NVIDIA Looks to Gag Journalists with Multi-Year Blanket NDAs

So this should go great with GPP.

There is nothing really important that they need a big NDA. Seriously.....They are not doing anything new. GPU, GPU that is a bit faster, next GPU is a bit faster, etc.
 
Here is hoping AMD or Intel have their shit together when the 10X0 generation cards are dated, I’d have bought a Vega this go around if i could have found one. Maybe next time.
 
The only thing interesting about this NDA is the 5 year time period of non-discloser. Everything else looks pretty typical of a NDA. I would hope that ANY media outlet would not sign this due to the risk it brings to your company because of the long term of non-discloser. I wouldn't sign it simply due to the risk it puts on you and your company.

Note: I am no lawyer but I have seen my share of contracts due to the nature of my work. This is a shit contract (for the 3rd party).
 
Putz said:
Here is hoping AMD or Intel have their shit together when the 10X0 generation cards are dated, I’d have bought a Vega this go around if i could have found one. Maybe next time.
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Maybe they just don't like negative press, and this is a preemptive strike.
 
[21CW]killerofall said:
The only thing interesting about this NDA is the 5 year time period of non-discloser. Everything else looks pretty typical of a NDA. I would hope that ANY media outlet would not sign this due to the risk it brings to your company because of the long term of non-discloser. I wouldn't sign it simply due to the risk it puts on you and your company.

Note: I am no lawyer but I have seen my share of contracts due to the nature of my work. This is a shit contract (for the 3rd party).
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Well, if they don't ask for your firstborn, I guess there's nothing to see here.
 
dreamwriter said:
Maybe they just don't like negative press, and this is a preemptive strike.
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Generally if you don’t like negative press you make a better product, or offer better support, or do lesss stupid shit to piss people off like GPP and silly NDA’s, or correct whatever is giving you the negative press.
 
I don't think I could keep a secret for five years. This NDA sounds unreasonable. I hope the tech reporters all band together and take a stand against this.
 
How long until Nvidia starts accepting pre-orders for <new product> claiming a massive performance boost while sending cherry-picked re-badged 1080Ti cards to the saps who signed the NDA?
 
Uvaman2 said:
Question is... Who would sign this? Hopefully not many... I know the word of the day is ' access' however, if you end up being and extended Nvidia press release, even a dummy would notice (i hope)
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Some of us have/had to or be cut out of the loop/channel (image what partners, devs, and manufactures could be brought forth to sign) - I have a feeling there are many pretty happy with Kyle for his willingness to bring this all forward as he has with nVidia as the price to simply comment on the record is often very high.

Here's to hoping AMD (can and does) pulls off a somewhat ok 7nm (not so much of a surprise) launch for gaming card refreshes late this year - while that odds are won't be a 1180 killer, at least its a bit of something.
 
Meeho said:
This is truly shocking and surprising.
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Not really, if you have been following what Nvidia has been doing for a very very long time now.

- Competition lockout with PhysX after buiying AGEIA
- Competition lockout (initially) with Gameworks features (they later reversed this)
- Competition lockout/ Nvidia lock-in with G-Sync
- Attempts to lock out the competition from board partners gaming brands via GPP
- Now, these NDA's

Nvidia is essentially trying to out-evil Intel at its worst when they resorted to shady business practices to hurt the competition. Intel wound up settling with AMD out of court for $1B over this, which was probably a fraction of the true damages. I wonder if Nvidia will face the same fate? They don't even seem to be trying to hide this shit. I wonder who they are using for counsel?
 
Have to wonder what benefit there is for a reporting organization to sign this if the only use for the information is, from NDA section 3, "solely for the benefit of NVIDIA"? Seems like signers are volunteering to be unpaid advertising associates. Kinda hard to write a news story if it has to be propaganda for NVIDIA.

Seems like the real news story to come out of this will be the list of organizations that sign vs the list that don't.
 
SickBeast said:
I don't think I could keep a secret for five years. This NDA sounds unreasonable. I hope the tech reporters all band together and take a stand against this.
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But the "penalty" for not signing the NDA would be to not receive NVidia products ahead of release in the future.

