No encrypted for me.
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Agreed! Thank you from me as well, Richard!
Yeah noticed the Rederosity e-mail today that contained the phrase "Don't let DRM Products limit your creativity..." in big bold letters.
Looks like Daz has given their competition a great big ol' birthday present.
I am afraid you may be correct. The people that made the decision to force unwanted encryption on us may soon get some hard data in the form of lost revenue regarding how well their decision is accepted.
This is hilarious considering what happened at Rendo last year. For those that don't frequent that store, the people in charge made massive changes to the store and to their Prime membership (a subscription similar to DAZ's PC+ club). These change recieved an enormous amount of negative user feedback (similar to what's happening here) and Rendo staff and their published artists kept talking up the changes saying how great they were for the customer and how fun they were. Consumer's didn't buy it and several months later you saw posts from their artists talking about how much sales were down following the changes and they began to backtrack on some of the changes.
When there was the huge backlash against DAZ for the Rev Up sale last year and they responded by changing the sale I thought what a stark constrast between the two companies but now...
What that shows is how quick they are to take advantage of people's hysteria and lack of understanding about this entire situation to try and sell their products.
I updated and used Connect. I can still use my content offline, nothing exploded, nothing stopped working, and I'm pretty sure DAZ isn't getting any more information from me than when I downloaded my products through DIM. I am impressed with how calm Richard and the other DAZ staff have been in dealing with this lunacy.
I got that email too. I'm post a capture of it but it would just get removed
Yeah when I first looked at Rendo I was all set to join their Prime thing but then I looked at what you actually got for the money and it was just unbelievably bad. And the site is still a nightmare to navigate and generally just spams you to death with products you don't care about. PC+ is such great value and I'm always happy being a member of it.
But now things are going the other way with Daz's encryption iniative... oh well it's not like anyone told them this would happen.
Today is a day where I am very glad that I back up the downloads folder in DIM. I made sure it was updated with everything today and then backed that folder up on another hard drive. Way too much content to burn to media. On that backup are the install folders for Studio 4.8. I have the feeling that this is going to be a bumpy ride for what is in my opinion the best content provider in the business and while I plan to ride it out until I am absolutely FORCED to use DRM encrypted content, I am also preparing for the worst.
I was also highly amused by the rendo email, very well timed given the opinions raised in this thread. The problem with rendo coupons, is that virtually the only things with a decent discount (ie not 10 or 20%) are prime items, which you can never use the coupons on. At least this time clearence items are included, but these are by definition "unloved" products.
But has Daz ever, and I mean EVER, listened to it's customers? Lunatic or otherwise?
What have we asked for since... well forever?
What have we ever gotten from them? Yet another Genesis figure nobody asked for and DRM that nobody asked for. What will we get from them in the future? Probably another Genesis figure nobody asked for.
We're assuming anybody who matters at Daz even knows or cares that people are confused and pissed off about DRM restrictions on their software.
I think we can all agree there has been lunacy, but exactly who were the lunatics has yet to be determined
Getting your credit card hacked repeatedly over at Rendo is probably the only thing worse than encryption. :P
Pretty much you are spot on. I actually just use a reloadable visa for shopping at that site. Its safer that way.
Oh I'm pretty sure they KNOW as many of them were conceivably in on the decision making. If they actually CARE about our reaction to it is another question all together and at this point, I am not sure that the decision makers involved actually DO care about customer opinion.
Paypal is far more secure, using a credit card for extra protection of course.
Its not the actual mechanism of DazConnect that is what has us all upset , SnowSultan. Its the encryption that is being used as DRM that has us concerned. The two things are very different.
I've only been here about a year but just off the top of my head I've seen them take feedback and action on, Rev Up sale (rev ups no longer expired and no calculus to figure out the sales), winter punch sale (punchs stopped expiring), if you look at the 4.9 beta thread they did incorporate a lot of user feedback into how connect works (what is in release is much different from the original incarnation that was going to have all connect content be DRM'd among other usability improvements), some of the banners now have a date and time listed for when the sale expires.
You are probably correct and I may take that route at some point in the future given how things are going. For now, this works pretty well for me
I can't speak for DAZ, but a lot of those points have answers:
* Carrara, Bryce, and Hexagon appear to have pretty much become DAZ's backburner projects that they'll never really get around to concentrating on again. Most software companies do this though, so it's not unprecedented.
* Adding KeyMate and GraphMate to Studio along with aniMate will give it very good animation tools.
* I don't have a good reason why we don't have better dynamics in Studio yet, but I doubt it's just "DAZ doesn't want to do what we want".
* Technical advancements made it too difficult to keep compatibility with Poser when developing new figures and content.
DAZ has listened to customers many times, they've given rebates and changed the rules of sales because people couldn't understand them. They continue to release content for Genesis 2 (for which many of us are thankful) even though they're pushing Genesis 3. The arguments against DRM sound like the arguments I hear regarding gun safety laws. "Well criminals don't follow the law!"...so let's do nothing to help curb piracy because some people may find a way around it anyway?
