Get Your Encrypted Daz Connect Content Here Thread - none at the moment 2018-01-30

lx_2807502

Zev0 said:

tl155180 said:

RobotHeadArt said:

tl155180 said:

I think everyone is missing the point I was making. I understand the ins and outs - what I'm saying is that the original reason for encrypted content was to reduce piracy, but if they're continuing to offer all 3 download methods on almost all products (meaning its unencrypted content) then they aren't achieving their stated goal. I'm wondering why this isn't moving along faster - why isn't every new product becoming encrypted content if it was such a great idea?

I probably worded my previous post poorly.

Because the backlash would be too great so instead they are boiling frogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#As_metaphor

It makes me wonder if they now know it was a bad idea, but they're trying to save face by not backing down on it completely. They are rolling it out sooo painfully slowly and minimally that they might as well not be doing it at all. Think of all the pirates who are currently winning while Daz twiddle their thumbs ;) They don't seem to have much confidence in their plans.

Unfortunately you can only push an idea so far. Every company is at the mercy of the customer base and their acceptance to a new plan or direction. If Daz sent out a mandate that all products had to be encrypted, think of the down period where nobody would buy any content because lot's of people are still against it and fear it. People fear what they do not understand. That could kill a company and would definately put some PA's out of business. So best approach is to do it slowly where people can try it out and see there is nothing to really fear using encrypted content. But if you force something too hard, you scare people off who are used to their traditional methods. Ease them into it, and they will see there is nothing to be scared of. Just like being scared of the dark as a kid...You grow out of it and realize there nothing to be scared of. Only reason I never used encrypted content was because I thought it would mess up my existing content structure that I set up. That was my fear, that it would overwrite all my old content I manually installed because I place things in a way that makes sense to me. Then I realized I can isolate the two and use both, so all my encryted content is in one content folder and doesn't touch my custom set up one. So that works for me. But I am not going to deny myself using a product I really want just over some fear. I will still download manual zips as a preference, but if something is encrypted and I really want it, I will buy it because it has no impact on me at all in what I want to use it for and still plays nice with my other content directories.

That's fine, but you mentioned several issues:

- You need to have a second organisation system for those items. That second content system also has a very hard file system to work with which cannot be touched.
- You can't do manual download zips for those items (well I guess you technically can but it means downloading each zip and installer key etc. whereas I normally rely on DIM to automatically grab multiple files at once and store them, which neither manual nor Connect do.)

As for fears ... people fear DRM for a reason, and it isn't "the unknown." It's being screwed over multiple times by multiple companies. There are many examples of it making customers' life worse - the only real unknown is a case where it helped customers.

Zev0

Edited..

Mistara

i would neverrrr go to a ware site.  nuthing is free.  malware, spyware, virus; yoo be paying for it somehow

Zev0

"You need to have a second organisation system for those items. That second content system also has a very hard file system to work with which cannot be touched."

That is by choice because I don't want to intergrate the two and set it to save in the same folder. Then again oldies like myself have well over 5 different runtime folders from Poser days so we management experts lol.

Zev0

MistyMist said:

i would neverrrr go to a ware site.  nuthing is free.  malware, spyware, virus; yoo be paying for it somehow

That is you. I know lot's of people who don't care about threats as long as they get something for free. There are some sites where there isn't any risk. But point is they can still get the content, and experienced ware users know ways around those threats to get what they want, and know what sites are safe and what ones aren't. End of the day the rate at which the content being uploaded to these sites is rediculous. If you do enough research, you will find around 30% of people who visit Daz come from visiting a ware site first, or go to one after. End of the day something needs to be done and you can't just sit back and do nothing, whether people are happy about it or not. You need to defend your business, and Daz encryption products still works whether you are online or off, it's not like they lock you out of your purchases like drm games in the past that piss you off and cause inconvenience if their servers are down or you are not online. That is bad DRM...

TesseractSpace

As for fears ... people fear DRM for a reason, and it isn't "the unknown." It's being screwed over multiple times by multiple companies. There are many examples of it making customers' life worse - the only real unknown is a case where it helped customers.

That's because DRM is anti-consumer by it's very nature. It cannot ever be a benefit to a customer. At most a company using DRM can mitigate the burden it causes, but a DRM encumbered product can never be as usable as a version not encumbered with DRM. 

