No encrypted for me.
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Dear DAZ: Even though I could easily go to a pirate site and freely download the decrypted version of the Detective Bundle, I'm not going to do that. Not ever, no matter what you do. I'm going to buy it from you -- once you provide it in your usual non-encrypted non-DRM -impaired download options at the price I'm currently seeing ($22.03).
The money's on the table. Take it, leave it, it's entirely up to you. But if you leave it there, don't pretend that you lost this sale to anything other than your insistance on putting up an otherwise much-wanted product that thanks to its deliberate impairment wouldn't be worth the hassle even if you paid me to use it.
Oh God yes, absolutely, positively, undobutedly, YES!
Not doing this has created clutter. DAZ bought some old junkers and didn't even fix them up. Then eventually moved them out of the garage (development lifecycle) and into the front yard (the store) for awhile, but when they didn't magically fix and repaint themselves, DAZ moved them to the back yard (off of easily-accessible store pages). Amazingly, these old classics became even more rusted and broken down.
At least Bryce's engine still runs. But you're restricted to old Route 32. Bryce is just not capable of driving on Expressway 64, which is not brand new itself.
Hexagon, on the other hand, has fared much worse. The convertible top has been eaten away by the buzzards of time and the whole thing is up on blocks and has a family of possums living under it. Mean, nasty possums, taking on the form of crashes. They may even be rabid possums.
I'm fine with DRM that enforces the EULA's restrictions on copying...to others (aka. piracy):
- I'm NOT OK with encryption of 3D Content's plain text source code.
- I'm NOT OK with authentication schemes that require systems to be online every time you launch DAZ Studio.
What's funny is how often companies take pirates at their word for how much downloading is going on. Or that the pay sites really have the content they claim to. (I got bored and poked at one of the ones where it'd search torrents and offer direct downloads for a price... Thing would act like it had direct downloads for whatever random gibberish I threw into its search even assigning a 'time to download estimate' to it.)
But then in a lot of ways businesses seem to treat piracy as though it were a rival business. Assuming they have a profit motive for example. For every pirate looking to scam a quick buck there's a dozen cracking things for the bragging rights. DRM is just a challenge thrown down to them.
And of course the ones who end up suffering are the customers. In the discussion of the restrictions of Encrypted content I see a lot of responses of 'why would you want to do that?' in regards to things not possible with encrypted files. Thing is, I don't have to know why I might do that to be upset that the possibility is now denied me. I didn't know I might need to have pose files inject morph data into a figure till someone came up with morph injections. And while it's rare to need to read raw .duf files outside Studio, someone might want to make a utility to do so for some useful purpose and decide not to in the face of it not working with encrypted files. May seem unlikely now that someone would decide that. But when all the popular new products are encrypted, as one assumes they would be if this were decided a success, it may be the only decision. After all, who'd want to make something they know won't work on the latest content? Look how quickly people leap onto the newest figure and leave older ones to gather dust.
If you actually know of places that are allowing that, I hope you've reported them to DAZ so they can do whatever is necessary to stop it. If we could get these things shut down more often, DAZ and the PAs would (hopefully) be more willing to forego the DRM stuff.
As people keep wanting to quote this post, which is somewhat inaccurate, I suggest that you check this http://www.cocs.com/poser/poser5mess.htm which is what was actually happening at the time that Daz decided to develop an alternative to poser if you are interested in that issue. It has an accurate time line, as it was written at the time.
This is a huge thread, and I will admit that I did not read all 40 pages, so if I am rehasing old info I apologize. The only reason I am even posting, is it seem that DAZ staff members are chiming in here, and perhaps some "official' light could be shined on my concerns. As a software engineer and (very amatuer) artist, I can grealy appreciate steps taken to prevent the stealing and pirating of content. I have been a *supporter* of protection schemes in the past, with my only concerns beign in the delivery mechanisim and steps needed to use. The current implemntation of the DAZ Connect and Encrypted content seems (at least at this juncture) to be mostly non-obtrusive, with the only caveats is the need for an Internet connection to"authorize" your machine, and then a connection to retrieve your purchases. Once the content is on your authroized machine, it just *works* while using DAZ Studio. The problem I am having, is that I do not use DAZ Studio as my pirmary application. I have founded my workflow on Carrara. I much perfer its user interface and its rendering engine to DAZ Studio, not to mention that is a "fully featured" app, where-as Studio is primarly a composign application. Since Carrara is a DAZ owned product, I had assumed that all of the new inovations would be included in this product as well, and if that were the case, I would be OK with the encryption scheme. However, as of tdoay, Carrara does not support Genesis 3, still does not support geo-grafting, has only basic support for Genesis 2. This severly hinders me in using my purchased content. My workflow for Genesis 2 has been to compose the model in Studio, and then exprt as DUF and then use it and render in Carrara. This works fine for everythign but geo-grafts. But, this is not an option for Genesis 3 (unless I export as an OBJ, which just doesnt' work unless I take steps to try and re-rig the model in Carrara), and will also not work for DAZ encrypted content (again the export is an option, but a considerable time investment). There have been many statements made in other threads, and in the FAQ that state that support for Carrara is "coming" but no timeline is available. Can anythign be offically stated as to "when"? Thanks.
Yes it does. Thank you :)
I agree with Gr00vus, help be part of the solution. I report websites, facebook pages, youtube channels, and anything else I see.
nothing like having some window licking mouth breather devalue my investment by using his mom's credit card to buy the same things I have and share them on his facebook to prove just how '1337" he is to his fellow window licking mouth breathers.Only to have his mom cancel the payment and punish the store and the PA that made the assests with transaction fees on reversed payments further damaging the value of my investments.