I think in both those cases the "feedback" they got was likely lower sales than expected. They saw people bought more when they had 5 punches, so thought, why remove the punches. As has been said many times before, it is this sales feedback that will determine the success or failure of drm products
I wholeheartedly agree... Plus I can only imagine the additional costs (and time) of regaining lost customers coupled with the loss of time/money/resources it took to develop, implement, advertise, handle the customer relations nightmare this has caused. I cringe at what the final total losses may be.
I feel sorry for the poor soul in DAZ's marketing department who is going to be saddled with the impossible task of presenting DRM Encryption as a positive selling point or "feature" (lol) to potential new customers. The only new truthful campaign I can think of is "DAZ Studio 4.9 - Now with DRM Encryption!! We Done Goofed!!"
Alright, then please explain why, in simple terms and with as little Chicken Little-esque "they're punishing paying customers!!1" claims as possible, how encryption and DRM will hurt us. We can still access the OBJs and textures, we can still export to other software, we have to download the products at least once to get them to begin with, and there is a method (perhaps a bit of work, but it's there) to get content working on a computer than has no internet access. I'm not mocking you, I'd honestly like to hear a real reason that doesn't sound like a conspiracy theory coming from the same group of people who complain about everything DAZ does anyway.
Carrara and Bryce users can no longer natively use encrypted content.
DAZ Studio uses a thumbprint of your computer to determine if it's the same computer or a different machine. I found in the beta that some Windows updates that modify the OS version number changed this thumbprint (I would guess things like modifying hardware would also trigger it but I have not seen anyone mention running into this yet). You will be unable to use the encrypted content until your computer can connect back to DAZ. For people who have connectivity issues, physcially move machines to another location to obtain internet (like a cafe), or in the event that DAZ's servers/datacenter are having a meltdown (like this week), you could be locked out of using your legitimately purchased content.
If DAZ goes bankrupt, is sold, gets out of the content business, you have currently no legal recourse to get keys to decrypt content. A DAZ emplyoee mentioned they promise to have a poison pill to remove the encryption but that is just a promise on a forum and I do not belive has been added to the EULA. In theory you could pursue them in court under the legal theory of promissory estoppel but you would obviously need to pony up the lawyer fees.
We've had encrypted content for what, three days now? Like I said, Carrara and Bryce are not DAZ's priority, but it's likely at least Carrara will get a fix for that.
I go through this with Steam every time I do the slightest thing to my computer. It's a pain, but it's tolerable and if it reduced piracy at all and helped the company continue to release products, I'll deal with it. You may not, and that's your right not to.
Another hypothetical situation where you're willing to take the word of people who have absolutely no insider knowledge of DAZ's failsafes over those who might.
If you go back and read through this thread your question has been answered many times, but each time it is, it is dismissed by those that asked with "Nobody does that", or "No one uses that software anymore", or "There are workarounds for that issue"
Kindly link to one of those answers then if it differs from what RobotHeadArt just told me. And perhaps if someone says there are workarounds for an issue, maybe there are. Why is everyone so quick to assume that DAZ is lying and take the word of people who have NO FACTS to back up anything they're saying about DAZ's plans or future?
I don't recall saying I think DAZ are lying about anything, as far as I am concerned they have been honest and up front about what they are doing, and why. It is just that some of us don't agree.
The benefits of DRM:
It will cut down on the most casual of criminals freely stealing stuff.
The drawbacks of DRM:
Company goes out of business.
Scripts and other stuff that require free access to files to do funky cool stuff with products YOU OWN.
Readable format to see what stuff YOU OWN does, and how it's organized, so you can learn from it or do funky things with it.
Easier to copy/paste between machines or otherwise store the way you want.
General bad experience with promised 'DRM will be fine' in the past, and the general truism that the more complications you make, the more chances for things to go wrong.
So, like people keep saying, DRM mildly inconveniences theft while less mildly inconveniencing customers. Obviously we can see why Daz and some PAs may, naturally, want to somewhat drop misuse of their stuff. Obviously, we can see why many customers aren't thrilled at something that doesn't benefit them (except in the most roundabout ways).
You can disagree with folks' assessments, and some of the complaints are loonytunes. But brushing away all concerns as stupid or silly is wrong.
No much of the discussion is about the restrictions of DRM, not to pirates, they hardly notice but to us; then there's the matter of the DRMd products having a potential permenant lockout that we have no control over. There are many examples in threads where folks state they have lost to DRM - I haven't to the best of my knowledge: I avoid DRM products that carry that risk.
I will continue to do so.
Also, the point of 'We prefer to call it encryption because DRM is usually worse' sounds a lot like doublespeak.
Yes, it's DRM. DRM comes in all sorts of formats. But there's a reason the term has such negative connotations.
(God, anyone here remember Spore's DRM?)