You've been heard. Response re: 4.9 and Encryption

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Comments

  • a-sennov said:
    mjc1016 said:

    Just because it's up doesn't mean it a) has been 'cracked', b) works and c) is actually what it says it is (although c isn't all that common, any longer it still does happen).

    According to the person who uploaded it it was done using Hexagon bridge so it's not a crack. Obviously I cannot provide a link to his/her post but it's easy to find.

     

    mjc1016 said:

    And if it is...have you reported it yet?

    It's another interesting question. In case of DIM it's easy to check if something is distributed in violation of EULA - one can compare .zip files or even their contents (or even make a checksums) and know that they are indeed identical, so the file that came from site other than DAZ is pirated one. In case of encrypted content it's no longer the case and in fact these props are (and always will be) different as well as files they reside in are different too and thus generally it would require to involve some experts to make qualified opinion on whether they are really pirated or just happen to look and name similar or maybe just advertized as such.

    Personnaly I would never report it because to my knowledge and abilities I cannot verify that it's identical to original product without downloading and using it in one way ot another - and then I'll become a pirate myself (what I'd like to avoid :) ).

    Well, if it claims to be the set then it's doing something wrong - lying or infringing. And in any event, the maps are presumably unchanged. However, if it's a torrent there's not a great deal of point in reporting it, sadly.

  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    Havos said:

    If you look at this link http://download.cnet.com/s/daz-studio/, it claims there has been 2.3 million downloads, assumably from its own site alone. One would assume most have grabbed it from DAZ's own site, but if millions have grabbed it from other download locations as well, I guess the total number could be even higher.

    That's only the Windows downloads, there's another 275,906 Mac downloads as well.

    I agree that it doesn't accurately reflect the numbers of actual users and users who actually buy content regularly, but even if there's "only" 10,000 active, paying customers, it does put  things a little in perspectiv when 20 or 25 vocal forum members claim to represent the "majority" of their customers.

    -- Walt Sterdan

    No it doesn't. No one claimed to represent the majority. People said that "they're only a minority" insinuating that anyone not complaining approves, which is faulty logic.

    You're absolutly correct, and my apologies.

    I'd actually tried to delete or edit the post a second after I hit "POST COMMENT" but the forum wouldn't let me. 

    I'd just did a quick "catch-up" of the thread (and the others) too close to bedtime and after hundreds of posts some of the phrases blurred together:

    What everyone in the forums can dislike the majority who aren't vocal may like.

    ...it also suggests the vocal minority may be a majority on a long enough timeline since there are so many long term members included there...

    There are a small number of posters expressing support; the majority seem against

    Again, my apologies.

    -- Walt Sterdan

    All good; just that as you may have read it's been suggested that a vocal minority means that the majority is approving (if they don't say "no," they mean "yes") which kind of puts me on edge.

    Especially since the follow up response is often "so you think the silent ones are all disapproving too!!" which makes my head hurt.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    a-sennov said:
     
    mjc1016 said:

    And if it is...have you reported it yet?

    It's another interesting question. In case of DIM it's easy to check if something is distributed in violation of EULA - one can compare .zip files or even their contents (or even make a checksums) and know that they are indeed identical, so the file that came from site other than DAZ is pirated one. In case of encrypted content it's no longer the case and in fact these props are (and always will be) different as well as files they reside in are different too and thus generally it would require to involve some experts to make qualified opinion on whether they are really pirated or just happen to look and name similar or maybe just advertized as such.

    Personnaly I would never report it because to my knowledge and abilities I cannot verify that it's identical to original product without downloading and using it in one way ot another - and then I'll become a pirate myself (what I'd like to avoid :) ).

     

     

    Doesn't have to be identical to report it to CS.  And it is still in violation even if it isn't identical.

  • a-sennova-sennov Posts: 331
    mjc1016 said:
    Doesn't have to be identical to report it to CS.  And it is still in violation even if it isn't identical.

    How would you know?

