Viofo Dash Cams Temporarily banned on Shopify

SafeDriveSolutions

SafeDriveSolutions

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Dash Cam
Viofo A329S, Vueroid S1, U3000 Pro & more....
Within in minutes Viofo dash cameras will be temporarily banned on Shopify
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What is the backstory on this? Anything you can tell us?

edit: just saw the video. Wow is all I can say. My take is that if Novatek embedded the tech, then Novatek pays the license fee, and that gets passed on to the buyer. I wonder if Novatek has been approached already and told ALEPH 1 to go pound sand, so Aleph 1 took action using the DMCA? I don't see where Viofo can be faulted for anything.
 
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Why are you targeting viofo if it is a Novatec wide problem?
I can still purchase viofo dashcams from their site.
Your heading seems to be grandstanding. Why not put novatek in your heading instead?

Then explain why in your post.
 
LateralNW said:
Why are you targeting viofo if it is a Novatec wide problem?
I can still purchase viofo dashcams from their site.
Your heading seems to be grandstanding. Why not put novatek in your heading instead?

Then explain why in your post.
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Because the DMCA involved Viofo, as I understand it. DMCA actions in the U.S. are very serious legal events. Failure to do a 'take down' could cost a business hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and other expenses. Shopify received a take-down order for Viofo dashcams; they have no choice but to comply or face legal action. Aleph 1 could do the same with Amazon, Best Buy, and whoever else worldwide that sells Viofo dashcams. Therefore, any business on Shopify that is selling a Viofo will be notified that their Viofo listings will be removed from the Shopify market. Depending on how long the legal action/negotiations go on between Novatek, Viofo, and other dashcam brands (and there is at least one more I am aware of that is facing the same issue), a small business may stay in business or go broke.

What is in question is the use of an open-source SDK from Aleph 1. Open Source is generally free as long as the user does not profit from it. Once you profit from it, then you are required to purchase a license. Basically, though, there are a number of Open Source agreements. The issue gets cloudier if dashcam brand 'AAA' uses an outside source for all their software; in other words, brand AAA has no coders and uses a software house for firmware and apps. Did the software house knowingly use an Open Source code packet in a for-profit environment? Did Novatek advise the software house of available SDK's and to be aware of licensing?

It is unlikely Viofo is at fault here; that is my view. However, any dashcam business that uses Shopify (worldwide) will have its Viofo listings pulled unless there are ongoing back-room negotiations. Shopify has no choice in this unless Aleph 1 delays the takedown order, or there are other legal actions.
 
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Sounds like a seller problem with shopify.
Sure it sucks for the seller.
 
LateralNW said:
Why are you targeting viofo if it is a Novatec wide problem?
I can still purchase viofo dashcams from their site.
Your heading seems to be grandstanding. Why not put novatek in your heading instead?

Then explain why in your post.
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Vantrue has now been served as well.
At the time of the video we only knew of Viofo.
I am not attacking Viofo. You might want to watch the video again.
 
LateralNW said:
Sounds like a seller problem with shopify.
Sure it sucks for the seller.
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People have received the notice globally. Other resellers have contacted us privately telling us they have gotten lawyers involved. This is a real thing and our products were supposed to no longer be active as of 4 hours ago. Why they are still active when it is pending?

We know other reselers in other parts of the workd where it has been deactivated.
 
SafeDriveSolutions said:
Vantrue has now been served as well.
At the time of the video we only knew of Viofo.
I am not attacking Viofo. You might want to watch the video again.
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It looks to me as a seller problem.
Doesn't surprise me Vantrue got nailed to. I always wondered if they used the same programmers.

I watched the video and also did the research independent of your video.

As I said it sucks as a seller.
Hopefully the Dashcam companies will resolve it asap.
 
LateralNW said:
Sounds like a seller problem with shopify.
Sure it sucks for the seller.
Click to expand...

Not a seller/retailer problem at all. What happens with these takedown orders under the DMCA is that the complainant often goes after the easiest way to guarantee a negotiation and prevent their unlicensed property from being sold. In the case of online sales, they go after Shopify, Amazon, or whomever. SafeDriveSolutions is letting the dashcam user base and its customers know what is going on. I find no harm or grandstanding in his effort.

This is a legal matter between other entities that cannot help but draw in the retailers that sell the product. Small and larger retailers around the world have no choice in this matter. DMCA is no joking matter in the U.S. DMCA can shut down your site in a heartbeat, and it will be down for weeks until matters are resolved...DMCA is that powerful in the U.S.
 
LateralNW said:
It looks to me as a seller problem.
Doesn't surprise me Vantrue got nailed to. I always wondered if they used the same programmers.

I watched the video and also did the research independent of your video.

