No encrypted for me.
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Okay, when I bought the Detective Poses and Props it was all install types, by the time I downloaded it five minutes later, it was suddenly Connect Only. Very funny, DAZ.
Off to return it.
Read the next sentence.
I"ve never ever ever run into those problems using DIM. This is only to be able to update a single file of a product if that's all that changed really. But this has nothing to do with encryption, right?
Any results?
I spotted the switch before I put it in the cart, so I was spared some of the bitter disappointment. Wishlisted the bundle in the forlorn hope that DAZ will realize the error of their ways.
Can we at least get a check box that hides encrypted content? Like the one that hides stuff we've already bought and the one that hides everything but PC+.
Checking against server: any time you install to a new machine. Sounds like a periodic check in to me.
As for the dongle concept? That'd be whatever key is generated when you log your Studio in.
The scripts don't need a check in with Daz to operate on a new system. They're an example of how encryption can be used without being DRM.
Just because the 'check in with server' is passed off to check against key generated by prior check in with server doesn't mean you aren't checking in. It just means they don't need to have you directly ping the authentication server every time.
That's a good answer, accepted. As I've said a couple of times I'm not against encryption. It's the second part of my question, though, that I really want an answer to......why so complicated?
Encrypt the files.
Tell customers they're encrypted but nothing else has changed.
Have Studio 'check in' to authorize decryption.
Some complaints and snuffling but this isn't really DRM
Life goes on.
Small comfort.
LOL. It'll have to dig its own way out. I'm done with it.
You can't simultanously claim that encryption has been instituted to cut down on casual piracy AND state that it's not really DRM.
I mean, obviously, you can, but it really makes Daz look bad.
DRM stands for Digitial RIghts Managment (though a lot of people like to call it Digital Restrictions Management since it is more accurate). The check in for authorization makes it by definition DRM.
I would like to know the answer to this as well. My current suspicion is that DS is failing because of the presence of two graphics cards in my computer.
And before anyone leaps on the subject saying that their desktop has two graphics cards and they aren't having any issues... My computer is notebook with two graphics cards, which is somewhat different than a desktop configuration.
LOl. Let's call the spade a spade. DAZ connect is DRM, pure and simple.
What two cards? (I am going to guess the Auros with a pair of GTX 965m?)
No. It's an integrated Intel HD 4600 and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M.
Would have bought the Classic Trenchcoat, and probably the Old Warehouse and Detective Poses eventually, but definitely the Classic Trenchcoat. But they're DRM encumbered, so I won't even wishlsit them. That's at least about $20 DRM has cost DAZ/the PAs. Please forward that to accounting/sales so you can do an accurate tally of revenue generation due to DRM.
I understand you're against it on principle and that's fine. But you'd have to check in for authorization to merely access the cloud anyway. So it doesn't seem a hardship to me.
Agreed!
Look, I had an incident over a nine dollar purchase....NINE DOLLARS! Nobody seemed able to step back and reason that a person who has been a loyal customer for years, bought thousands in Daz products before the incident and hundreds after that 'glitched purchase' would probably not be trying to defraud Daz over nine measely dollars. Yet I was locked out of my account and we went round and round and round and round tech support to myself with absolutely nothing being accomplished.
What bothered me most was being treated as a criminal by default. I finally had to seek out the CEO of Daz on a professional networking site I won't mention here and E-mail him directly to get the ball rolling again. Even still, the steps to resolution went round and round until it finally was cleared up.
Perhaps some of this was simply a personality conflict, but I don't really care, nor do I care what others think, lesson has been learned It's MY CONTENT, I bought it, and I will NEVER again give you a way to lock me out of it!
Further this nonsense of mixing connect packages shows Daz can not be trusted. So Yeah I bought pretty much all the gen 3 pro bundles so far (with only two exceptions I think), but Giannni no.
Now I don't know about the rest of you but I pretty much was a daily buyer of new content, right up until this connect issue came up.
You just lost several hundred dollars today. It's not my job to go through each bundle to see if you are trying to trick us into buying connect, I just don't have that kind of time. So as of now I'm done buying Daz until they drop the idea of connect only content.