Kyle said that his reporting on GPP would result in exactly that too, and this could be the end of [H]. How many journalists would you think are going to risk the same? Hardware review websites are now in the same prisoner's dilemma with the NDA as the OEMs were with GPP. Those who sign will have a massive economic advantage over those who don't.
 
vegeta535 said:
I doubt it. Just look at Titan V. They are going Intel's route and going to milk the shit out of consumers. Their focus is AI and data centers atm.
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Exactly, however the question is how is castrated volta going to be? Is this why they seem so hell bent on screwing around, because castrated volta is not that big a jump? I wonder I don't know. Its just that they been releasing good fast products AND have been rewarded for it.. so why the need for all this bullshit?
 
These continuing actions by Nvidia really make me question how well the 1180 is going to turn out. Pure speculation on my part but it's starting to make me wonder why they are being so protectionist.
 
What this means to me, essentially, is that any site releasing reviews of nvidia products on/before release day must've signed the NDA, and their writings are now no more than biased marketing blurbs for nvidia, rendering their content worthless.

All I have to do is wait a bit for a source I trust to get a retail sample and run it through its paces. If anything, this'll make filtering out the shills WAY easier. (y)
 
Fuzzy_3D said:
What this means to me, essentially, is that any site releasing reviews of nvidia products on/before release day must've signed the NDA, and their writings are now no more than biased marketing blurbs for nvidia, rendering their content worthless.

All I have to do is wait a bit for a source I trust to get a retail sample and run it through its paces. If anything, this'll make filtering out the shills WAY easier. (y)
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Like I said, this is a way to avoid negatove press and control the media.
 
chithanh said:
But the "penalty" for not signing the NDA would be to not receive NVidia products ahead of release in the future.

Kyle said that his reporting on GPP would result in exactly that too, and this could be the end of [H]. How many journalists would you think are going to risk the same? Hardware review websites are now in the same prisoner's dilemma with the NDA as the OEMs were with GPP. Those who sign will have a massive economic advantage over those who don't.
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This may wind up being the death of hardware enthusiast websites like this, sadly. AMD is pulling their own BS. I know one reviewer in particular who has to buy all his own AMD hardware; he is in the opposite position to Kyle.

We may wind up relying on user reviews in the future.

I am hearing that it's extremely difficult to make a living running a hardware review site these days. The ad revenue just isn't there. The YouTubers seem to do a lot better.
 
SickBeast said:
This may wind up being the death of hardware enthusiast websites like this, sadly. AMD is pulling their own BS. I know one reviewer in particular who has to buy all his own AMD hardware; he is in the opposite position to Kyle.

We may wind up relying on user reviews in the future.

I am hearing that it's extremely difficult to make a living running a hardware review site these days. The ad revenue just isn't there. The YouTubers seem to do a lot better.
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the power of deflection is strong young nvidawan
 
SickBeast said:
This may wind up being the death of hardware enthusiast websites like this, sadly. AMD is pulling their own BS. I know one reviewer in particular who has to buy all his own AMD hardware; he is in the opposite position to Kyle.
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You are not talking about that guy who didn't like the strings attached via AMD review guides? That situation has been resolved. And let's not descend into whataboutism here.

SickBeast said:
I am hearing that it's extremely difficult to make a living running a hardware review site these days. The ad revenue just isn't there. The YouTubers seem to do a lot better.
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Problem is that there are two different kinds of audiences.

The one kind of audience that doesn't use ad blockers and is attracted to shallow/sensational reporting and clickbait headlines.
The other kind of audience that runs ad blockers and is interested in actual journalism and in-depth coverage.

That makes it very difficult for good journalism to be funded through ads, and is btw. not at all limited to the tech press.
 
euskalzabe said:
Agreed. 2019 brings me a Zen 2 and Navi based system.



That's why I read this site and recommend it to others.

