You've been heard. Response re: 4.9 and Encryption
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Sorry, having been a bit of a hacker way back in the 80s, I know their mindset. The 'tracking info' has to be stored SOMEWHERE in the data. Either as a file, or inside an existing file, or as file metadata. The moment ANYONE got 'banned' or had their (probably throw-away) account cancelled, they would go nuts trying to find out HOW they found them out. And they'd call the actions to the attention of other hackers. Soon, you'd have hundreds of them trying to figure out where the tracking info was, or if there was something that 'phoned home' hidden in there, or dozens of other things. It would NOT take long for them to find it. They have tools designed to highlight single bit differences between files, and even watch memory locations in running applications to see when they change and what values they change to. PE file format isn't hard to hack through, and patching around some code isn't either. So the crux of the issue isn't "Can it be done?" so much as "How long before they bypass it?"
The moment DAZ started using such methods, they'd also run into other problems. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say, there are precedents concerning very similar technologies and how they backfired for the companies that used them.
I believe DAZ issued the truly free DRM for those who wanted to try out 4.9 and DRM without any monitary investment. I am not downloading because I picked up two free DRM models when 4.9 came out.
The point remains how would it be discovered if it was done without notification? Do you really go looking for something you don't have a clue is there? And how does it detract from DRM? I was asking if daz considered other methods before chosing DRM and now everyone wants to pop off with why it wouldn't work when they didn't read the whole statement as assumed that people would know about it in the first place.
Even worse, nowhere in the newsletter I just got does it give any indication that the "Friday Freebie", as they're calling it, has been encrapted.
Basically this is looking like a test of sorts. If the encrypted freebie item ends up in enough shopping carts , the data set collected by the marketing dept will show DRM as a success story no matter the fact that not one penny was spent on it. It's basically a way to massage the data by playing on the fact that a certain amount of the user base can't resist a freebie no matter the strings attached.
It was only stated that the Weekly freebie would be unencryped and in fact it was stated that there might be other freebies that were encryped.
Several people in this thread have been asking, (begging, even,) to have DAZ release a completely free product for Encrypted DAZ Connect so they can try it out. Apparently DAZ's answer was, "Yes."
The point remains that you CANNOT legitimately test the acceptance of DRM with a freebie! I am no longer a PC+ member so I guess those of uss that fall outside the realm of forking out extra are left out in the cold?
If you're not using smart content, then I don't think there's anything preventing you from using Connect just to download products, going to their nice little individually setup product folders, adjusting as you see fit, and then moving them into whatever runtime you want to use them from. Unless the product is encrypted. It pretty much bypasses the step of unzipping to a separate folder before adjusting things, and it's fairly straightforward to zip up the product after you've adjusted its folder layout to your liking. Haven't tried using it like that myself, but again if you're not using Smart Content for anything, then you could probably leave the metadata alone and then it should tell you when updates happen, though it'd likely redownload the whole thing at that point if the original files have been moved. Connect is definitely a work in progress that needs some fixes badly, but it's not a bad idea in and of itself.
And now they will have the possitive respose they were looking for to say DRM works and is accepted making all of us look like tinfoil hat wearing cospiracy nuts. Thanks but no thanks
Or it could be a way to let people get used to encrypted content, both to its possible presence and to the way it works, so that when real products get released with encryption any testing will be done on an informed audience. I don't know which it is, but I doubt Daz will make any final decisions without testing on non-free items.
I got a refund of the tollboth item - well all items in the invoice.
I've just redownloaded it as well, it's not encrypted so I can try it out.
+1 THIS! If DAZ is so proud of their new DRM EnCRAPtion and feel its so great, then let them "sing it from the rooftops" and prominently label the EnCRAPted items as such. Hey DAZ, if you guys are so sure that DRM is a good thing and that most customers will gleefully support it... PROVE IT... Place an "Encrypted Item" logo CLEARLY and PROMINENTLY on that content. Let's see how that works. You guys chose to add DRM... Be loud and proud about it... If DRM is such a great thing that won't affect users in a negative way, then surely if you put that "Encrypted Content" banner prominently on the item folks will flock to it and download it en masse, right? Test that.
I have a separate account (used for demos) on my laptop, which has never spent any money at DAZ; all the stuff in content/runtime is stuff obtained at DAZ for free, or from other sites with freebies (sharecg, etc). The laptop is also my canary-in-the-coalmine 4.9 installation. So, I ordered Make A Wish props.
Not showing up in Content/Products, nor Smart Props. Oh, is there a Read Me telling me where to look for the items?
Never mind encryption. Connect is still pretty unsatifactory compared to DIM.
Update. Oh, THERE it is in Content/Products/M -- AFTER the alphabetically sorted list, I found the not-yet-loaded product. Well. That's intuitive.
