Peenie Wallie

Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, suggests that it may be a 'Tempest in a teapot'.

Dave Coffin, the uncontested guru of RAW image file formats has successfully created conversion programs, including dcraw.c, that convert proprietary RAW formats for many digital cameras to a general RAW Portable Pixel Map(PPM) format. He suggests that there's nothing all that new or challenging in Nikon's encryption.

I respectfully suggest that Glenn Reynolds is off base in his characterization of this controversy. I further suggest that Dave Coffin has underestimated the nature and resolve of his adversaries.

Although it's true that the various camera manufactures have practiced data compression and encryption of various types for some time, and it may be hard to imagine Nikon's white balance encryption as an Orwellian exercise, the camera manufacturers, collectively, are clearly on a divergent paths in relation to their RAW image formats.

Although the camera manufactures have, so far, given Dave Coffin a pass and turned a blind eye while he hacked their proprietary formats, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that 1) they don't like what he's doing and 2) they're going to try to stop him by any means available.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the camera manufacturers are currently in the process of a) making their file formats virtually impossible to crack and b) preparing a lawsuit against Dave Coffin under the DMCA to stop him from 'illegally' cracking their proprietary file formats.

Why does it matter? It matters because the proprietary RAW file formats limit the pictures' value. I own a Canon EOS 20D, and I don't shoot RAW images. The reason is because a) I can't see a file preview in Windows Explorer and b) I couldn't open the files in Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and c)I don't like Canon's software for working with RAW images. So, I've got three grand tied up in this camera, and I go around shooting .jpg files because, although the images are compressed, they're MUCH easier to work with. The .jpg file format is one of the most widely accepted picture formats, and almost any photo software can open the file.

It's true that, about six months after I bought my EOS 20D, Adobe Photoshop released a plugin that allowed Photoshop to open my EOS20D RAW images, but by then, I had just decided to quit shooting raw images.

This is no tempest in a teacup. This is a real problem that presents a clear and present danger to the photographic community at large. Unless the photographic community unequivocally demands an open source RAW format, the end result will quite possibly be that images taken on Canon's cameras can only be edited and viewed with Canon software and swarms of RIAA inspired attorneys will search the internet in perpetuity, suing hapless photographers over cracked RAW file formats.