[H] NVIDIA Controls AIB Launch and Driver Distribution

[PeterScott]

You didn't read the NDA did you? Anyone who actually reads the NDA and who is just your average consumer will come to the conclusion that it is a censorship deal...

I read it.

Post #20 above is my first take after reading it for the first time, and I didn't come to that conclusion.

Common sense doesn't suggest anything nefarious. Only short circuited thinking leads to that conclusion.

Since I read it, I stumbled across this video, where GN talked to a couple of lawyers, and another lawyer on camera:
Talking to an Actual Lawyer on NVIDIA's NDA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SXmkk_yVMU

Bottom line according to the Lawyer:

There is nothing at all to be concerned with. All the ranting about the NDA is totally wrong. You can review NVidia products under this NDA and say whatever you want once the embargo date passes.

Often in tech whoever is on top a lot of anger/hate. I remember back in the day was it was IBM when the PC started dominating, then it was Microsoft when the were dominating, lately its mostly Intel and NVidia. It gets way more out of control today with a lot of internet hive mind attitudes.

Note: I am not saying NVidia does nothing wrong. They do lots of anti-consumer/anti-competitive things.

But people need stop substituting anger for reason, whenever anything NVidia (or Intel/Samsung/Apple/other company that makes you mad) related comes up.

 

[Geegeeoh]

If this NDA can keep something like the "peculiar" memory configuration of the GTX 970 (3.5+0.5) secret … there is a problem.

 

[arandomguy]

If this NDA can keep something like the "peculiar" memory configuration of the GTX 970 (3.5+0.5) secret … there is a problem.

NDA's govern the disclosure of information given by the disclosing party (n this case Nvidia) to the person who signs the NDA.

confidential and proprietary information disclosed by Nvidia to Receipient

That is the exact line in the agreement. It would not cover information learned from other sources whether by unnamed leaks, third parties (eg. AiBs), or independent testing.

The GTX 970 memory issue was brought to attention due to anomalies brought about by independent testing. An NDA would not have prevented the above. Nvidia then chose to disclose further information on the subject. If they didn't wish such information to be public they could've simply chosen not to disclose it to the tech media rather then telling them then hushing everyone via NDAs.

When people bring up this type of thinking what they are saying is that Nvidia hypothetically is going to tell people under NDA that the RTX 2080ti's are set to self destruct after 2 years of operation. Nvidia has no reason to actually tell the journalists this information but since NDAs were signed now you can't report it. Does the above make any sense?

As opposed to Nvidia just randomly disclosing self harmful information to journalists while making them sign NDAs that prevent them from talking about it maybe they just wouldn't mention that stuff in the first place?

 

[Geegeeoh]

It's the same company that tried to blame that fiasco to the marketing: "they forgot to tell".
I'd expect almost everything from them.

 

[arandomguy]

This has nothing to do with your expectations. This NDA literally cannot prevent such information.

The NDA can only restrict disclosure of information Nvidia discloses to whomever signs it. They have no reason to disclose self harmful information. Therefore nothing is different.

 

[Geegeeoh]

Sure eventually things will surface, but if you prepare for that and evalutate that the first reviews are way more important… why not disclose something so they have to keep quiet about?

At the end the damage from the 970 was non existing compared to the big boom thay enjoyed before.

 

[arandomguy]

I'm not really sure if you know what your talking about in regards to the GTX 970 situation. The GTX 970 situation was not discovered because Nvidia disclosed to the tech media, it wasn't discovered at all by the tech media. Nvidia only disclosed to the tech media after there was already a lot of discussion about why the GTX 970 was behaving oddly. Otherwise it would have been impossible to ever find out exactly what the situation was with the GTX 970 due to the lack of resources (they are not going to discover that ROPs were disabled/fused off and how that would impact the chip independently.).