It would have been much less controversial if they had stated due to the demand on the forum the item was being provided as requested by some customers. IMO, communication could have been better.
We're customers, we are actually meant to be awkward. The onus is on Daz, not on us.
Where your idea does have merit, is that it would inconvienence the pirates (since they would have to open up the zip, locate and remove the id, and then create the package again). Since we have been told that everyone accepts that DRM is merely to inconvienence the pirates, then adding an id to the download file would have the same effect, and would not penalize the real customers. There are of course practical implementation issues with having a different zip file for each user to download.
If they were willing to skew their data that badly to get a 'DRM is accepted' response, then this discussion is pointless because the decision is already set. Wouldn't matter what we did, because if someone is willing to twist the numbers, then they'll get the result they want no matter what the facts are.
If they wanted to just ignore customer concerns and bulldoze ahead with DRM, they wouldn't be testing it. Realistically, if they were deadset that DRM would 'solve piracy/fraud' and not cost them customers in the process, they'd want to implement it on as much of the new stuff as possible. The only reason I can see for them not to put it on all new releases is that they're concerned about customer reaction and possibly about technical issues that could arise. Gathering data about it's effect on the piracy/fraud situation would likely be much easier with as large a sample as possible.
Deliberately setting out to skew their data about customer reaction would be counter-productive for them. Not saying it's impossible, but why experiment to gauge customer reaction if you don't care what the result is?
An encrypted section that was required for the product to work would have been feasible? Part of non-connect products are already encrypted so surely it could have been incorporated in that?
I'm tempted to say anything but DRM, but that is because I can't imagine anything worse - however - it can always get worse. :)
Two words: Plausible Deniability.
Two more words: Confirmation Bias.
They could then claim they've 'shown' it's both working and is not costing them any 'significant' sales. Then the Executives can be presented with the info, It's not an unusual tactic in corporate circles.
I'm not saying DAZ is doing this. I'm hoping they aren't. But there are plenty of precedents of it being done historically in other companies.
I read somewhere that DAZ has around 40 employees, so I am not certain it can really be compared with the faceless mega corporations like big banks that have 10s of thousands of employees.
Eh, guys, I'm inclined to believe them when they say they are providing freebie DRM stuff so we can try it and realize it's not the Debil. That's a sensible approach -- if you are in the middle somewhere but not willing to spring money on something you aren't sure about, well, there you go, with the mild incentive of 'you can't get this normally.' I'm not thrilled about the effective 'you don't get this unless you go DRM,' but I don't feel we need to read much more into it that that.
I agree with TesseractSpace; this is not likely to be a "test of customer acceptance"; there would be no reason for that. The true test for DAZ, and the question they need to answer is, "going forward, will we make, lose, or draw in the aggregate?" DAZ has survived several economic downturns just fine, even though they have three obsolete or backleveled technology products in their product catalog (Bryce, Hexagon, and Carrara). Setting aside the old software for a moment, there's no way they could have fallen into this level of success by accident or dumb luck.
That tells me that at least some part of DAZ is giving due attention to what makes paying customers pay real money for products.
The "Friday Freebie"? It's got a catchy fling to it. What would we expect them to call it, the "Encrypted Technology Test?" That would be like DAZ taking steady aim and shooting at their own foot. No, it's a freebie, so take it or leave it at your own choosing.
"Customer acceptance of DRM" will have to be determined later if/when actual paid items start showing up in the store. And yes, I would not be surprised if they are heavily discounted at first. If anybody knows this business, it's DAZ. If anybody has some sort of sale every week, it's DAZ.
I'm sure they're looking forward to seeing just how much the pitchfork and torch crowd here speaks for the larger customer base when it comes to paid products.
I've decided that I will get the encrypted freebies to test them out with 4.9. I need to do this so as to determine whether or not I'm going to use paid encrypted content down the road. And if the answer is no, then depending on the trend of encrypted content, I'll need to decide if I should let my PC+ subscription just expire at the end of July.
That's not a threat; it is just a realistic look at my decision points going forward. To say "I'm leaving now!" would feel a bit petulatnt to me. To do right by myself, I need to resist making any snap decisions without more facts.
I already have one fact known to me, and that is that neither I nor the user community will be able to "edit source code" for any encrypted items. That is a very real drawback, because vendors come, vendors go, vendors have more or less technical capability depending on their background, available time, and desire to show customer service. And let's face it, some products really do benefit from community collaboration. I think of it as a flavor of "Open Source".
So for today:
I'm confident that my "purchase" of a free encrypted item will not be seen by DAZ as a "vote in favor" of the technology because that would be too... um, two dimensional of DAZ's accountants, marketeers, and management teams. Based on the company's successful business track record to date, I refuse to prejudge them on this one, because to do so could be to underestimate them, and to make my own decision based on lack of information could serve to undercut myself too. My art/muse deserve good decisionmaking from me; even if my skills don't rise to the level of the best of the best here in the gallery or in the newsletter.