    I could make the same set of props (according to what I see on promos it's not a rocket science), package into DIM-compatible zip and upload under the same name (it's not a trademark and cannot be) and it will not be violation in any sense. How can you be sure that this is not the case? If he robbed some textures then we can find it but again - only because textures are not yet encrypted and we can compare them directly, for encrypted content the only way is to load it into Studio alongside the legitimate content and compare visually (actually more than that - they also may be equally looking but have different meshes). And once you have it loaded and it is really identical you can paint Black Jack on your computer - you're pirate. :)

  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 6,067
    a-sennov said:
    mjc1016 said:

    Well, if it claims to be the set then it's doing something wrong - lying or infringing. And in any event, the maps are presumably unchanged. However, if it's a torrent there's not a great deal of point in reporting it, sadly.

    This, to me, is one of the saddest comments I have seen here.  I know it's not an official position, just a 'passing remark', but it does seem to spell out, in very clear terms, what a lot of people have been venting out in swathes of paragraphs.  Piracy bad. DRM good. Shame about torrents.  Just before DRM bolted through the stable door I reported a torrent site that had what I thought was a lot of content (DAZ, 'rosity, etc., etc.) on.  The response I got was (to paraphrase for effect), "meh, what can you do?"  I presume it's only the casual pirates who share the direct links to the files that 'we' care about?

  • a-sennova-sennov Posts: 331

    Well, if it claims to be the set then it's doing something wrong - lying or infringing.

    Lying, of course. It's surely not the same package that DAZ is distributing :)

     

  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 3,054
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    Havos said:

    No it doesn't. No one claimed to represent the majority. People said that "they're only a minority" insinuating that anyone not complaining approves, which is faulty logic.

    You're absolutly correct, and my apologies.

    I'd actually tried to delete or edit the post a second after I hit "POST COMMENT" but the forum wouldn't let me. 

    I'd just did a quick "catch-up" of the thread (and the others) too close to bedtime and after hundreds of posts some of the phrases blurred together:

    What everyone in the forums can dislike the majority who aren't vocal may like.

    ...it also suggests the vocal minority may be a majority on a long enough timeline since there are so many long term members included there...

    There are a small number of posters expressing support; the majority seem against

    Again, my apologies.

    -- Walt Sterdan

    All good; just that as you may have read it's been suggested that a vocal minority means that the majority is approving (if they don't say "no," they mean "yes") which kind of puts me on edge.

    Especially since the follow up response is often "so you think the silent ones are all disapproving too!!" which makes my head hurt.

    Agreed; I think maybe the best we can assume about the "silent majority' isn't that they don't approve or disapprove, but that they don't feel the issue is worth commenting on... yet. ;-)

    -- Walt Sterdan

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,574
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    Havos said:

    No it doesn't. No one claimed to represent the majority. People said that "they're only a minority" insinuating that anyone not complaining approves, which is faulty logic.

    You're absolutly correct, and my apologies.

    I'd actually tried to delete or edit the post a second after I hit "POST COMMENT" but the forum wouldn't let me. 

    I'd just did a quick "catch-up" of the thread (and the others) too close to bedtime and after hundreds of posts some of the phrases blurred together:

    What everyone in the forums can dislike the majority who aren't vocal may like.

    ...it also suggests the vocal minority may be a majority on a long enough timeline since there are so many long term members included there...

    There are a small number of posters expressing support; the majority seem against

    Again, my apologies.

    -- Walt Sterdan

    All good; just that as you may have read it's been suggested that a vocal minority means that the majority is approving (if they don't say "no," they mean "yes") which kind of puts me on edge.

    Especially since the follow up response is often "so you think the silent ones are all disapproving too!!" which makes my head hurt.

    Agreed; I think maybe the best we can assume about the "silent majority' isn't that they don't approve or disapprove, but that they don't feel the issue is worth commenting on... yet. ;-)

    -- Walt Sterdan

    I don't think we can even assume that, we can in fact assume nothing at all about them

  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996
    edited February 2016
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    Havos said:

    No it doesn't. No one claimed to represent the majority. People said that "they're only a minority" insinuating that anyone not complaining approves, which is faulty logic.