TesseractSpace

Zev0 said:

MistyMist said:

i would neverrrr go to a ware site.  nuthing is free.  malware, spyware, virus; yoo be paying for it somehow

That is you. I know lot's of people who don't care about threats as long as they get something for free. There are some sites where there isn't any risk. But point is they can still get the content, and experienced ware users know ways around those threats to get what they want, and know what sites are safe and what ones aren't. End of the day the rate at which the content being uploaded to these sites is rediculous. If you do enough research, you will find around 30% of people who visit Daz come from visiting a ware site first, or go to one after.

And the encryption isn't slowing down the pace much. And I rather doubt those who would risk malware to get the product free are ever going to bother paying for it.

 

Of course I could be wrong, perhaps all the encrypted products are making so much money for DAZ from all the reformed pirates who've seen the light when confronted by the beauty of the encryption that DAZ doesn't need to care about the customers who can't or won't use the encumbered products.

Mistara

if is encrypted i will make do without it.  
when i finish my cgi movie, dont want the content developers sueing me out of my net gross
i wont use sharecg content for the same reason, no knowing if is honest or not.

would think, criminals will get their illegal content, whether is encrypted or nott.

Zev0

TesseractSpace said:

Zev0 said:

MistyMist said:

i would neverrrr go to a ware site.  nuthing is free.  malware, spyware, virus; yoo be paying for it somehow

That is you. I know lot's of people who don't care about threats as long as they get something for free. There are some sites where there isn't any risk. But point is they can still get the content, and experienced ware users know ways around those threats to get what they want, and know what sites are safe and what ones aren't. End of the day the rate at which the content being uploaded to these sites is rediculous. If you do enough research, you will find around 30% of people who visit Daz come from visiting a ware site first, or go to one after.

And the encryption isn't slowing down the pace much. And I rather doubt those who would risk malware to get the product free are ever going to bother paying for it.

That is the biggest myth ever lol. Some people will do anything to save money. Or get something if they don't have the money to buy it. Sure maybe they would buy it if they had money, but if not and they see it available for free, they will download it. Note I said some....Not everybody. You get people who buy all content, some that do a mix of buying and downloading for free when they can't afford it, and some who never pay for anything by just downloading wares or torrented content. Point I am trying to make is, you get some people who will cross the border at times if the temptation is there. End of the day, that is still a sale lost to that bracket of user who normally does buy because they won't go back and buy the product because they already have it. Complacency sets in....

Richard Haseltine

MistyMist said:

if is encrypted i will make do without it.  
when i finish my cgi movie, dont want the content developers sueing me out of my net gross

What is the connection between encrypted content and use in a film? The license terms are the same.

mambanegra

Zev0 said:

tl155180 said:

RobotHeadArt said:

tl155180 said:

I think everyone is missing the point I was making. I understand the ins and outs - what I'm saying is that the original reason for encrypted content was to reduce piracy, but if they're continuing to offer all 3 download methods on almost all products (meaning its unencrypted content) then they aren't achieving their stated goal. I'm wondering why this isn't moving along faster - why isn't every new product becoming encrypted content if it was such a great idea?

I probably worded my previous post poorly.

Because the backlash would be too great so instead they are boiling frogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#As_metaphor

It makes me wonder if they now know it was a bad idea, but they're trying to save face by not backing down on it completely. They are rolling it out sooo painfully slowly and minimally that they might as well not be doing it at all. Think of all the pirates who are currently winning while Daz twiddle their thumbs ;) They don't seem to have much confidence in their plans.

Unfortunately you can only push an idea so far. Every company is at the mercy of the customer base and their acceptance to a new plan or direction. If Daz sent out a mandate that all products had to be encrypted, think of the down period where nobody would buy any content because lot's of people are still against it and fear it. People fear what they do not understand. That could kill a company and would definately put some PA's out of business. So best approach is to do it slowly where people can try it out and see there is nothing to really fear using encrypted content. But if you force something too hard, you scare people off who are used to their traditional methods. Ease them into it, and they will see there is nothing to be scared of. Just like being scared of the dark as a kid...You grow out of it and realize there nothing to be scared of. Only reason I never used encrypted content was because I thought it would mess up my existing content structure that I set up. That was my fear, that it would overwrite all my old content I manually installed because I place things in a way that makes sense to me. Then I realized I can isolate the two and use both, so all my encryted content is in one content folder and doesn't touch my custom set up one. So that works for me. But I am not going to deny myself using a product I really want just over some fear. I will still download manual zips as a preference, but if something is encrypted and I really want it, I will buy it because it has no impact on me at all in what I want to use it for and still plays nice with my other content directories.