Your conspiracy angle doesn't make sense nor would that type of defense hold up if brought to court. NDAs like that cannot cover independent discovery, it literally is not in the scope of the agreement. Nvidia is not going to willfully disclose issues to the tech media and just hope an NDA protects it from leaks. The tech media already leaks especially once they receive material at launch time. You think that if there is some critical flaw that all tech media was briefed upon that no one would leak?

 

[Geegeeoh]

I know, and I said "something like" not the "same damn thing".
But what if they felt lucky with how the 970 story unfolded? That no one figured that out day 1?
They would like to keep it that way… tell the story their way.

And this is for "secondary" things that can ruin the perception, not a real critical flaw… that will bite hard sooner or later.

Leaks are easly fought with more leaks…

 

[Guru]

I read it.

Post #20 above is my first take after reading it for the first time, and I didn't come to that conclusion.

Common sense doesn't suggest anything nefarious. Only short circuited thinking leads to that conclusion.

Since I read it, I stumbled across this video, where GN talked to a couple of lawyers, and another lawyer on camera:
Talking to an Actual Lawyer on NVIDIA's NDA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SXmkk_yVMU

Bottom line according to the Lawyer:

There is nothing at all to be concerned with. All the ranting about the NDA is totally wrong. You can review NVidia products under this NDA and say whatever you want once the embargo date passes.

Often in tech whoever is on top a lot of anger/hate. I remember back in the day was it was IBM when the PC started dominating, then it was Microsoft when the were dominating, lately its mostly Intel and NVidia. It gets way more out of control today with a lot of internet hive mind attitudes.

Note: I am not saying NVidia does nothing wrong. They do lots of anti-consumer/anti-competitive things.

But people need stop substituting anger for reason, whenever anything NVidia (or Intel/Samsung/Apple/other company that makes you mad) related comes up.

About that "lawyer". Again I've posted here, other forums and reddit's Nvidia page, they should disclose this lawyers FULL NAME, law firm and specialization. Because even if it is a lawyer with a degree, even if its a working lawyer, is it contract lawyer? Because for example constitutional lawyer would have little detailed knowledge about contractual law, criminology lawyer would know little about it, patent lawyer would know little about it, etc....

GN didn't disclose anything, therefore they might as well not have talked to a lawyer, to me that information they posted from the "lawyer" is not credible.

The new NDA comes at the heels off of GPP and its the strongest worded NDA ever from Nvidia, with an absurdly long time frame, that does prevent any "confidential information" from being written upon. Since the GPP was confidential and it was essentially slightly leaked and rumored, one can easily surmise that with this NDA they wouldn't be able to write about it, since its confidential information.

I mean could companies go to court if Nvidia activated their NDA and forced them to not cover GPP? Sure, but it would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, it would be a long and drawn out process and all they'll get out of it is to be able to write about one thing. Hardly worth 100k dollars in litigation!
So if anything, the NDA through fear of being forced to go to court would keep websites who signed it self censoring. Nvidia wouldn't even have to lift a finger, media will self censor to avoid a costly trial, all for them to cover say GPP, when they can be a good little servant, get sponsorship money from Nvidia, get free gpu samples, get invited to events and get more free goodies, etc...

So it's not so much how in legal terms this new NDA can keep websites from talking about stuff, ultimately of course it can be beaten, publicly available information is almost universally accepted as being free speech and obviously non binding to any contract, but the fear of being sued by Nvidia and going through costly litigation would make media self censor and that is what this NDA does. Its worder so strongly and aggressively and broadly to cause fear into media so they self censor.

 

[PeterScott]

Yes, lawyer didn't DOX himself on the internet, so you can go back to outlandish nonsense theories.

 

[arandomguy]

The new NDA comes at the heels off of GPP and its the strongest worded NDA ever from Nvidia, with an absurdly long time frame, that does prevent any "confidential information" from being written upon. Since the GPP was confidential and it was essentially slightly leaked and rumored, one can easily surmise that with this NDA they wouldn't be able to write about it, since its confidential information.