I should be allowed to have access to a list of names and address' of these basement dwelling low lifes so I can sue every last one of those dullards for the lost value they caused me.
No files encrypted for me either.
The piracy standpoint is meaningless. If the pirate sites are really interested in DAZ objects, they quickly find a way to decrypt them, with the risk to see a part of the people who buy DAZ products going to these pirate sites. This is a very bad strategic decision.
What's funny is, given earlier D&D commentary I made, that Daz is in the role of Pathfinder, but forgetting (or loosing faith in) the lesson.
Daz exists because Poser didn't engage in restrictive DRM, and when Poser made unpopular decisions, Daz had an opportunity to do something new and expand.
Daz' actions will prevent that from happening (assuming they don't lose so many sales they have to stop making products encrypted-only).
Make of that what you will.
How do you figure that out?
If you mean 'how would encrypted products prevent a new company from sharing market with Daz and potentially out-competing them'... um, because another company can't use encrypted files?
If policy makers at Daz genuinely believe DRM stops piracy (or convinces investors of the same), and all the hue and cry here doesn't actually impact sales, then there is no reason Daz wouldn't progress to the point of making all Daz content encryption-only.
At which point the bulk of the Daz content market would be walled from other potential rivals. I mean, yeah, you can export, but those processes are often very clunky, difficult, or incomplete.
I'm not going to say that that's a motivation for encryption. I suspect it isn't at all, but you never know. However, it doesn't matter -- the effect is the same, whether it's intentional or not.
Actually, upon reflection, I'm wrong.
If Daz goes down the road of encryption, it will create an opportunity for someone new, because there's a huge bulk of content for Genesis 2 and previous.
I was remarking on the part of the post about Daz only existing because Poser didn't use DRM.
Poser came within an inch of turning it's toes up and becoming deceased, at which time DAZ 3D, becoming troubled about the possibility of being a company producing content for use in a program that no longer existed, decided that maybe they should try and make an alternative.
Fact
Chohole: There's some ambiguity in English grammar for causality there.
How would Daz be selling content if Poser's content was all encrypted and access to the program restricted to Official Poser Stuff?
Daz wouldn't have had a content market without freedom. Daz wouldn't have had the ability to do anything about Poser's demise without that earlier market and the ability to look at content.
Daz exists purely because there wasn't DRM.
And now it thinks DRM is necessary.
There's a teeny, tiny problem when it comes to Carrara. As a Carrara owner myself, I've asked a similar question shortly after my purchase and the reponse I got was quite surprising. Daz 3D did not original make Carrara, they bought it. That's why the interface is so widely different to everything else Daz, and why support hasn't been as forthcoming as Daz Studio. The code is a bit of a 'black box'. As a software engineer, you know what that means. You put stuff in, you get stuff out, but no one really knows what's going on in the middle. This is obviously an over-simplification, but it explains why a lot of the Daz Studio connectivity is more of a bolted-on addition rather than a seamless integration.
What they really need is a team of devs to pull it apart piece by piece and reassemble a new Carrara from the ground up with all the same features, but true intergration with the Daz Studio content. They could probably do the interface wonders as well, as it's looking more than a bit dated.
Anyway, not to derail the thread, but this is why Carrara hasn't making leaps and bounds currently and why the encrypted goodies will have to be run through Daz Studio in the meantime. Daz devs, feel free to correct any inaccuracies in my explanation if this has changed since then.
I remember doing QA for a patch for a game that had been owned by some other company and bought.
Employees at the previous company hadn't been thrilled about it.
So the patch came out and we had to test it... ... but the documentation? The documentation was entirely based on gleaning facts from fansites.
Good, because that isn't a requirement to use encrypted DS content - once online is enough to register the machine, afetr which everything can be done offline (though you will then be responsible for getting updates).
This one I find mind-boggling, but of the two (genius and stupidity), one only knows no bounds. :(
I agree, just take a look at the number of DRM schemes that have failed! Most companies report lost sales / marketshare after implementing DRM.
Google: drm piracy statistics and the pros and cons of DRM
Such a fact may be considered a strategic decission, hence the DRM; by locking its content out it is in effect protecting its long term viability - or so those who have made the decission think. Presuming my speculation bears any relationship to reality.
What would be harder to make with encrypted content? Very little (actually none that I can think of) content creation involves exporting anything more complex than an .obj. Making textures? Absolutely no effect from encryption. Making a morph? You export an .obj, Making a clothing item? Obj to build around. The only thing (and Daz even mentioned it up front) is some scripting might need a workaround.
If all of Poser's content were encrypted the way Daz has. Then all the stuff Daz made would be exactly the same, because it relied only on the program and Daz hasn't locked any of studio.
On the thing I bolded, yes there would be a problem there, but of course Daz hasn't one anything like that so its kinda irrelevant, non? Yes, If Daz locked out most users from the content creation tools everything would be much harder, but they already went through that phase and realized it wasn't profitable, so I doubt they're going back.
Again, I'll refer you to http://www.cocs.com/poser/poser5mess.htm for the actual history of how Poser DRM led to the development of Daz Studio.
Chohole is right; this is fact and I know it because it's the reason why I switched to Studio. I had used all four versions of Poser and had no plans to drop it until Poser 5's disasterous launch. When the very first beta tests of Studio began, I signed up for them because, like DAZ, I did not want to be left high and dry with no way to do what I wanted to do if Poser were to fail.
I've stuck with Studio ever since, and I've never doubted my decision because the ability to access and use the best quality content in this community is the most important thing.
It's not so much a defense of DRM as an attempt to clear up some misapprehensions as to how and when DS got started.
I have new official information on this topic from Daz which will be posted in a new thread. As such, I am locking this thread, so that we can begin new discussion in a new place based on this new information.
Thank you all for your input. You've been heard.