As I've said in other threads, I don't really care about DRM, but I don't like Connect and don't really expect to ever use it unless they fix all of the problems that I have seen and posted about in other threads. I assume I'm not alone with this, but we are probably a very small minority. DAZ is listening, and they appear to have fixed a few of my concerns, but several will likely will never be addressed because they are integral to the design of the software itself (which I consider to be very poorly designed and very wasteful on the user's end. I'd love to see how much diskspace is wasted because of this bad design for someone with thousands of products downloaded via connect). So, the odds are good I will avoid any connect only products, unless they happen to be cheap enough that I don't mind waiting a year for them to become available (i.e. those freebies and the first few that were just a couple of bucks) or one of those "have to have" products, which really is a very small portion of my purchases. After seeing the creep toward Connect Only in DO products, I'm seriously wondering where we'll be when my PC membership comes due in the spring next year and whether there will be any real value to it for me. I guess we'll find out! :)

 

Zev0

TesseractSpace said:

As for fears ... people fear DRM for a reason, and it isn't "the unknown." It's being screwed over multiple times by multiple companies. There are many examples of it making customers' life worse - the only real unknown is a case where it helped customers.

but a DRM encumbered product can never be as usable as a version not encumbered with DRM. 

Define usable? How does that affect using content sold here the way it's encrypted? Userbility and customizability remains the same. Sure maybe you can't move it around like you want (actual files on disk), which most don't do anyways, but the product still functions 100% like it is intended to.

lx_2807502

mambanegra said:

Zev0 said:

tl155180 said:

RobotHeadArt said:

tl155180 said:

I think everyone is missing the point I was making. I understand the ins and outs - what I'm saying is that the original reason for encrypted content was to reduce piracy, but if they're continuing to offer all 3 download methods on almost all products (meaning its unencrypted content) then they aren't achieving their stated goal. I'm wondering why this isn't moving along faster - why isn't every new product becoming encrypted content if it was such a great idea?

I probably worded my previous post poorly.

Because the backlash would be too great so instead they are boiling frogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#As_metaphor

It makes me wonder if they now know it was a bad idea, but they're trying to save face by not backing down on it completely. They are rolling it out sooo painfully slowly and minimally that they might as well not be doing it at all. Think of all the pirates who are currently winning while Daz twiddle their thumbs ;) They don't seem to have much confidence in their plans.

Unfortunately you can only push an idea so far. Every company is at the mercy of the customer base and their acceptance to a new plan or direction. If Daz sent out a mandate that all products had to be encrypted, think of the down period where nobody would buy any content because lot's of people are still against it and fear it. People fear what they do not understand. That could kill a company and would definately put some PA's out of business. So best approach is to do it slowly where people can try it out and see there is nothing to really fear using encrypted content. But if you force something too hard, you scare people off who are used to their traditional methods. Ease them into it, and they will see there is nothing to be scared of. Just like being scared of the dark as a kid...You grow out of it and realize there nothing to be scared of. Only reason I never used encrypted content was because I thought it would mess up my existing content structure that I set up. That was my fear, that it would overwrite all my old content I manually installed because I place things in a way that makes sense to me. Then I realized I can isolate the two and use both, so all my encryted content is in one content folder and doesn't touch my custom set up one. So that works for me. But I am not going to deny myself using a product I really want just over some fear. I will still download manual zips as a preference, but if something is encrypted and I really want it, I will buy it because it has no impact on me at all in what I want to use it for and still plays nice with my other content directories.