    You're absolutly correct, and my apologies.

    I'd actually tried to delete or edit the post a second after I hit "POST COMMENT" but the forum wouldn't let me. 

    I'd just did a quick "catch-up" of the thread (and the others) too close to bedtime and after hundreds of posts some of the phrases blurred together:

    What everyone in the forums can dislike the majority who aren't vocal may like.

    ...it also suggests the vocal minority may be a majority on a long enough timeline since there are so many long term members included there...

    There are a small number of posters expressing support; the majority seem against

    Again, my apologies.

    -- Walt Sterdan

    All good; just that as you may have read it's been suggested that a vocal minority means that the majority is approving (if they don't say "no," they mean "yes") which kind of puts me on edge.

    Especially since the follow up response is often "so you think the silent ones are all disapproving too!!" which makes my head hurt.

    Agreed; I think maybe the best we can assume about the "silent majority' isn't that they don't approve or disapprove, but that they don't feel the issue is worth commenting on... yet. ;-)

    -- Walt Sterdan

    It's just so complicated. A small percentage of customers may be forum users, and a small percentage of them vocally disapproving, but there's also a smaller percentage vocally approving. The forum users that are silent may not want to argue against people, whether they approve or disapprove. Others might not even know the forums exist, or be content just using the program or be content quietly huffing over changes they disapprove of. Or they might not have noticed. Or they might not care either way. We have no idea.

    Then you have the question of whether all users' opinons are equal: are PA opinions worth more, as they're making the content? What about the known high turnover rate of customers? Does that make the opinions of long time, high spending customers more valuable? Does the fact that there will almost always be some complaint about a change mean that complaints should be ignored? Which complaints about Daz has the highest viewer count / post count? Is that the biggest issue and should they be doing something about it or ignoring it and hoping it goes away?

    I don't have the answers to any of these questions and I believe it's a mistake for anyone to act as if they do; especially Daz themselves.

    Post edited by lx_2807502 on
  • assume makes an ass of u and me

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,574
    edited February 2016
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    Havos said:

    No it doesn't. No one claimed to represent the majority. People said that "they're only a minority" insinuating that anyone not complaining approves, which is faulty logic.

    You're absolutly correct, and my apologies.

    I'd actually tried to delete or edit the post a second after I hit "POST COMMENT" but the forum wouldn't let me. 

    I'd just did a quick "catch-up" of the thread (and the others) too close to bedtime and after hundreds of posts some of the phrases blurred together:

    What everyone in the forums can dislike the majority who aren't vocal may like.

    ...it also suggests the vocal minority may be a majority on a long enough timeline since there are so many long term members included there...

    There are a small number of posters expressing support; the majority seem against

    Again, my apologies.

    -- Walt Sterdan

    All good; just that as you may have read it's been suggested that a vocal minority means that the majority is approving (if they don't say "no," they mean "yes") which kind of puts me on edge.

    Especially since the follow up response is often "so you think the silent ones are all disapproving too!!" which makes my head hurt.

    Agreed; I think maybe the best we can assume about the "silent majority' isn't that they don't approve or disapprove, but that they don't feel the issue is worth commenting on... yet. ;-)

    -- Walt Sterdan

    It's just so complicated. A small percentage of customers may be forum users, and a small percentage of them vocally disapproving, but there's also a smaller percentage vocally approving. The forum users that are silent may not want to argue against people, whether they approve or disapprove. Others might not even know the forums exist, or be content just using the program or be content quietly huffing over changes they disapprove of. Or they might not have noticed. Or they might not care either way. We have no idea.

    Then you have the question of whether all users' opinons are equal: are PA opinions worth more, as they're making the content? What about the known high turnover rate of customers? Does that make the opinions of long time, high spending customers more valuable? Does the fact that there will almost always be some complaint about a change mean that complaints should be ignored? Which complaints about Daz has the highest viewer count / post count? Is that the biggest issue and should they be doing something about it or ignoring it and hoping it goes away?

    I don't have the answers to any of these questions and I believe it's a mistake for anyone to act as if they do; especially Daz themselves.