I've signed NDAs plenty of times before, and have my students sign them for specific courses I teach where sensitive materials are involved. Frankly this is not such a crazy NDA, until you get to the part talking about predicting, conjecturing and hypothesizing about future announcements. There is a giant difference between sharing information, and predicting, conjecturing or hypothesizing future information. I'll predict, conjecture or hypothesize however much I happen to want, thank you very much. Neither Nvidia nor any other entity has any way to legally prove that any prediction, hypothesis or conjecture is based on the information they provided. This is simply legally indefensible (which the lawyers Kyle mentioned seem to realize), amounting basically to a "You can't talk about anything I don't like, signed, Nvidia" agreement. Sadly some industry players will sign it because they'll "have to" due to competitive pressure.

Which circles me back to, AMD CPU and GPU next year. The past 2 years have been spectacularly revealing about Intel and Nvidia. Not that we didn't know before, but now it's just so plain obvious you have to care.
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Kyle unlike some of us is not a (in) manufacturer(ing), product engineer, etc..., or as in your example training/teacher/professor... as a Tech review site its his business to review, share information, and even hypothesize, more or less to do everything they don't (or do) want him to do (lets face it, they want full control of what Kyle and people like him put forth).
 
Jeez that EKWB NDA is absolutely brutal!
No way I would touch it either. Almost makes me regret buying my EKWB M.2 drive heatsinks.
 
Funny thing is people think Nvidia has the control but the truth is journalists do. The problem with journalists is they need to make money and nothing gives them more than being first, but if all the tech review sites just say no and just buy their cards normally after release and review them after, then all the issues disappear. That would scare the shit out of Nvidia. The problem of course is just like boycotts, it only works if everyone (or at least a significant majority especially large popular ones) actually participate and that's where Nvidia gets it's power from.
 
chithanh said:
You are not talking about that guy who didn't like the strings attached via AMD review guides? That situation has been resolved. And let's not descend into whataboutism here.

Problem is that there are two different kinds of audiences.

The one kind of audience that doesn't use ad blockers and is attracted to shallow/sensational reporting and clickbait headlines.
The other kind of audience that runs ad blockers and is interested in actual journalism and in-depth coverage.

That makes it very difficult for good journalism to be funded through ads, and is btw. not at all limited to the tech press.
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no the problem is site use shiety ads, windows poping, audio blasting, malware infecting, goddanm frustrating ads that you need to fist fight to close every 10 seconds, fuck that, if sites would just quality control the shiet ads that goes through, ppl wouldn't be so fed up with it.
i used to love to go thru pcgamer website on my phone, then i started getting this freaking adds that take all the screen and wouldn't close down, even when i reboot chrome it comes back to it, happened twice then i stoped browsing their website on chrome, and instead i use samsung internet browser, why? because it blocks that shiet.
the audience is not to blame for adblocking, why does ads on intenet have to be a freaking cancer and a chore, they are designed to piss off ppl not to suggest a product or a service to them.
so naturaly everyone suffers from ppl's reaction even website that do quality control, shame.
 
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LurkerLito said:
Funny thing is people think Nvidia has the control but the truth is journalists do. The problem with journalists is they need to make money and nothing gives them more than being first, but if all the tech review sites just say no and just buy their cards normally after release and review them after, then all the issues disappear. That would scare the shit out of Nvidia. The problem of course is just like boycotts, it only works if everyone (or at least a significant majority especially large popular ones) actually participate and that's where Nvidia gets it's power from.
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And considering how many people are still in this for free hardware to resell after they have used it, that is not going to happen.
 
jardows said:
Maybe. Maybe, like Intel, they have hit a wall with their technical direction?
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IMO Nvidia has quite a few generations back, they have had to double time their effort to chop out as much as they can, emulate via clever hardware/software BS just to keep power use in check and "appear" fast, vs actually being as fast or as "performance" leader as people constantly claim them to be.

Nv used to be a V12 type engine, slowly they tuned to be more like a V10, then to a V8 for a bit, then to a V6 super charged, now they are mor like a V4 with nitrous and turbo chargers, a "small" engine making all kinds of noise, costing a bunch when they cannot compete in the same races (when pushed to the limit)

to each their own, Ngreedia is an ass of a company, I do not at all support them with my wallet or as a direct "suggestion" to purchase unless the buyer ONLY wants Nv then I will do my best to steer the $ they want to spend in a proper direction.
 
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