As I've said in other threads, I don't really care about DRM, but I don't like Connect and don't really expect to ever use it unless they fix all of the problems that I have seen and posted about in other threads. I assume I'm not alone with this, but we are probably a very small minority. DAZ is listening, and they appear to have fixed a few of my concerns, but several will likely will never be addressed because they are integral to the design of the software itself (which I consider to be very poorly designed and very wasteful on the user's end. I'd love to see how much diskspace is wasted because of this bad design for someone with thousands of products downloaded via connect). So, the odds are good I will avoid any connect only products, unless they happen to be cheap enough that I don't mind waiting a year for them to become available (i.e. those freebies and the first few that were just a couple of bucks) or one of those "have to have" products, which really is a very small portion of my purchases. After seeing the creep toward Connect Only in DO products, I'm seriously wondering where we'll be when my PC membership comes due in the spring next year and whether there will be any real value to it for me. I guess we'll find out! :)

 

I'm kinda in this boat. While encrypted content is always going to be worth less money to me, it's not that big a deal. But Connect was a poor solution that has required constant fixes that have made it even more complicated than it was before. It's a choice, but I choose not to be locked into that design.

(Unless of course something revolutionary is released, but if that happens then I'll evaluate if it's worth it to me or not to use a less ideal system and require new authorisation to use content I already bought every time I have to reinstall, etc. Having just had to reinstall and thankfully having manual backups of my content, if I was stuck on Connect that would have been an awful situation to be stuck in.)

There's a lot of content here that I like, and what I've bought so far has been immensely useful in terms of having figures and learning how things work. But whether rational or not, the 4.9 changes took away a lot of the impulsive fun and have made me reevaluate my spending on content here.

Zev0

You can still use 4.9 without connect. I did that for a while and still mainly use my normal content Library tab.. It's worth the upgrade for Iray and 3dl improvements alone.

This is how I use Daz. I don't do smart content (Too old school). But you can see all my Daz connect stuff is under one folder and my normal content remains the same. 4.9 didn't change my workflow at all. I just have the added connect content structure for encrypted files.

mambanegra

Zev0 said:

You can still use 4.9 without connect. I did that for a while and still mainly use my normal content Library tab.. It's worth the upgrade for Iray and 3dl improvements alone.

Zev0 said:

This is how I use Daz. I don't do smart content. But you can see all my Daz connect stuff is under one folder and my normal content remains the same. 4.9 didn't change my workflow at all. I just have the added connect structure for encrypted files.

Yes, but you cannot use Connect only items without Connect, which is the problem we all are concerned about here. If one chooses not to use Connect at all, any product that isn't downloadable as zip or via DIM are inaccessible and thus worthless to us. 

BeeMKay

You can always download the product through connect, then go to the folder, and take all the files out of it, to move them as you please. Given that they are not encrypted, of course.

Zev0

mambanegra said:

Zev0 said:

You can still use 4.9 without connect. I did that for a while and still mainly use my normal content Library tab.. It's worth the upgrade for Iray and 3dl improvements alone.

Zev0 said:

This is how I use Daz. I don't do smart content. But you can see all my Daz connect stuff is under one folder and my normal content remains the same. 4.9 didn't change my workflow at all. I just have the added connect structure for encrypted files.

Yes, but you cannot use Connect only items without Connect, which is the problem we all are concerned about here. If one chooses not to use Connect at all, any product that isn't downloadable as zip or via DIM are inaccessible and thus worthless to us. 

What's the big fear of connecting to connect? It's no different than connecting to Dim for updates. Plus once you get what you need you can go back offline again. I always work offline. I only go on to check if there are updates now and then or to buy a product that has encryption that I want. Other than that I use Studio the same way before connect.

Zev0

edited

Oso3D

I will never use Encrypted-only products. I'll grab them for free with the expectation of using them in a year.

This is a considered view. And given the huge amount of content that's not encrypted and easy to use here, and on a dozen other sites, plus loads of stuff that's actually free out there, I find absolutely no pressure to subject myself to DRM.

If Daz ever gets to the point of all new stuff being DRM, then I will shrug and focus on their back catalog (which is extensive!) and other places.