As I said it sucks as a seller.
Hopefully the Dashcam companies will resolve it asap.
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I have full faith this will be resolved fairly quickly. I do not think anyone went out of their way to cause this circumstance from Vantrue or Viofo.

But we reported it to make sure people were aware as this was the information we got.

When all of our products use a Novatek chip. I needed to know if we were out of business in terms of ecommerce.
 
lufa6977 said:
Not a seller/retailer problem at all.
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Yeah it is.
Safedrive solutions can't sell product = seller/ shopify problem.

The underlying problem is out of the sellers hands. The seller could dispute it but without technical knowledge and inside information regarding what the manufactures have paid per unit they are in the hands of the supplier/manufacture to resolve with shopify.

The first point will be do the manufactures use this internal file system. It may be in the code and not active / being used, but that's probably a long shot.

It is an interesting problem for the sellers.
You would expect all the licence agreement boxes have been ticked before they go on sale, at least in an ideal world lol.
 
Where is the link to the video?
 
lufa6977 said:
Once you profit from it, then you are required to purchase a license
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Just wanted to add a small asterisk here. There is a second option that does not require any money to exchange hands. If they simply release the full source code for their firmwares, that would also meet commercial licensing requirements.

I highly doubt this will happen because chinese companies universally hate the concept of open source software despite so frequently taking advantage of it, as here.

Also, hi. I am also a retailer getting bamboozled by this debacle. It has not been fun.
 
LateralNW said:
It may be in the code and not active / being used, but that's probably a long shot.
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I was also hopeful for this, but I cracked open a couple of the firmwares myself today and it is definitely in active use, not just a library that happened to get bundled in with the kernel or something left over from previous builds.

Side note - I am very curious if any of the major retailers will actually be forced to take these products down like we lil fellas have. I know from speaking with someone at Aleph that Amazon and Best Buy have both been given takedown notices, with the notice to Best Buy also requiring products be taken off shelves in-store. But I also feel like either of these two companies could totally ignore this and get away with it.
 
There are many different open source licenses. Each one having its own set of requirements for compliance. Some allow use with no attribution, some require you to tell everyone you used it and who the original author is. GPL requires you to publish your source code if you use it and distribute it. and many semi-commercial licenses that allow individuals to use it for free, but require payment for commercial use.

It would be helpful to know which license is involved in this dispute, and what software is involved.
 
DAP said:
There are many different open source licenses. Each one having its own set of requirements for compliance. Some allow use with no attribution, some require you to tell everyone you used it and who the original author is. GPL requires you to publish your source code if you use it and distribute it. and many semi-commercial licenses that allow individuals to use it for free, but require payment for commercial use.

It would be helpful to know which license is involved in this dispute, and what software is involved.
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The software is YAFFS, which carries a GPL v2 license.
 
hachielectronics said:
The software is YAFFS, which carries a GPL v2 license.
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If this is the case, than the problem has nothing to do with the fact that they are selling a device with this software in it. The problem is that GPL V2 requires that if you use software with GPL licensed code in your code, and you distribute that code, you must publish the source code to your code. Perfectly legal and within the license to sell a device with this software in it, as long as you publish the source code to your code. People who publish their code under the GPL don't like it when their software is stolen from the public by people who don't give back to the public.
There are two options for Viofo, remove the YAFFS code from their software and write their own implementation, or publish all of their source code that relies on YAFFS. There are no other options for Viofo.
 
DAP said:
If this is the case, than the problem has nothing to do with the fact that they are selling a device with this software in it. The problem is that GPL V2 requires that if you use software with GPL licensed code in your code, and you distribute that code, you must publish the source code to your code. Perfectly legal and within the license to sell a device with this software in it, as long as you publish the source code to your code. People who publish their code under the GPL don't like it when their software is stolen from the public by people who don't give back to the public.
There are two options for Viofo, remove the YAFFS code from their software and write their own implementation, or publish all of their source code that relies on YAFFS. There are no other options for Viofo.
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There is a commercial distribution of YAFFS without open sourcing requirements, it costs a flat $20k per product. Not totally clear on what would constitute a “product” here, for example if this is Novatek bundling YAFFS into a base firmware that they distribute to companies buying their chips then Novatek could probably pay a license per SoC family and that’d cover all their customers, rather than Viofo for example owing $20k per dash cam that uses the same boilerplate firmware and hardware architecture as all the rest.

It’d be excellent if this forced them to open source their firmwares but I suspect the money route is more likely, which is a shame.
 
From GPL-2.0

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
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This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs.
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There are a handful of questions, answers to which we will likely never hear of, but is it the OpenSource that is being used, or the commercial version? It seems it is being used in a commercial way so...that requires a fee. Who pays the fee? Novatec or the contract software house that developed the app?



yaffs2.webp
 
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