Do You Really Own your Raw Files?Who owns your digital camera's raw files? Do you, or does your camera maker?

Not such a silly question if you think about it. Almost every raw file format from every camera maker is proprietary, and some are even intentionally encrypted. Many have been reverse engineered, but some haven't, and in many cases there are still hidden features which no one outside of the manufacturer understands. Without software that can read your raw image files, do youreallyown them in a meaningful way? How comfortable are you with this?

What happens next year, or the year after, or the year after that if your camera maker stops producing raw converter software that knows how to handle your camera's files? Well, you always have your original program, right? Do you? Can you find the disk, even today, let alone 10 years from now? Is it in a format that your latest quantum cube data reader can handle? Is your camera maker even still in business? Not as far fetched as...