    I think the only opinions that matter to DAZ are those of people that buy content, and the importance of their opinion is directly proportional to the average amount they spend per month. Everyone else is just noise.

    Post edited by Havos on
  • Havos said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    lx said:
    wsterdan said:
    Havos said:

    No it doesn't. No one claimed to represent the majority. People said that "they're only a minority" insinuating that anyone not complaining approves, which is faulty logic.

    You're absolutly correct, and my apologies.

    I'd actually tried to delete or edit the post a second after I hit "POST COMMENT" but the forum wouldn't let me. 

    I'd just did a quick "catch-up" of the thread (and the others) too close to bedtime and after hundreds of posts some of the phrases blurred together:

    What everyone in the forums can dislike the majority who aren't vocal may like.

    ...it also suggests the vocal minority may be a majority on a long enough timeline since there are so many long term members included there...

    There are a small number of posters expressing support; the majority seem against

    Again, my apologies.

    -- Walt Sterdan

    All good; just that as you may have read it's been suggested that a vocal minority means that the majority is approving (if they don't say "no," they mean "yes") which kind of puts me on edge.

    Especially since the follow up response is often "so you think the silent ones are all disapproving too!!" which makes my head hurt.

    Agreed; I think maybe the best we can assume about the "silent majority' isn't that they don't approve or disapprove, but that they don't feel the issue is worth commenting on... yet. ;-)

    -- Walt Sterdan

    It's just so complicated. A small percentage of customers may be forum users, and a small percentage of them vocally disapproving, but there's also a smaller percentage vocally approving. The forum users that are silent may not want to argue against people, whether they approve or disapprove. Others might not even know the forums exist, or be content just using the program or be content quietly huffing over changes they disapprove of. Or they might not have noticed. Or they might not care either way. We have no idea.

    Then you have the question of whether all users' opinons are equal: are PA opinions worth more, as they're making the content? What about the known high turnover rate of customers? Does that make the opinions of long time, high spending customers more valuable? Does the fact that there will almost always be some complaint about a change mean that complaints should be ignored? Which complaints about Daz has the highest viewer count / post count? Is that the biggest issue and should they be doing something about it or ignoring it and hoping it goes away?

    I don't have the answers to any of these questions and I believe it's a mistake for anyone to act as if they do; especially Daz themselves.

    I think the only opinions that matter to DAZ are those of people that buy content, and the importance of their opinion is directly proportional to the average amount they spend per month. Everyone else is just noise.

    Well, DAZ also has to consider the opinion of their PAs as well.  DAZ's business model revolves around stocking their store with a steady stream of sparkling new sales and they can't do that without PAs willing to get on board the DRM train with them.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,237
    edited February 2016

    Wonder if the customer IDs can tell how many costumers they have (some companies do not start at 0 with their numbers, to look bigger). Mine is 98xxx9 (close to 1.000.000), I signed up in 2008.

    You can find it in your product library, select an item, then right click on the page in the right pane and get the page source, scroll down about 180 lines.

     

     

    daz_cust_id.jpg
    649 x 199 - 109K
    Post edited by Taoz on
  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996
    edited February 2016
    Taozen said:

    Wonder if the customer IDs can tell how many costumers they have (some companies do not start at 0 with their numbers, to look bigger). Mine is 98xxx9 (close to 1.000.000), I signed up in 2008.

    You can find it in your product library, select an item, then right click on the page in the right pane and get the page source, scroll down about 180 lines.

     

     

    Probably not, considering that'd only tell you how many customers they have had at best. Also I realised my earlier '2000 products thing doesn't really matter, since that was a lot fewer orders (probably a few hundred orders though in 2015.)

    I think if you look at the suggested ~$1000 to get on top of the what's hot list, average expected wage for someone to be able to do this full time vs product prices, numbers of followers popular artists have listed on other sites, number of active forum users, even average number of pirate downloads, somewhere in the ballpark of 20,000 active customers is probably a fairly good guess. A minority of those will likely be longtime avid shoppers, others longtime customers that only shop occasionally, and the rest a mix of high turnover come and go types and others.

