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Days after settling an email-hacking lawsuit with rival camera makers ARRI, Red Digital today sued Sony Corp for patent infringement. The high-tech camera manufacturer’s complaint (read it here) Tuesday claims that three cameras made by defendants Sony Electronics and Sony 
Corporation of America “all embody the subject matter claimed in Red’s asserted patents without any license.” The federal court filing adds that “Red is informed and believes and thereupon alleges that the sale of Sony’s unauthorized, infringing cameras has resulted in lost sales, reduced the business and profit of Red, and greatly injured the general reputation of Red.” Alleging two instances of “willful and wanton” patent infringement on technology used in its Red One camera, Red is seeking a court order that its patents are “valid and enforceable” as well as an injunction against Sony’s F65, F55 and F5 cameras to stop their further sale and have them destroyed.
Formed by sunglasses and sportswear billionaire Jim Jannard in 1999, Red’s cameras have quickly become an industry standard in the increasingly digitally based movie business, with the company’s Red One and other products used recently to shoot the likes of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the Ridley Scott-directed Prometheus, the History Channel miniseries Hatfields & McCoys and the Steven Soderbergh-directed The Informant.
Requesting a jury trial, the plaintiff is also seeking “an assessment and award of damages against Defendants in a amount no less than lost profits or a reasonable royalty” plus a full accounting and all legal fees. Gregory Weeks, Chandler Weeks and Gregory Nelson of Solana Beach firm Weeks Kaufman Nelson & Johnson are representing Red Digital Cinema in the suit.
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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Red is a great company…as interested in the little guy as they are the big guns. They are also true pioneers in the digital age. If there is merit to the claims, godspeed Red.
How are RED a little company?? “Formed by sunglasses and sportswear billionaire Jim Jannard in 1999″…….
Red is a small, young company, with nowhere near the income stream that Sony has…forget that its founder is a billionaire…that is irrelevant.
He is one man against a worldwide conglomerate…not even comparable…i wish him all the best
One of the biggest problems (challenges) with the “new world” of digital is the varying and constantly changing technology as well as the different ways a computer/camera can currently capture digital image data. This can be frustrating for DPs and borders on the absurd for post production facilities who had a reasonable level of STANDARDIZATION when film just rolled through a motor driven camera. Now they must purchase or rent machinery for whichever capture system the contracted studio or individual production employs. The “wild west” world of digital has created an enormous dilemma as competing manufactures try to “outdo” one another and copyright infringement cases of this sort will become the norm of our moviemaking future unless some sort of standardization can be implemented and certain patented inventions respected and licensed. Good luck with all that…
Hear hear. Also, Red is a nightmare for camera assistants. On the few shoots that I’ve worked on with it it had bugs, errors, it shut down, it stopped recording in the middle of the take etc. It’s not very reliable.
I am working on a computer that crashes occasionally therefore all of these computers must be unreliable according to your logic. Digital cinema cameras are simply computers with lenses on them. All of them have bugs and crash occasionally. You will get used to it just like you get used to a computer.
Obviously you never worked with digital cameras before. Do you have inner impulse to comment or the voices in your head told you to?
5 years as a full time AC for a production company that owns and uses only Reds in the bay area. I do all the maintenance, buy all the parts, do the upgrades, and know the ins and out of the camera. Honestly I wouldn’t use anything else. It’s size and the resulting image are beyond comparison. It shoots and works like a DSLR, gives you 18 stops of dynamic range on a 5k image, and all the buttons can be customized so that any assist is just a push away. BUT, its a beta camera, its billed as a beta camera on the website, when you purchase it, etc, so unless you are very familiar with it, yes, its tough to use and certainly doesn’t act like a film camera. And yes, if you buy one as soon as its released it will have the above listed problems until a good solid build comes out, because its a beta camera. It took about 8 months from release date for the Red One, and about 4 months for the Red Epic to have a solid build. I will totally say though that I am incredibly biased towards Red because of my extensive use with it, but when it boils down to it, it was an easy transition to go from still photography in my personal work to, at the time a Red One, in my professional work. Ever since build 2.0.5 (currently on 3.3.15) for Epics it has been solid like a rock to work with.
