the future.


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## Marsu42 (May 28, 2013)

infared said:


> Can anyone tell me if they know of any 5DMark III's "Bricking"



The Magic Lantern devs often "brick" their test cameras, but there are ways to recover it with a special recovery firmware so most of the time a trip to Canon service is not necessary.

As a user using a final (not nightly or alpha like currently on 5d3) version it shouldn't happen, but as all software ml has bugs, thus a minimal risk remains. For me, I've been using ml for years w/o any problems on my 60d.

But generally questions might find more ml users to answer here: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php#c3


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## iKenndac (May 28, 2013)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> They are not really reverse engineering the firmware. The camera still runs the original firmware straight from Canon. It's not a replacement version that they figured out how to write themselves. There is way too much that have no clue about with how DIGIC and the sensor works to even begin such a task. They simply load the regular firmware plus hooks and extensions that they wrote from the ground up.



Yes they are — they reverse-engineered many APIs that the firmware provides to display stuff on screen, get buttons presses, etc etc etc. They wouldn't know *how* to hook into the firmware without reverse-engineering at least some of it to figure out where to hook in.

In fact, they say the project uses reverse-engineering right in their FAQ, under the "Is It Legal?" header: "This is a clean room / black box reverse engineering effort", and again under the "Is it safe?" header: "Magic Lantern was created by reverse engineering an undocumented system that controls hardware."


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## bluegreenturtle (May 28, 2013)

Recall that the *entirety* of the 1dx/1dc legal threats come from a single report here on canon rumors that CR was "told by someone" at canon that they would "bring the full weight" Canon's legal team if somebody tried to modify the 1 series. Not exactly a definitive response. In this case it's at least a bit more legit coming from the CR guy, but it's amazing how one offhanded comment on some message board or a random hyperbole from EOSHD becomes somehow fact. The DSLR video community is so incestuous.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (May 28, 2013)

iKenndac said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > They are not really reverse engineering the firmware. The camera still runs the original firmware straight from Canon. It's not a replacement version that they figured out how to write themselves. There is way too much that have no clue about with how DIGIC and the sensor works to even begin such a task. They simply load the regular firmware plus hooks and extensions that they wrote from the ground up.
> ...



Yeah but come on that is in the most minimal way, obviously they have to figure out how to hook into button presses or render something to the screen if it will do anything at all. It's not like those MS-DOS clone BIOS where they reverse engineered the whole thing and none of the original BIOS code is even there at all.


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