 

Zev0

Everybody has their opinion on the matter. That is the beauty of diversity. Some won't use it and others will. End of the day I do what benefits my renders. If an encrypted product benefits me and my art, so be it. I ain't scared to use encryption. Granted not everybody has that view.

nicstt

Zev0 said:

tl155180 said:

RobotHeadArt said:

tl155180 said:

I think everyone is missing the point I was making. I understand the ins and outs - what I'm saying is that the original reason for encrypted content was to reduce piracy, but if they're continuing to offer all 3 download methods on almost all products (meaning its unencrypted content) then they aren't achieving their stated goal. I'm wondering why this isn't moving along faster - why isn't every new product becoming encrypted content if it was such a great idea?

I probably worded my previous post poorly.

Because the backlash would be too great so instead they are boiling frogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#As_metaphor

It makes me wonder if they now know it was a bad idea, but they're trying to save face by not backing down on it completely. They are rolling it out sooo painfully slowly and minimally that they might as well not be doing it at all. Think of all the pirates who are currently winning while Daz twiddle their thumbs ;) They don't seem to have much confidence in their plans.

Unfortunately you can only push an idea so far. Every company is at the mercy of the customer base and their acceptance to a new plan or direction. If Daz sent out a mandate that all products had to be encrypted, think of the down period where nobody would buy any content because lot's of people are still against it and fear it. People fear what they do not understand. That could kill a company and would definately put some PA's out of business. So best approach is to do it slowly where people can try it out and see there is nothing to really fear using encrypted content. But if you force something too hard, you scare people off who are used to their traditional methods. Ease them into it, and they will see there is nothing to be scared of. Just like being scared of the dark as a kid...You grow out of it and realize there nothing to be scared of. Only reason I never used encrypted content was because I thought it would mess up my existing content structure that I set up. That was my fear, that it would overwrite all my old content I manually installed because I place things in a way that makes sense to me. Then I realized I can isolate the two and use both, so all my encryted content is in one content folder and doesn't touch my custom set up one. So that works for me. But I am not going to deny myself using a product I really want just over some fear. I will still download manual zips as a preference, but if something is encrypted and I really want it, I will buy it because it has no impact on me at all in what I want to use it for and still plays nice with my other content directories.

Fear what we don't understand is a simplistic way of looking at it; many of us have issues with DRM, not because we don't understand it, but because previous experience has largely been negative; at best DRM has no impact on the customer. It offers the customer no benefits, and all too frequently inconveniences them far more than the pirates.

I love your products Zev0, and can appreciate you wanting to stop them being used by those that haven't paid, and even more so, sold by thieves; DRM products - when something goes wrong - and it does sooner or later, only stops legitimate users.

Zev0

Edited.

nicstt

Zev0 said:

Everybody has their opinion on the matter. That is the beauty of diversity. Some won't use it and others will. End of the day I do what benefits my renders. If an encrypted product benefits me and my art, so be it. I ain't scared to use encryption. Granted not everybody has that view.

I have no objection to encryption, I love it in fact; it helps keep my bank account safe, my online transactions safe, and countless login processes to name just three.

What we're discussing here is DRM. As I've said before, DRM needs encryption; Encryption is not DRM. Daz's nameing doesn't help, as I've said before.

DRM checks every time I start Daz Connect that I am a legimate user; well it would if I allowed it on my system; I like 4.9, the improvements to IRAY are great; I don't like the disaster of a database - which is admittedly my opinion. And I especially loath DRM, the risk of being locked out of content I have purchased is a very real possibility; unlikely perhaps, but it is easy to find examples of other DRM systems doing just that.

DRM only products are a very small percentage of Daz's product line; at the current rate of release, it could be years before a problem arrose. Although I seem to remember a customer posting that DRM had locked him out some time back, but that could be my misremembering.

mambanegra

Zev0 said:

 What's the big fear of connecting to connect? It's no different than connecting to Dim for updates. Plus once you get what you need you can go back offline again.

