Viofo Dash Cams Temporarily banned on Shopify

I believe the license also dictates you must share any improvements you make with the code.

In my opinion, if VIOFO open-sourced their firmware they would get lots of enthusiasts making features but that's their decision.
 
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SafeDriveSolutions said:
Within in minutes Viofo dash cameras will be temporarily banned on Shopify
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Simple, using another company's source code without licensing is illegal and results in a take down order due to copyright infringement. Novatech is a chipmaker and handles the SOC powering dashcams. Viofo, Vantrue, etc are responsible for the design of their motherboards and code that handles transferring the recorded data to a storage device (MicroSD).

Whomever Dashcam makers contracted (or possibly in house) pirated code without paying the fee. So Aleph 1 is within their rights to enforce a take down. Many of big name tech companies have been caught up in this same loop.

The Solution is to pay the licensing fee and settle. Like it or not, you can't lawfully resell a product that has violated the law. I don't see Amazon listings removed yet, but wouldn't be surprised if those are next?

Chinese companies have a long history of skirting the law, copying products, not paying licensing fees, etc. It seems like this behavior has caught up with them.
 
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jsmith said:
Simple, using another company's source code without licensing is illegal and results in a take down order due to copyright infringement. Novatech is a chipmaker and handles the SOC powering dashcams. Viofo, Vantrue, etc are responsible for the design of their motherboards and code that handles transferring the recorded data to a storage device (MicroSD).

Whomever Dashcam makers contracted (or possibly in house) pirated code without paying the fee. So Aleph 1 is within their rights to enforce a take down. Many of big name tech companies have been caught up in this same loop.

Simple solution is to pay the licensing fee and settle. Like it or not, you can't lawfully resell a product that has violated the law. I don't see Amazon listings removed yet, but wouldn't be surprised if those are next?

Chinese companies have a long history of skirting the law, copying products, not paying licensing fees, etc. It seems like this behavior has caught up with them.
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Welcome to the party.
 
jsmith said:
It'll be interesting to see the number of companies hit with a DCMA letters and to what extent their point of sales are effected. If Amazon joins the take down order, companies will be without major outlet to generate revenue.
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We have had people contact us globally whose stores are shutdown. Its weird that ours is still up.
 
jsmith said:
Do you use other point of sales like Amazon.ca? Have those been affected? I'm confused, wasn't Viofo removed from your Shopify? So in fact your store may be "online" but products are absent.
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We got notice and all of our products are still
Pending Suspension. They were supposed to be taken down Saturday 36 hoirs ago.
But for some reason ours are still live.

Many others have been shutdown so not sure.
 
All viofo products have now officially been removed from our store
IMG_6303.webp
 
I wonder what other dashcam companies are open to similar issues.
 
The amount of information coming in currently is at such high speed I dont even have time to add it all in here. I now have a list of all products affected from Vantrue and Viofo. There is a 3rd company in the dash camera space currently not listed yet that is trying to negotiate in the background.
 
While our Shopify site is still live, the Viofo dash cameras have been removed (suspended). Shopify has provided absolutely no information to us other than the DCMA notice, which did not provide any details at all. We received the notice Friday afternoon and gave us until 4pm on Saturday to respond. Blindsided with 24 hours notice to try to figure out what is going on is unfortunate to say the least. We did communicate with Aleph earlier today and they said they filed many of these DCMA's over the past few weeks, which included marketplace's other than Shopify. Hoping this is resolved quickly.
 
I wonder what will happen. Aleph One has no obligation to grant a license even if paid for now.
 
mentadent said:
I wonder what will happen. Aleph One has no obligation to grant a license even if paid for now.
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1. Companies can still do direct to customer sales from within China via Dropshipping to customers' homes.

2. Amazon listings seem unaffected as of this moment.

3. This appears to only be affecting 3rd party sellers for the moment.

So if Aleph One doesn't settle or grant a license, dashcam companies themselves can still do business as usual.

Work Around For 3rd parties: @SafeDriveSolutions @CaptureYourAction

Maybe link to Facebook Marketplace, Ebay Store, etc (3rd party sellers) until shopify is remedied.
 
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CaptureYourAction said:
While our Shopify site is still live, the Viofo dash cameras have been removed (suspended). Shopify has provided absolutely no information to us other than the DCMA notice, which did not provide any details at all. We received the notice Friday afternoon and gave us until 4pm on Saturday to respond. Blindsided with 24 hours notice to try to figure out what is going on is unfortunate to say the least. We did communicate with Aleph earlier today and they said they filed many of these DCMA's over the past few weeks, which included marketplace's other than Shopify. Hoping this is resolved quickly.
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Yes we got lots more information, but some of it is more for other resellers and I wont make public at this time. But other resellers i will share information with.
 
jsmith said:
Novatech is a chipmaker and handles the SOC powering dashcams. Viofo, Vantrue, etc are responsible for the design of their motherboards and code that handles transferring the recorded data to a storage device (MicroSD).
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Novatek is extremely secretive and discloses basically zero information publicly, and I’m pretty sure they put all their customers under NDA as a matter of course, but I know for a fact they distribute SDKs with their chipsets for manufacturers to use.