LOL, 18 stops MY ASS, more like 13 at best. Constant crashing, issues across the board. And I am a 19 year DP who has used all formats and plenty of reds, but now I only allow Arri Alexa’s on our productions if we are doing digital. Film still has a better picture though.
Some computers are more stable than the other computers. Some cameras are less reliable than the other cameras. A camera assistant just expressed some facts about Red cameras.
The film industry been moving to fully digital since the 90s. This isn’t a “new world” problem as it is a user problem. Change is constant, but it’s an evolution that isn’t hard to follow if you don’t resist it. If you’re fighting the tech, assuming that it should conform to a 100 year old model, then you definitely will get lost.
Even if the technology is never standardized, it shouldn’t be a burden on the end user, as long as they leverage the technology to do the heavy lifting. Automation can handle all the repetitive tasks that otherwise would need lots of manpower. Best part of digital is it’ll always get better.
We’re in the 21 Century, can’t go backwards. The mechanical age of entertainment is over.
I love my Red camera! Best company ever!
Can I borrow it for a weekend shoot?
Sure, where are you located? Do you need a DIT on the job? I only rent when I am on the crew typically. Was an AC/DIT on a Spam spot recently and just finished a 113 day shoot last year on table top work. I tend to operate myself only on low budget stuff, typically have world known DP’s above me and I just do rentals/camera tech work.
OK, Sony, you know you’re going to lose in court, so just settle now (a license deal with Red Digital) and don’t let the lawyers win.
Red would rather keep Sony out then let them take part in its intellectual property. Red kicked and screamed to get the world into raw digital and 4k, and for the past six damn years none of you guys caught on until now (mainstream media specifically not the OP).
I don’t think JJ is ready to let go of his legacy by letting these schmucks ride on his coat tails with their bs foreign made products!
I buy American, I buy Red and I can upgrade my damn camera! My box keeps going, my parts all work, this isn’t the same way Sony and other guys do business, this freakanomics in motion! A no name (in cinema) guy took over cinema and I am DAMN proud to own a Red that takes the most beautiful images MONEY CAN BUY!!!
I was a fanboy for years before I got in and let me tell you my Sony is frickin door stop to me! I don’t even get certified in their cameras these days! For me its Red, Phantom, and Arri only baby!
Red is toast. They are getting their clocks cleaned by Arri and Sony. They are losing market share daily and this is the last gasp of a dying company.
Yeay for the giant corporations who steal from the little guy!!!
Really? Whats Sonys stock price right? And Arri might own the low end market, but they don’t even have a 4k camera out. The BMC is what Arri needs to worry about…Same specs, million times less in price
What low end market do you think Arri is in?
Avengers and Skyfall were shot with Alexa. Game of Throne is shot with Alexa. What’s the low end there?
Not every DP looks at the same things for their camera of choice. These cameras are like film stocks, each has a characteristic that certain people like.
Dapperdan clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. RED toast? Hardly. They are just getting started.
OK. Sure. How many ASC or Oscar nominated films this year were shot on a RED? How many on Alexa? How many Academy Award winning or nominated DP’s shoot on Alexa vs RED? Crickets…
Don’t know. But is it all about Accademy Awards or sales and profits? There is big paradox, one sold tons of cameras to end users and made zillions of dollars, while ohter sold way less cameras but they are used on more big budget jobs. Haters hate, noobs and fanboys fight while, artist are happy that they can choose and create art and producers … they still make money.
))
Hobbit, Gatsby, Prometheus, Spiderman, and many more shot Red
Red also show the Etrade super bowl spot and the Spam campaign… Arri is awesome, Jim wears their hat and we ALL use their lights and glass. Why so hostile?
I just had a look at the patent in question (US patent 8174560), and… it merely describes a video camera!
So they are actually claiming infringement because Sony has produced ‘video cameras’ that are in the same market as the RED ones.
Here’s the abstract from the patent itself (the main text doesnt get much more technical nor specific, other than describing standard sensor technology):
A video camera can be configured to highly compress video data in a visually lossless manner. The camera can be configured to transform blue and red image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data. The data can then be compressed and stored in this form. This allows a user to reconstruct the red and blue data to obtain the original raw data for a modified version of the original raw data that is visually lossless when demosaiced. Additionally, the data can be processed in a manner in which the green image elements are demosaiced first and then the red and blue elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements.