One of the laptops I use for testing is an HD4600 and an NVIDIA GTX 870m which works just fine.
Are your drivers up to date? Which is the one that is being used for driving the screen when DS is launched?
Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit, fully up to date with all patches.
I have rebooted, I have restarted. I have run as standard and as Administrator. I have lowered and raised my Windows Permissions.
My suspicion is that what ever audit process runs to determine the system configuration is seeing one GPU and not the other. And then DS is seeing two. Or vice versa.
I have used NVIDIA Commander to force DS to run under specific conditions (only one GPU, etc.) thinking that one entry under the precisely defined variables would establish the machine configuration. Then reran DA and that made no difference.
And yes, I have tried with each of the GPUs.
Oh, and at Support's instruction, I uninstalled PostGre through DIM, redownloaded it, and reinstalled it. With no change in the results.
OK. Time to step back and be brutally honest here.
First off, I don't want DRM . Thats pretty obvious based on some things I have previously posted so I wont reiterate them here.
Secondly, I don't want DAZ3D and the various content creators I purchase from to be so badly impacted by software piracy that they decide to either a) throw in the towel completely or b) price their products out of the range of the casual user/hobbyist because otherwise its impossible to get a return on their labor. This could happen.
Thirdly, I had NO IDEA the scale of piracy that was going on. In the last few hours I have been hopping all over the internet and have foudn that there are a few sites where an access fee is asked in order to be able to log in and download things to your hearts content. Movies, Books, Music, and yes 3D assets. Lots of 3D assets. I expected to see the movies, music and ebooks. I did not expect the 3d assets to be so prevalent. Whats even crazier is the sheer amount of sites that serve the stuff up for free. And lets not go into the torrent sites. I truly had no idea. I'm not talking about one file on site a or a couple of files on site b but rather huge collections. I feel kinda ashamed given that I work in IT and I had no idea. This is not a problem of perception. If somebody wanted to take the time and wade through all this, they could assign a dollar value and it would not be small.
So, that said, a bit of copy protection for DAZ assets does not look quite so much of a bad thing anymore.
Now, looking at what we have been told about the "Encryption/DRM" measures being taken, they really don't look so draconian.
- Unlimited number of installs : Dont know about you but I have seen LOTS of software that gives you three installs and thats it. After that you have to call in, jump through various hoops, and perhaps even re-buy your software before you get to use it agan.
- Multiple simultaneous connections: This is pretty relaxed compared to some companies. I have a laptop I use when travelling. Its nice to be able to update both computers at once when I add things to my content library.
- Able to work offline: Lots of software ( games as well as other applications) require an online component in order to maintain authentification checks. No online access, no use of software. I could give you a list but I am certain most of us already know of a few examples of this.
- Can install offline: Yes. You can. I did this. It was quite simple and it appears to have found my content library that is incidentally stored on an external drive
- No expiration date on a machine authorization: If you use the latest version of one of the Poser software packages, I am told you have to log in at least onece every few weeks or your software is no longer authorized and locks you out. I much prefer the DAZ implementation thank you very much.
- Unlimited number of machine authorizations: This is a free pass. If I build a new computer, I log in with my account, download DAZ Studio and install it. Log in with my account after install and it registers/authorizes. Providing everything works as the people at DAZ seem to want it to, this should be relatively painless. Now if there is a hardware failure on a server farm somewhere, thats not exactly DAZ's fault. I sincerely hope they have a lot of redundancy built into the system however.
- No need to un-authenticate different machines: Again, a free pass. DAZ appears to be more interested in the fact that we have and use our accounts - and purchase things- than they do telling us we can only ever have 3 installs on three computers before we have to mess with un-authenticating stuff.
- Content authorizations do not expire: This means that once I pay for the content, I have the right to use it as long as it exists either on my hard drive, or on a daz server somewhere. Yes, the company could conceivably go out of business but thats a risk of life. You can always download the offline authorizations for your content and remember to COPY rather than paste it when you need to re-install. Just keep those files in a safe backup.