I mean could companies go to court if Nvidia activated their NDA and forced them to not cover GPP? Sure, but it would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, it would be a long and drawn out process and all they'll get out of it is to be able to write about one thing. Hardly worth 100k dollars in litigation!
So if anything, the NDA through fear of being forced to go to court would keep websites who signed it self censoring. Nvidia wouldn't even have to lift a finger, media will self censor to avoid a costly trial, all for them to cover say GPP, when they can be a good little servant, get sponsorship money from Nvidia, get free gpu samples, get invited to events and get more free goodies, etc...

This again falls under the same situation as the GTX 970 memory not being covered. Did Nvidia tell HardOCP and other journalists about GPP but not to publish anything about what they told? How would the above even make any sense given what happened after? Even according to the original article from HardOCP it was AMD who was providing information about GPP to the tech media and suggesting to cover it. So how would a NDA cover this? Even in the HardOCP articles it states they were reluctant and limited in what they discussed about GPP after they pursued the story.

If we really want to go about this the situation almost certainly was that at least one AiB who does both AMD and Nvidia did not like the GPP and leaked to AMD whom in turn leaked to the tech media. And really the entire situation was a battle between AMD, AiBs and Nvidia, "rallying" tech readership and the tech media was the ammo used for that fight. You could buy an Asus (or whatever AiB) AMD card if you wanted before GPP and you could after, oddly the suggested response was to instead boycott Asus AMD cards because it's important that consumers can buy Asus AMD cards... A friendly reminder is that media leaks are often used as weapons to manipulate the narrative. These companies can keep much tighter lips if they wanted to.

 

[DaveSimmons]

AMD's NDAs are "censorship tools" too, all NDAs are. You give up control in order to get free special access to goods and information that other people don't have. The companies spending money and employee time to provide that access control how it is used.

Don't like it? Buy your own products and be free of that control. Want a site to act that way? Help fund them because banner ads probably won't cover the costs any more.

(And before you decide I'm "team green" I've been complaining about the 970 since the 3.5 GB issue was first raised, and so far I'm in the camp that thinks the 2080 ti is probably overpriced and under-performing for gaming use.)

 

[Guru]

Yes, lawyer didn't DOX himself on the internet, so you can go back to outlandish nonsense theories.

This is way bellow even 1st grade discourse. I mean that is just such a terrible post. How does one dox himself by revealing his full name and law firm? Do all the lawyers who go on TV dox themselves when they do that? Do people in the media, etc... dox themselves by being in media?

Doxing is posting one's PRIVATE information like street address, personal phone number, car register tables, etc...

Nice that ALL your posts you've ever done on this subforum are always defending Nvidia, almost every time with absurd and kindergarten level discourse.

 

[PeterScott]

This is way bellow even 1st grade discourse. I mean that is just such a terrible post. How does one dox himself by revealing his full name and law firm? Do all the lawyers who go on TV dox themselves when they do that? Do people in the media, etc... dox themselves by being in media?

Doxing is posting one's PRIVATE information like street address, personal phone number, car register tables, etc...

Nice that ALL your posts you've ever done on this subforum are always defending Nvidia, almost every time with absurd and kindergarten level discourse.

https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/doxxing/
Doxxing is a cyber attack that involves discovering the real identity of an Internet user.

Most people prefer to take the sane precaution of remaining anonymous on the internet.

There is absolutely no reason to believe the people at Gamers Nexus are lying, and weren't speaking to a real lawyer.

That is just conspiracy theory, on top of the other wrong headed nonsense related to the NDA.

It's just an NDA, it has no power over anything you say or report, after the embargo expires, and even while it is in force, it only pertains to confidential information supplied by NVidia.

Even a layman can figure that out if it is read with unbiased reason, instead of filtered through anger with NVidia.

NVidia does real nasty things worthy of complaining about (Like GPP).

Apply some reason so you can tell the difference between the real issues, and your imaginary ones.

 

[krumme]

Asking a lawyer about nv practices? Lol. Doesnt qualify for anything imo. Perhaps the oposite.

What about thinking and evaluating from a consumer perspective.