RED: totally nuts and desperate…
The abstract means next to nothing when assessing what a patent covers (its primary use is for being searched when examining other patents). The claims are where the invention is defined, and if you look at the claims, particularly claim 6 (claims 1-5 are IMO quite obvious), then this is where you get to something more interesting. Given the patent was filed in 2008, the idea of a 2k camera that can compress that much data in real time was almost certainly quite new and possibly inventive.
My point is that one should know something about how the patent system works before trying to comment on it. The fact you’ve used the Abstract as proof that there’s nothing patentable here shows you reaslly don’t know what you’re talking about.
Or I could have just posted the abstract because I wanted to, um… post the abstract rather than the full patent to keep the post short and relevant. So either I don’t know anything about patents, ot you know less about common sense and good manners on a forum.
But anyway, a quick look on the Wikipedia page for Red shows that they are an extremely volumous company when it comes to litigation: they have history in using patents frivolously (losts of cases dismissed), suing to prevent fair comment (they’ve sued a blogger for example), and other really odd stuff that implies that they are not past issuing lightweight claims.
Most worryingly, Red doesnt seem to factor in that Sony have a massive amount of patents they could bring to bear on a counterclaim. That would IMO truly be bad for Red and their users.
Video cameras that use CMOS sensors. Wow! And have them all destroyed…! First they’ll sue Sony, next will be Panasonic, after that it will be Black Magic, and so on. Don’t forget Canon! What the heck did they expect when tech is this popular. This reminds me of when Cinemascope sued Panavision over their widescreen lenses. The irony is that inside each Panavision anamorphic lens were Cinemascope elements! They’re in the game and they shouldn’t whine about it.
Just wait, China will steal RED technology and make clones.
Too Late!
http://www.kineraw.com/index.asp
The patent itself is actually decent grounds from a layman’s perspective. Sony is the only other company making a camera(s) that does compressed raw bayer recording, which is what the patent is for. Canon C500 is uncompressed bayer RGB video, Alexa is uncompressed bayer RAW (or compressed video), Black Magic/IndieCam/Digital Bolex all are uncompressed bayer RAW. Until the F65, the Red products were the only one’s doing compressed raw bayer. So if the patent is upheld, seems like they have a valid case both legally and from a common sense standpoint (they were the first and for a long time only one’s taking this approach). The only thing possible exception I know of would be the Si2K with Cineform, but the patent seems to make that a non-issue as well. Just my take on it. The F65 is a fantastic camera, and I hold no ill-wishes against Sony, but it does seem like they maybe kinda sorta used Red’s patented ideas here.
One marketed and developed cameras for producers (RED) and one worked with artists and the best cinematographers in the world and developed a camera for them (Arri) the rest is history and so is RED..mark my words.
You apparently want RED to be history but what’s your proof that it’s on the way down?
Well, you know what they say: if you can’t beat them, sue them
i hope RED jannard sues them all…love how Arriheads cry their loyalty to the skies. Alexa is either a
100k videocamera or a 160k raw redording cinema tool, either way its intention as a company was
to keep the stranglehold on the industry as long as they could. I applaud RED for giving young film buffs an affordable tool to go out and make cinema quality films. I for one love the fact that you can shoot, transcode, edit, color, and output the same day if you want, and RED made that possible. So sue all of them doubters, haters and now the new johnny come latelies…
More competition = more development.
more development = more tools for Cinematographers.
more tools for Cinematographers = better filmmaking.
better filmmaking = better movies.
And…we really need better movies.
To me everybody has the right to do what ever they want, copy, share, develop and copy again for their competitors.
Only in this way we’ll keep going on.
Steve Jobs knew it!
“Non è merito nostro se siamo riusciti a vedere più lontano degli altri, ma del fatto che siamo potuti salire sulle spalle dei giganti che ci hanno preceduto. (Isaac Newton: Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, 4 gennaio 1643 – Londra, 31 marzo 1727).
