RED have embroiled a lot of the camera industry in legal action over the years. One of these companies is Atomos. Since the Nikon buyout of RED, controversial ex-CEO of Atomos, Jeromy Young has returned to head the company. In a PR statement from Melbourne titled “Atomos Welcomes Nikon Acquisition of RED“, a lot of enthusiastic noises were made. Why? In my opinion, the enthusiasm is because Atomos have a chance with Nikon to renegotiate or nullify their onerous licensing agreement for RAW recording. The agreement with RED in 2019 was necessary as Atomos were being sued for the use of compressed RAW codecs like ProRes RAW in their portable recorders, so now have to pay RED royalties on every sale (although the exact terms of the deal aren’t public). Atomos have worked closely with Nikon since the peak of the DSLR revolution and the advent of a clean HDMI feed on the Nikon D800, so already have a good relationship. Atomos are not alone in wanting to renegotiate terms with Nikon now RED is a subsidiary. There’s a string of people and companies that RED have prosecuted (or is that persecuted?) in the past, small and large. For example, they forced me into signing a non-disparagement agreement with RED over a satirical blog post. Groundless legal bullying. Can I now go to Nikon, and ask for this to be cancelled? Should I sue for compensation? I really am considering getting in touch with the Japanese. These cases of...
Published By: EOSHD.com blog - Saturday, 16 March, 2024