 

There is no fear. I have evaluated it and find it lacking for my personal needs. Because of my setup (which is a bit different than others, with a Mac to design scenes on and a windows computer to render them) I have to duplicate each of those Connect only products since my windows computer will not recognize the connect only content which I am sharing over the local network. All my other content works just fine via a common shared filesystem. And, then there is the way it stores content, which I find to be wasteful. Poke around inside the directory where those files go and then try to imagine downloading your entire product library with all of those replicated file hierarchies. The total wasted dispace may only be a couple of gigabytes with a few thousand products, but it's totally unnecessary and I find that to be very distasteful. Also, I don't know the effects of adding a few hundred thousand additional directories on modern PCs. It's probably minimal, but I don't know enough about mondern filesystems to say that it is. As a programmer, I would never sign off on this as good design. There are a few other issues I had when I tried it but I don't remember them any more, because, for the time being, I consider Connect to be of no interest to me (hence my watching this thread :)  )

ColinFrench

Zev0 said:

If you do enough research, you will find around 30% of people who visit Daz come from visiting a ware site first, or go to one after.

There's also the % of people who visit Daz coming from or going to one of the other sites with legitimate paid content. Would be interesting to see if that precentage has been climbing since the introduction of Connect and encryption. I know I fit into that category (and definitely not the example you mentioned) since the changes have encouraged me to look around more rather than buying exclusively from Daz.

Zev0, you've said you're not experiencing any noticable negatives with encrypted products and have no fears about buying them. Well, that may be true at the moment, but there have been many, many cases where down the line encryption causes headaches. So this is just an example of experience causing buyers to be cautious / reluctant. It's actually the opposite of the "fear of the unknown", it's fear due to known examples that have gone wrong.

And if I'm not mistaken, I believe the promise of Daz removing encryption after a year is still just that -- a promise. It's not actually spelled out in any of Daz's terms and conditions as far as I know. So while some people remain hopeful it will work out that way, at this point there's no guarantee that when the time rolls around Daz will not change their mind.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Edit: Also, in case Daz is keeping track, I'm another customer who was tempted to buy today's Tra-La-La hair. But as soon as I saw it was encrypted, I decided otherwise.

Zev0

nicstt said:

Zev0 said:

Everybody has their opinion on the matter. That is the beauty of diversity. Some won't use it and others will. End of the day I do what benefits my renders. If an encrypted product benefits me and my art, so be it. I ain't scared to use encryption. Granted not everybody has that view.

I have no objection to encryption, I love it in fact; it helps keep my bank account safe, my online transactions safe, and countless login processes to name just three.

What we're discussing here is DRM. As I've said before, DRM needs encryption; Encryption is not DRM. Daz's nameing doesn't help, as I've said before.

DRM checks every time I start Daz Connect that I am a legimate user; well it would if I allowed it on my system; I like 4.9, the improvements to IRAY are great; I don't like the disaster of a database - which is admittedly my opinion. And I especially loath DRM, the risk of being locked out of content I have purchased is a very real possibility; unlikely perhaps, but it is easy to find examples of other DRM systems doing just that.

DRM only products are a very small percentage of Daz's product line; at the current rate of release, it could be years before a problem arrose. Although I seem to remember a customer posting that DRM had locked him out some time back, but that could be my misremembering.

That's always the downside, comparing to other DRM systems that have failed in the past. I always give benefit of doubt unless it happens to me and does become an issue. But I will not be dictated by fear alone. But I will say stuff you to a DRM system that constantly gives me issues. EG Ubisoft....bastards.....

lx_2807502

But no one's trying to dictate that anyone do anything, let alone based on fear.

I choose not to use Connect because I have many reasons to not approve of using it, although I don't actually need any reason to not feel like spending my money on something if I don't want to. Everyone else can do what they like. People mostly follow this thread because they've chosen in a similar manner and want to keep an eye on which products are encrypted. No one's telling anyone what to like or buy.

Zev0

Anyways I just wanted to give my view on things. Haven't chatted in forums in a while, the PA life takes all your time..back to work for me:) It's been fun:)

nicstt

Zev0 said:

Anyways I just wanted to give my view on things. Haven't chatted in forums in a while, the PA life takes all your time..back to work for me:) It's been fun:)

Back to the salt mines eh. :)

Always nice to see you stop by, no matter the thread.

(Edit for spelling mistake.)

Zev0

nicstt said:

Zev0 said:

Anyways I just wanted to give my view on things. Haven't chatted in forums in a while, the PA life takes all your time..back to work for me:) It's been fun:)

Back to the salt mines eh. :)

Yep. Just wrapped up Aging Morphs 3 and need to do all the promo stuff now. Will update the thread once I do the promos.