Better tools =/= better filmmaking =/= better movies
You ask a cook what stove he uses?
Storytelling hasn’t changed.
Red is American, Sony is Japanese. Red is going to win as the case will be discussed in US court. There is no international court involved, this is done the American’s way, according American’s vision of the case. This the way US is preserving its leadership.
Have you ever seen an American company sued in a foreign country or an American guy judged and jailed overseas? US is never responsible under international laws. Japanese are American companies are at war. They register a huge amount of patents on any single things (even obvious ones)they are using in their product. What sounds right is actually locking up technical creativity from individuals as patent registration is so expensive that only corporate (and hugely rich guys) can access to it. We are just consumers, paying corporate’s lawyers salary, when we are buying the product we need.
I love these comments, as if RED is some amazing, small, innocent company. Look at their wiki page and check out their lawsuit history. They sue everyone, and normally the charges are dismissed.
Sony, despite their economic short comings, most likely can afford to spend more money on this case than RED makes in sales in a year.
They wan’t to play woth the big boys, then do so in the market place by delivering products when you promise and setting realistic goals. Hopefully they sue Canon next. Canon’s lawyers would burn RED to the ground.
Interesting times ahead, Especially if Red wins the law suit. I am all for protecting your IP, but I am sure it won’t happen quickly through the courts.
Being no lawyer, I have no idea how this really works, but if I am not mistaken, Red is suing Sony for infringement of 2 patents, issued May 8th 2012 and January 22nd 2013 respectively.
Sony’s F65 was announced in September 2011, went on sale in January 2012.
If Sony already had the technology in 2011 and – considering that it takes years to develop these cameras – probably much earlier, how can it be stolen from Red?
I hope Sony win this one. By the sound of it, I get the impression Red are just suing because they feel threatened by Sony coming out with a better specced camera that has a global shutter and doesn’t crop the image at higher frame rates.
I hope RED shuts Sony up once and for all. The new sony cameras are a total rip off of 4k cinema cameras RED pioneered. End of story.
And in the end you are going to film your dog in the garden with cheep DSLR and then upload it on YouTube. And think that you are a DP.
RED – ‘we have an attitude so we sue everybody. We think we’re the greatest. We won’t stand for anyone talking sh*t about our camera. Oh no you DONT talk about RED that way! If we think you stole something from us to make your camera we will sue you! We protect our product by suing. We think we can sue our way into having a great camera not by making better camera. Oh and “We deserve the right to refuse service to anyone with a bad attitude.”
What?
RED – a company run by kids for kids. HAHA!
If Red had paid more attention to customer service over here in the UK they would have a better reputation, more business, and more loyal customers. This legal action just stinks of sour grapes. Sony has consistently put its money where its mouth is and has done more original research into high-res sensors and cameras than any other company.
We saw Apple resort to lawyers to try to undermine competitors and outside the USA their actions have not been so successful because it is a foolish strategy when it is motivated uniquely to knee competitors in the groin. The way to increase business is to make better products, offer better value for money and to deliver better customer service. Trying to get rich using expensive lawyers makes the lawyers richer than anyone else, and it takes your business off focus.
The message that Red’s legal action communicates to customers and investors is that Red is failing and/or desperate. If either is true, then the management should wake up and sort its products and marketing out.
Red is out of its mind. Litigious witch hunters.
They should focus on making its products actually work rather than sue or threaten to sue everyone in its path.
I would love to see Sony counter sue. Sony has deep pockets and isn’t likely to be bullied by the likes of RED.
RED will just have to find out how deep Sony’s pockets are, after they have pulled out most their money in lawyer fees and royalties… Looks like sony stock just took another hit.
red will be bought by some big guys because technology changes and it become main stream true 4k will be affordable for around 2500 next year 2014 put my life on it
My thoughts.. I like competition. It gets us off our asses and ensures we bring our A game. What this is…. Simply intelligent stratigic PR.
Canon releases c500.. Sony does an early release for the F5 & F55 killing canon sales. Arri then advanced its release date of its new features (coming soon) to put doubt in potential Sony buyers.. Red now puts fear into Potential Sony buyers as well in an attempt to win back market sharer. It’s just a game. A very expensive game.