Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat The Philosophy of Tweaking Equipment

But it has been happening for a few years now, and companies are getting used to the fact it will happen and are changing their business accordingly.

The only surprise for me is just how long it has taken for this to happen here, with Meridian being all about digital I thought it would have happened years ago.
I think the fact this is such a small forum is the reason it has taken so long.

But surely Meridian must have seen this coming, I can not believe for one moment they didn't expect it.

Same answer as my posts above.........

You either had to BUY the full Naim Product.........or just the Linear Power Supply..........to achieve what you posit in your question

The Naim Power supply did not manifest itself out of fresh air and simply arrive free on your doorstep

Cloning Firmware on a "Free" basis is different to Buying external hardware to improve the Performance of your existing kit

Malcolmw was stating "The issue is really about what commercial harm is caused to the OEM by modifications to any part of the system." Joel was responding to that statement.

Just because I pay for a conversion vs getting it for nothing does not change the "commercial harm" statement. Either the car manufacturer gets upset or they don't.

I just think there is a bit of double standards here, because it is Meridian "different rules" seem to being applied, hardware vs software/firmware, different rules.

Nick

All of this brings me back to my point that Erwin's original 5200 apodizing transplant was on more dodgy ground. His latest offering is his own creation.

Reverse engineering notwithstanding in both the above cases and which, actually, wasn't very difficult at all. Whether or not Meridian's IP was infringed does depend, I think, on your POV: the location of the apodizing filter was blindingly obvious (simple diff of the before and after 5200 firmware) and had not been protected at all by Meridian.

Anyone here would an Imbecile if they went away for a weekend and left their Front Door open and Alarm off

If some "Uninvited Guests" come in and decide to "liberate" all of your belongings, then I will leave it to you to attach a better Adjective to describe those "Uninvited Guests"

Now what if those same "Guests" were neighbours or friends.......with whom you thought you had built a level of trust and understanding??

So you have the "Imbecile" and whatever adjective you use to describe the "Univited Guest".........it's interesting to note that only one of those is open to Litigation and Prosecution

Can someone clarify whether the reverse engineering Erwin did is in itself illegal or contrary to a specific licensing agreement? Regardless of what he then went on to do with what he learned.

Presumably the "Uninvited guests" brought some items of their own to leave at your house. Items that they considered to be "better" than the ones you had

Apologies if the following recover ground already discussed. But I have just tried to catch up on 5 pages of posts and may have missed pertinent points.

I will also use the car analogy to make some points as I think it is a good case for highlighting what is effectively a legal software modification and what is, IMHO an illegal modification, no matter how clever people think it is.

Facts:
Reverse engineering is illegal in the EU except under specific circumstances which I believe do not apply to the apodising changes but may for a third party Trifield fix. Laws of reverse engineering differ between hardware and software. In the EU, reverse engineering of software is specifically legislated under the European Computer Program Directive 2009/24/EC.

The EU definition of computer program also covers that built into hardware.

The EU definition only covers the program, not the ideas and principles of the computer program.

In the EU directive, a person has the right to study, observe and test a computer program unless it breaches copyright of the program.

This bit is important so I shall quote it direct from the EU directive. "The unauthorised reproduction, translation, adaptation or transformation of the form of the code in which a copy of a computer program has been made available constitutes an infringement of the exclusive rights of the author."

Fair use overrides the copyright in certain circumstances. Galoob vs Nintendo - the modification of computer software for personal use is legal under 'fair use'.

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I am going to consider the software side of things because that is what I understand.

My interpretation of the EU law:

Modifying and reverse engineering hardware is completely different as computer software is covered specifically under separate law. I do not believe in any way that the power supply mod (or other hardware mods) is illegal in any way, especially when undertaken for personal use.

When purchasing a piece of hardware (ie a processor) that contains software, the law on computer software still applies. I was going to argue that it did not until you updated its software in which case the update and the tools used to perform the update were covered, but the EU directive specifically includes hardware containing software so in the EU at least, the software is protected on both counts when firmware in hardware is updated.

The ability to modify software for personal use is fair use. Thus, the change to update speaker legends would be legal. To make a business out of it probably would not be legal.