    Post edited by lx_2807502 on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    Taozen said:

    Wonder if the customer IDs can tell how many costumers they have (some companies do not start at 0 with their numbers, to look bigger). Mine is 98xxx9 (close to 1.000.000), I signed up in 2008.

    You can find it in your product library, select an item, then right click on the page in the right pane and get the page source, scroll down about 180 lines.

     

     

    Interesting,  if that is correct I only have a 4 figure customer ID

  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,319

    Is it the same one I see when I mouse over your username ?

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,237
    lx said:
    Taozen said:

    Wonder if the customer IDs can tell how many costumers they have (some companies do not start at 0 with their numbers, to look bigger). Mine is 98xxx9 (close to 1.000.000), I signed up in 2008.

    You can find it in your product library, select an item, then right click on the page in the right pane and get the page source, scroll down about 180 lines.

    Probably not, considering that'd only tell you how many customers they have had at best. Also I realised my earlier '2000 products thing doesn't really matter, since that was a lot fewer orders (probably a few hundred orders though in 2015.)

    Well if you could find some of the first customers and then some of the newest, and perhaps a range in between you might get an idea - if the numbers aren't manipulated in some way.

  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996

    Woah, I'm user number 2.8 million D:

  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996
    Taozen said:
    lx said:
    Taozen said:

    Wonder if the customer IDs can tell how many costumers they have (some companies do not start at 0 with their numbers, to look bigger). Mine is 98xxx9 (close to 1.000.000), I signed up in 2008.

    You can find it in your product library, select an item, then right click on the page in the right pane and get the page source, scroll down about 180 lines.

    Probably not, considering that'd only tell you how many customers they have had at best. Also I realised my earlier '2000 products thing doesn't really matter, since that was a lot fewer orders (probably a few hundred orders though in 2015.)

    Well if you could find some of the first customers and then some of the newest, and perhaps a range in between you might get an idea - if the numbers aren't manipulated in some way.

    Well assuming Chohole has been here forever and has a 4 figure number, and I'm recent and my number is higher than any of yours, I'd say your theory is accurate. It doesn't tell us how many of us are actually actively buying over say the past few months, though.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    icecrmn said:

    Is it the same one I see when I mouse over your username ?

    A much quicker way of finding it

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,237
    Chohole said:
    Taozen said:

    Wonder if the customer IDs can tell how many costumers they have (some companies do not start at 0 with their numbers, to look bigger). Mine is 98xxx9 (close to 1.000.000), I signed up in 2008.

    You can find it in your product library, select an item, then right click on the page in the right pane and get the page source, scroll down about 180 lines.

     

     

    Interesting,  if that is correct I only have a 4 figure customer ID

    Thanks, I was actually thinking of what yours was, you've been here since 2001 AFAIK...

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,237

     

    icecrmn said:

    Is it the same one I see when I mouse over your username ?

    Where? Doesn't work here in the forum for me.

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 12,738
    Taozen said:
    icecrmn said:

    Is it the same one I see when I mouse over your username ?

    Where? Doesn't work here in the forum for me.

    The link to your profile under your avatar when you post.

  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,319
    Taozen said:

     

    icecrmn said:

    Is it the same one I see when I mouse over your username ?

    Where? Doesn't work here in the forum for me.

    I'm on firefox, when I mouse over your username, on the bottom left side of the browser I see the link to your profile 

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/profile/983889/Taozen

    here is mine

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/profile/2534814/icecrmn

  • cdemeritcdemerit Posts: 505

    I have been largely silent on the subject up until now. But to make sure my "silence" isn't interpreted as support, I will not use Encrypted content. I did not put in tickets for the freebies, probably should, but I have no intent on downloading, upgrading or otherwise using this content. Many recent decisions by Daz have put me off, and I now have most of what I want, and likely more than I'll ever "need". I've let my PC+ membership lapse, and likely won't be spending much more, if any. 

