DMCA (copyright) take down notice from Sonarworks (edit, issue solved by Sonarworks)

[amirm]

I received a DMCA take down notice from Google filed by Sonarworks. It pointed to a URL where a member had post a screen capture of the UI that showed the correction graph for a headphone. I must say, I had not seen a copyright claim of user interface being posted online.

I contacted them asking for an explanation as to why they had not reached out to me directly. After all, for a company that sells products to headphone users among others, there is a large cross-section of their users who are also visitors of this forum. Sadly, no one responded to me.

I appreciate that they have probably hired a service to do the scanning and filing the notices. But they should not be blind to impact that such blanket warnings can have on sites such as ours. And ignoring communications with them.

Now if this were a massive company, I could see them not monitoring their email alias/contact us link. But a company this small needs to be on top of that game. Clearly they are not.

I am also dubious of a company protecting their know-how by going after people who post a screenshot of their application. Why post the correction graph if you don't want people to know about it? Such postings help advertise for the product and its capability.

This is the type of image that they complained about: https://audioxpress.com/article/fre...software-the-simple-eq-to-fix-your-headphones

The above is a link to a review so the image is not hosted here.

Anyway, I am down on the company for lack of responsiveness to my query. Not the way to do business in my book.

 

[thomasjast]

What a bunch of weirdos. Not the right way to handle free advertising.

 

[JohnYang1997]

I never liked sonarworks since the headphones correction came out.

 

[restorer-john]

Maybe they just wanted some publicity. And they got it.

Otherwise it's like the Barbra Streisand effect...

 

[scott wurcer]

I don't get one thing, every corrected curve in their plots is simply a straight line drawn through 0dB essentially with a ruler. There are not enough features in the response curves to correct anything to that level. Besides that your individual head, ears, hair, etc. are part of the equation. The calibration process for the Smyth Realizer used in ear mics IIRC.

Dave Griesingers work on this. https://www.google.com/search?q=how...ome..69i57.36630j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

His conclusion, universal headphone equalization does not work.

 

[StevenEleven]

To me the DMCA seems very clearly unconstitionally broad as a conceptual intellectual matter but unless and until (if ever) someone has the time, money, willpower, intellect, motivation and access to collective effort to challenge it at their disposal it looks like we are stuck with it.

So as a result companies have leeway under the law to do stupid things. They might want to rethink. Just because a company (or person) has the apparent power or right to do something under a poorly crafted and overly broad law doesn’t mean it’s an advisable course of action. I never would have used their products, but now I never will even more.

 

[Joachim Herbert]

I use their products since version 3. Just sent them an email asking what is going on there. Unbelievable.

 

[tomtoo]

For me it's easy. Companys that act like this, are out of business with me. There decisson.

 

[Kristians]

Hello,

This is Chris from the Sonarworks support department.
I would like to address the main subject of this post.

We are not aware of any such disputes at the moment. However, we would like to investigate how this might have happened.
Could you provide more information on this?
Is the hyperlink you provided the exact page the request was about?

 

[MartinsV]

Hey all,

This is Martins from Sonarworks development team. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

As Chris mentioned in the post above, we're not aware of such take-down notices and are investigating this case.

I contacted them asking for an explanation as to why they had not reached out to me directly. After all, for a company that sells products to headphone users among others, there is a large cross-section of their users who are also visitors of this forum. Sadly, no one responded to me.

What was the communications channel you used? I asked around and can't seem to find anyone who received a message from you. Maybe it got lost by one of us or the email you used is currently inactive. If possible, please forward the message to [email protected].

I appreciate that they have probably hired a service to do the scanning and filing the notices. But they should not be blind to impact that such blanket warnings can have on sites such as ours. And ignoring communications with them.

This is not the case, as far as I know. We're monitoring piracy links, not screenshots of our UI. Just to be sure I checked whether the article mentioned was reported as pirated content - it is not.