Georges +3dB fix does not modify the software thus is legal. The fact that he reversed engineered would also be legal under EU law, unless he breached the copyright of the software, which I don't believe that he did.

Erwins coping of 5200 firmware to extract filter coefficients is illegal as it infringes Meridian's copyright on their 5200 firmware - it is software theft by anyone who loads the filter coefficients in anything other than a 5200. It also is possible that use of the firmware upload program would also be infringement of Meridians license terms for the upload program. Had Erwin kept this change to himself, the reverse engineering for personal purposes and using flash upload would be fair use, but it would still be illegal under software theft of 5200 filter coefficients.

Erwins home grown apodising coefficients are illegal as the coefficients were derived using, and their placement into code was via reverse engineering which, other than for personal use (and a few other reasons which I do not believe apply) is illegal. It is also illegal under "unauthorised reproduction, translation, adaptation or transformation". Use of the filters may be illegal if it breaches the license terms of the flash upload and the update was not for personal use.

A grey area exists in whether the apodising coefficients are computer software or data determining a principle (which is not covered). I am sure that lawers could argue both sides of this until they were blue in the face. But I think the fact that the software and filter coefficients are homologous would probably result as both being regarded as software. Irrespective, the development of the firmware would remain illegal under unauthorised adaptation for non personal use.

If Erwin wanted his software to be legal, he could try licensing the use of flash upload and the Meridian firmware.

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If the same had been done to fix Trifield then I believe that this would be legal as reverse engineering is legal when used to resolve a problem, ie broken Trifield. Lack of, or supposed superior adaptation of apodising does not constitute a fix to something that is broken.

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But ECU (car engine remapping) tuning is legal, so why not apodising tweaks?

ECU remapping uses a standard interface so uploading data is via an interface that is in the public domain. It is legal to write software that meets this standard or use software that adheres to this standard as long as the license of the software in use does not prohibit remapping.

Remapping involves reading from the ECU, modifying it, then writing it back to the ECU. It does not involve using software or data from a copyrighted source, such as the engine mapping for a different car.

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Just my 2p.

Perhaps, but now try and COPY any of Apple's actual iOS Code (or Microsoft Office's Code etc.) and then Apply it onto a non-Apple Product.........and see what view the same Courts think of that

Unlocking is a LONG way different to actually Copying the USP Code.......and that is the Essence of what we are talking about in this Thread

The same applies to your "BMW" post above.........allowing others to Service the Car does not give them a free pass to Copy the Engine Management Firmware........and then create a business out of selling that Firmware for use on other cars

What you on about???!

I just guess we see things differently.

I am not suggesting that someone walks into a hifi shop or Meridian warehouse and robs them, all I am saying is a small minority like to tweak their products and it will happen.
If you don't want them to then lock down the firmware, it really is that simple.

In the 10 years I have owned Meridian I have never considered any of the tweaks to firmware to have been an issue, whether it is improving the sound with the 3db tweak or editing the display on DSPs to look better.

The fact that Meridian were so open with their firmwares made me think they were like most other electronics brands and didn't really care too much about IP, they just wanted what was best for their customers, a happy customer is a returning customer after all.

I have spoke on the phone to the guy behind the Cinepro amps and discussed upgrades and tweaks for it, I have spoken to Gordon from Genesis about improvements to his amps, little things that cost only a few quid to the end user but would have made the amp too expensive to retail.
This is no different to what I have seen here with the new firmwares, as far as I am concerned.
And unless Meridian make a statement to say they feel their IP has been taken I can't see why you are getting so worked up about it Ronnie, if you don't agree with it then don't use it.
So far Meridian have said that they were concerned with firmware damaging their product, so they were changing the way it is distributed to stay more in control, which is fair enough, but they said nothing more than that.

Just to add, I never used the firmware, I was happy with my system and the only thing I wanted sorting was Trifield.

Re the Apple comment, it was my reply to 'we should not encourage Jailbreaking'.

However, if you buy OS X and load it onto another Intel machine is that illegal?

Car engine tuning is perfectly legal.

If you have bought and own the 5200s that you have taken the firmware from is that different to getting that firmware from someone else? Genuine question.

I am not saying if it is right or wrong, I am simply saying that it is inevitable and Meridian should have known and done something about it, and to be fair to them when it happened they did. So what is the problem??