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,237
    lx said:
    Taozen said:
    lx said:
    Taozen said:

    Wonder if the customer IDs can tell how many costumers they have (some companies do not start at 0 with their numbers, to look bigger). Mine is 98xxx9 (close to 1.000.000), I signed up in 2008.

    You can find it in your product library, select an item, then right click on the page in the right pane and get the page source, scroll down about 180 lines.

    Probably not, considering that'd only tell you how many customers they have had at best. Also I realised my earlier '2000 products thing doesn't really matter, since that was a lot fewer orders (probably a few hundred orders though in 2015.)

    Well if you could find some of the first customers and then some of the newest, and perhaps a range in between you might get an idea - if the numbers aren't manipulated in some way.

    Well assuming Chohole has been here forever and has a 4 figure number, and I'm recent and my number is higher than any of yours, I'd say your theory is accurate. It doesn't tell us how many of us are actually actively buying over say the past few months, though.

    Still, the numbers could be manipulated, like skipping some, e.g.: 01,11,21,31 ect.. Hard to tell unless you can find a range of consecutive numbers. But I don't think so, it fits quite well with the 2 million on their front page a few years ago (unless that number was manipulated also cheeky).

     

     

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,237
    icecrmn said:
    Taozen said:

     

    icecrmn said:

    Is it the same one I see when I mouse over your username ?

    Where? Doesn't work here in the forum for me.

    I'm on firefox, when I mouse over your username, on the bottom left side of the browser I see the link to your profile 

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/profile/983889/Taozen

    here is mine

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/profile/2534814/icecrmn

    Ah, OK. Yes, that's the same number.

  • CrescentCrescent Posts: 333

    If you go to a restaurant and the food tastes awful, are you going to say something to the staff or just quietly leave and vow to never come back?  A lot of people don't like to make a scene - they just take their business elsewhere.  There's no way to tell how the "silent majority" feels except to monitor sales numbers for several months and hope that you're not doing lasting harm to your brand in the meantime.  Those of us who are being vocal against the DAZ Connect/encryption may be the only ones who hate it, or we may represent 10%, 50%, 99% of active customers - we don't know and we don't claim to know.

    As for past, large-scale disagreements:

    • .zip files - people were arguing *for* them for a long time, not against them.  The only arguments I remember were about the naming scheme once the .zips were available because they didn't match the old .exe files.
    • DIM - people like me hated DIM (and I still don't like it) because it's very clumsy if you do more than basic organization.  DAZ had talked about making everything DIM only, which people did not like.  When DAZ decided to do manual downloads as well as DIM, people were happy.  Since there are ways to work around DIM's clunkiness, if manual downloads had been taken away it would have been sucky but liveable.

    4.9 brings two distinct, but interrelated issues:  

    • DAZ Connect - which forces a rigid organization scheme on users that can't be adequately worked around.
    • Encryption - which can cause a host of headaches that have been detailed in previous posts.  

    Some of the posters hate just one of the two issues, some hate both.  

    On top of that, DAZ backtracked from its promise of not trying to force DC/encryption right away by bringing out DC/encrypted-only products on Day One of DS 4.9's release.  ("But those don't count - they're freebies, not paid products - though you do have to purchase $49 to get the freebies.")  Then they released paid products that were DC/encrypted-only just a few days later.  Then they encrypted the PClub freebie, though they backtracked on that later that day.  Then they offered a freebie that's encrypted-only "so people who wanted to test encryption could".  (There's no reason they couldn't have released that freebie in all three formats so it comes across as a "go [render] yourself" to those who don't want to use DC/encryption.)  

    All of this hurts their credibility.

    I'm posting because I still care enough to hope DAZ will effect change before it's too late. 

  • Robert FreiseRobert Freise Posts: 4,573
    edited February 2016

    Mine's also four digits and I have been buying since Daz was Zygote and not Digital Art Zone

    Post edited by Robert Freise on
  • fool said:

    assume makes an ass of u and me

    Oh come on, you're not a donkey!  And neither am I, although I do bray from time to time.  I'm more slothlike...cheeky

This discussion has been closed.