(...) going after people who post a screenshot of their application. Why post the correction graph if you don't want people to know about it? Such postings help advertise for the product and its capability.

Exactly right. It has never been our policy to take down screenshots from reviews.

Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this whole situation. Apologies for all the inconveniences!
If you have some specific questions regarding Sonarworks Reference, you can contact me via [email protected]. I will also try to monitor this thread and post updates if we find out what caused the DMCA notice.

 

[FrantzM]

Was about to decide never to use their products however good they might be then saw post #9. Waiting ...

 

[MartinsV]

I don't get one thing, every corrected curve in their plots is simply a straight line drawn through 0dB essentially with a ruler. There are not enough features in the response curves to correct anything to that level.

Hi, thanks for the input!
Our correction curves are mirror images of the frequency response curves that are inherent to the room&speakers or the pair of headphones.

All the calibration curves we provide for headphones (specific to the model or even a unit) and the calibration curves for speakers are used to achieve what we call flat sound. Here's one of our articles that talk about the benefits: What is Flat Sound and Should I Care?

There are other aspects of sound that can't be fixed with digital correction, but frequency response is one of the aspects that can be controlled to an extent. Our headphone reviews include further analysis of each model we calibrate.

I don't want to derail this thread, so please contact me through [email protected] if you're interested in a deeper discussion.

 

[tomtoo]

Amok running lawyer?
Not good.

 

[pkane]

Amok running lawyer?
Not good.

Assuming Sonarworks is not behind this, could be someone impersonating the company. It's easy to do, just fill out a web form.

 

[BDWoody]

Hi, thanks for the input!
Our correction curves are mirror images of the frequency response curves that are inherent to the room&speakers or the pair of headphones.

All the calibration curves we provide for headphones (specific to the model or even a unit) and the calibration curves for speakers are used to achieve what we call flat sound. Here's one of our articles that talk about the benefits: What is Flat Sound and Should I Care?

There are other aspects of sound that can't be fixed with digital correction, but frequency response is one of the aspects that can be controlled to an extent. Our headphone reviews include further analysis of each model we calibrate.

I don't want to derail this thread, so please contact me through [email protected] if you're interested in a deeper discussion.

No need to disrail this one, but a new thread would be welcome...lots of nerds around here...

Cheers to your response to this issue.

 

[Neddy]

Once again, Amir has elicited a reasonable rational response from a manufacturer. Kudos to you both.
A bit curious as to why Amir didn't just pick up the phone and call them - I keep finding that many companies today have excellent 'non-automated' phone support - and know from my (admittedly decades old) experience that calls on topics like this frequently get routed to the 'the head guy' right away, rather than emails, which take time to 'get routed' and lose 'immediacy'.
Hope this gets resolved.

 

[SIY]

FWIW, I have had nothing but good experience in my interactions with Sonarworks, so I'm not surprised at their response. Note that I showed a correction curve of theirs in my review of their software that appeared in AudioXpress and was posted online here.

The headphone correction system is performed in a rather different way than you might expect and is outlined in their patents referenced in the linked review. Valid? I am of the school believing that no headphone curves are actually valid, given the differences in physical ears, but I will admit that (subjectively) the EQ worked wonders on my cheap headphones.

 

[amirm]

I am following up with Martins offline and will report back on the outcome. Appreciate them coming in and providing a direct contact.

 

[scott wurcer]

Valid? I am of the school believing that no headphone curves are actually valid, given the differences in physical ears, but I will admit that (subjectively) the EQ worked wonders on my cheap headphones.

Cheap headphones probably have a few response anomalies that everyone is sensitive to. I think Dave showed data from 3 independent studies on how much you lose cutting out the individuals ears. I'm not invested enough in this to carry on about it.

 

[pkane]

I think Dave showed data from 3 independent studies on how much you lose cutting out the individuals ears.

Not having read these studies, I'm guessing that most individuals would consider it a big loss to have their ears cut out