I also happen to have a leaked copy of one of these SDKs, circa 2012. This SDK contains the source code for an application labeled "cardv", which matches the name of the application binary called out in the technical documents Aleph One sent me as one of the offenders in both Viofo and Vantrue's firmware. Now, this source code does not contain any YAFFS usage. But this actually tracks with other information I have discovered: Viofo's older camera designs (A119V3, A129, A139, others) don't contain YAFFS in their firmwares. This leads me to believe YAFFS implementation only began some time after STARVIS 2 came out.


Screenshot from 2026-08-10 16-20-07.webp


Screenshot from 2026-08-10 16-32-01.webp


Now, it's obviously not possible to determine definitively whether this cardv application is the same as Viofo and Vantrue's cardv (or perhaps more accurately a progenitor, given its age) but I think it's very likely. If so, then it's entirely plausible that Viofo and Vantrue weren't originally aware of the unlicensed software implemented within their firmwares. But according to Aleph One, they were notified some time ago, so their continued usage is hard to excuse.
 
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hachielectronics said:
Novatek is extremely secretive and discloses basically zero information publicly, and I’m pretty sure they put all their customers under NDA as a matter of course, but I know for a fact they distribute SDKs with their chipsets for manufacturers to use.

I also happen to have a leaked copy of one of these SDKs, circa 2012. This SDK contains the source code for an application labeled "cardv", which matches the name of the application binary called out in the technical documents Aleph One sent me as one of the offenders in both Viofo and Vantrue's firmware. Now, this source code does not contain any YAFFS usage. But this actually tracks with other information I have discovered: Viofo's older camera designs (A119V3, A129, A139, others) don't contain YAFFS in their firmwares. This leads me to believe YAFFS implementation only began some time after STARVIS 2 came out.View attachment 93086View attachment 93087

Now, it's obviously not possible to determine definitively whether this cardv application is the same as Viofo and Vantrue's cardv (or perhaps more accurately a progenitor, given its age) but I think it's very likely. If so, then it's entirely plausible that Viofo and Vantrue weren't aware of the unlicensed software implemented within their firmwares.
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I think engineering was outsourced and those engineers used it. Based off the information I have pieced together. But were they given notice to change it?
 
hachielectronics said:
Novatek is extremely secretive and discloses basically zero information publicly, and I’m pretty sure they put all their customers under NDA as a matter of course, but I know for a fact they distribute SDKs with their chipsets for manufacturers to use.

I also happen to have a leaked copy of one of these SDKs, crca 2012. This SDK contains the source code for an application labeled "cardv", which matches the name of the application binary called out in the technical documents Aleph One sent me as one of the offenders in both Viofo and Vantrue's firmware. Now, this source code does not contain any YAFFS usage. But this actually tracks with other information I have discovered: Viofo's older camera designs (A119V3, A129, A139, others) don't contain YAFFS in their firmwares. This leads me to believe YAFFS implementation only began some time after STARVIS 2 came out.


View attachment 93086

View attachment 93087

Now, it's obviously not possible to determine definitively whether this cardv application is the same as Viofo and Vantrue's cardv (or perhaps more accurately a progenitor, given its age) but I think it's very likely. If so, then it's entirely plausible that Viofo and Vantrue weren't originally aware of the unlicensed software implemented within their firmwares. But according to Aleph One, they were notified some time ago, so their continued usage is hard to excuse.
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Completely flawed and presumptive argument.

1. Your source document is 14 years old, and correlation doesn't mean causation.
Now, this source code does not contain any YAFFS usage
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2. We have seen no proof that Novatech has been served ceased and desist papers nor a DMCA Violation

3. If Viofo, Vantrue, etc contracted out to Novatech, and in fact Novatech was the responsible party for utilizing the YAFFS source code that handles data written to storage (MicroSD), these dashcam makers would quickly provide proof to absolve themselves of ANY AND ALL liability. Plus, Novatech would have been notified by affected dashcam makers, who would then demand the code be corrected, damages be awarded, etc. Clearly, this has not happened as of right now.

4. Viofo, Vantrue, etc were "Made Aware" of a problem, and didn't forward it on to Novatech (according to you). Again, if Novatech were the responsible party, dashcam makers would be suing Novatech for damages, and demanding the offending code be fixed. Aleph One would take down the DMCA against dashcam makers and pursue Novatech.

Thus, I don't think your argument is credible with what we've seen released thus far.
 
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