Didn't they already test things out in a way on paid content? The detective themed bundle that released with Gianni 7? That bundle had a trenchcoat in it that was something a lot of people wanted AND was available at a seriously good pricepoint for those buying the Gianni 7 product. However, it was available only as "encrypted connect" and basing on what we saw on the forums people were not happy and they were not buying.
This whole "encryption-as-DRM" thing is really pushing me away as a customer and its impacting my enjoyment of this hobby. I find myself on both sides of the divide and its not a position that any company should put its customers. One one side, I DO see the reasoning behind the move to protect digital assets from priracy. I WANT the content creators to have healthy bottom lines so that they will continue to make more content. I WANT DAZ3D to survive and even thrive as a company so that I can continue to bring the bulk of my purchases to DAZ3D. Honestly most of the best quality content is marketed through DAZ. Before the 4.9 fiasco the only time I would purchase something from one of the other two providers I purchase from was if it was something not available through the DAZ3D marketplace. Now I find myself more actively perusing the other sites.
On the other side of the divide, I am wholly against the implementation of DRM. Professionally I have seen it do nothing but cause problems for users and at the same time fail utterly in preventing or even appreciable slowing down piracy. It really does not matter the method tried, theres somebody out there with the knowledge and tools to break it. Seen it happen way too many times. Whats worse is I have also seen legititmate users of various types of software unable to do their work because of various incompatibilities between hardware and software introduced because of a company introducing DRM methodology into their products. I cannot begin to give you a figure on the number of hours I have spent assisting my users in navigating their way through various work-arounds just so they could do the job they were being paid for. Do I really want to deal with something like this on a personal level in a hobby I engage in to relieve stress? I think not.
DAZ3D, by reducing the level of our enjoyment of their products, is pushing their customers away. Not all of them I am sure but some of them. Is this a position they want to take? Do they consider the customers lost through this move to be acceptable collateral damage?
One thing I would like everyone to think about is this: In our rush to voice our protest against this drm methodology, lets not penalize the PA's who release non encrypted content. If a PA releases non encrypted content that you would normally have purchased before this debacle, purchase it, if there's a DAZ Original product that you like and its released in an unencrypted form, purchase it. A wholesale boycott of everything is going to financially harm the company as well as the PA's that market through it. Definitely make your preferences known through your wallet as others have stated. Just dont throw out the baby with the bath water. If DAZ3D sees that they cant even realistically GIVE the encrypted content away but that other items sell just as well, it may serve as an indicator of what direction they need to go in. If indeed they are still listening and prepared to change course if necessary.
As a counter that, we have the snowblinding bright web theme with no dark theme equivalent and the dysfunctional new DAZ logo, plus DAZ Connect, which is a step backward comapred to DIM (in terms of being able to independantly manage my downloads and work in DS worry free at the same time). There have been a lot of mis-steps lately, so I am not as convinced at how "smart" they are vs. how much somone is pushing hard for certain things. I would like to think you are right, and a year ago I would have agreed, but I am not so certain this time around.
Free items are not a test of whether people will actually buy encrypted products.
Could also be an attempt to get more people to move to DS 4.9. It's possible lots of folk (non-forumites, etc) aren't super aware there's a new version, or just haven't updated yet. A freebie gets attention, and the only way to enjoy this one is to go 4.9.
The encryption/DRM project can't succeed without the vast majority of the customer base on 4.9+.
Well, I doubt that a color choice on the forum has any real bearing on all this. Sure, I guess you could make a case that it's "just one more data point indicating bad decisionmaking". But really, is it stastically significant? Maybe in your perception/sense that you've been wronged, yes.
And I don't think the evidence is all in yet that Connect is a step backward from DIM. We need some folks willing to test through this (and we need some of them to be DIM fans like myself) and we need to see a round of bug fixes before we can say that.
Which brings me to a question: Now that portions of the store/website/DIM/marketing strategy is "baked in" DAZ Studio 4.9, can we expect an increased pace of hotfixes for broken or buggy Connect features? I would think that the new DAZ Studio features have pretty much obsoleted the old lifecycle methodology of having long-term public betas.
I picked up the free item, but I can't use it. I haven't been able to get any of the encrypted products to actually load properly, so free encrypted products only work as an ongoing reverse incentive to make me NOT want to spend money on any products that only come that way.
On the positive side, all the fubas and stumbles that happened during the Genesis launch seemed to mainly lead to a ridiculous cycle of cheaper and cheaper sales and promotions it appears that DAZ Connect is going to go the same way.
Except they could have offered the product in all 3 download formats to see which one gets used. Or they could offer the freebie twice - one with manual and DIMM downloads, the other with encrypt only, and see which one people prefer.