- Export is fully functional: Now this one I am not totally sure on because I am just now learning how to use another program rather than just DAZ Studio but if you take it as it is read, it means that you can export things to the same software you could before.
- No restrictions of third party content: This and the fully functional export means that we are not locked in a walled garden yet. Should there be a move to do so in the future you can darn sure bet I will take my toys - and my money- and go play elsewhere. I have backups of the 4.8 install files as well as the 4.9 install files and my offiline install files. I plan to keep this updated and backed up religiously.
Looking at all this has me wondering just what the encryption does do that is so onerous. From reading this, it appears that the encryption is put in place to prevent every Peter or Patricia Pirate from stealing others work. Thats not a bad thing. If it was my work I would not want it stolen. Heck, the very few images that I have made that I liked enough to put out there have a watermark that I spent the time learning how to make in photoshop.
Now I fully expect a few disappointed repiles to this post. I fully expect to be told that I "caved in" and am "asking for the walled garden". Feel free to say those things to me. It will not matter. I would much rather be honest and admit that when I heard the words "DRM" and "Encryption" that I reacted in a knee jerk fashion based on past experiences with DRM that failed badly. Now, after stepping back and trying to be more objective, I can honestly say that while I dont like it AT ALL. I can see the reason for it and can possibly bring my self to put up with what is in essence some pretty unrestrictive changes. The only thing this encryption is really doing -at this point- is making it harder for people to steal from DAZ3D or the various content creators. Given that we all want DAZ to stay in business to feed our addiction, is that such a bad thing?
*puts on flame retardant suit and pours a tall glass of iced tea*
Here is how I am running it. (Geneeral settings) Optimus is set to use the IntelHD as default for all software that is not otherwise specified. Daz Studio is not specified as needing something else. I don't specify anything for the NVIDIA card.
When I open DS, it is running on the Intel chip and the GTX 870 is listed in the advanced render settings tab.
Note that running DS as Administrator causes issues, please do not do that. :)
As I found out this morning, it can also pop up if the PostgreSQL daemon takes a little too long to start up as Studio apparently doesn't wait for it to finish loading.
There is a difference between an item being available for download and that availability reducing a sale.
There have been numerous studies, most already referenced in this thread, that show that most of the people who download an item for free never had any intention of purchasing said item. Most of the people involved download "just cause" and may play with it for a couple of hours, at most, then never touch it again. There was never going to be a sale regardless of the item being available for free.
That's not to say that no sales are lost. I am sure that some are, but its usually a very tiny percentage of what alarmists like to say it was.
Further, the items will still be available at the very same places. The restrictions will have an impact on sales.
The trap is that the number of legitimate sales lost due to DRM is a lesser number than the number that the alarmists said were being lost to "pirates.' However when the number is compared to the realistic number of lost sales, the math tells a different tale.
I use Poser and have the latest version and have never experinced any kind of lockout and I may not open it more than once a month maybe even longer due to RL situations at this time
Also have it on machine with no internet or network connection functions without problem
1) That is a very well thought out and well written post.
2) I don't care.
See I realize Daz has rights, but I the private consumer, I also have rights.
Now I did not tell Daz to get into an industry where they can have their rights violated, therefore they have no right to violate mine in order to protect theirs.
They don't want to have their stuff stolen I get it. So in order to accomplish this they want me, a customer and not a criminal mind you, to use encrypted authorization, in effect asking permission to use content that I in fact own?
Some people just don't get it. I don't really care about Daz, they got millions they'll be fine. I on the other hand stand to lose thousands of dollars of assetts that I could potentially be locked out of over a simple misunderstanding like the one I mentioned earlier. And I don't have the money to throw away, nor the time to spend fixing it.
You seem to think Daz has rights and I do not.
Well I am here to tell you that Daz will have to fight its own battles, I'm not foregoing my rights to protect their business.
Tried that, no change. And I did turn off the Administrator option.
Excellent post and I agree. It's not the encryption that bothers me.