Im wondering if you don't NEED TO INFORM whithin EUROPEAN REGULATIONS that ANY PRODUCT that could be USED by POSER GAMEDEV about this SELF-DEACTIVATION ISSUE of GENUINE BUYED SOFTWARE

i dont mind that u deactivate illegaly acquired software [Thats normal] but self dectivating genuine acquired software i really hate

additionally making a software that would require to login to unlock software features dependeing on license would be a preferable method of work then this SHIT {locking illegal users out}

It doesn't bother me.

It doesn't bother me.

The present situation doesn't bother a lot of users but there are other who have clearly stated why it is an issue for them.  What is also not clear is what would happen to working copies if SM went bust or sold Poser on.  As it presently stands all the latest versions of Poser would become unusable over a six month period unless a permanent serial number was issued first. Of course if you never use Poser, or have a pirated copy, all of this is not going to bother you one bit. 

Depends where and how you bought it. If you bought it in a store, in Europe, either through a European website or disc in a shop, it should have appropriate markings as required by the trade laws in place at the time. If you bought it from the SM website in the US, the site only needs to comply with US law. Onus is till with the buyer to determine source of product. Your question should probably be whether there is any US requirement to highlight access limitations to software and terms of purchase that don't need a lawyer to understand. Don't forget, the US can, in some cases, tell you absolutely nothing about a product (depending on the state in which it is produced/sold), but if you sue them, can have such wonderful labels like "contents may be hot" on a cup of coffee, and "use like soap" on bars of soap.

Techinically, SMS will tell you they are not locking anyone out.  They are simply requiring the current Game Dev version (and from what I can tell future versions of Poser) to have internet access so that they can connect to the SMS server for verification once every 90 days if the system it is installed on has a continuous internet connection.  If it does not, either they user must connect and allow the app to go through the verification process once every 180 days or the app will deactivate.

Nitpicking, I know but that's pretty much the explanation you will be given. 

I have to say that I just don't see the point of the phone home. It was cracked months ago.

SM tried to do what many companies have tried - to make it difficult to run a stolen copy. This is understandable. It is also understandable that some honest users would be accidentally inconvenienced as well, and we could all learn to accept that as a consequence of living in the modern world.

But they failed. Sure, only one in a 1000 people are capable of working around the protection, but once done by the skillful hacker, it is now available for anybody who wants it.

Meanwhile, honest users are occasionally disrupted from using the application. Since this harms the paying customer, yet provides zero protection from the thief, it seems clear to me that the implementation has not been justified.

I don't understand how it is so easy to defeat the protection - but clearly it isn't worth doing if the crack reached the public just days after the product was released.

"It was cracked months ago."

THIS!

As I said in another post, seeing how merchants leave in droves to greener pastures and not even bother with "pity conversions" anymore (Latest example: http://www.daz3d.com/the-streets-of-old-london), as well as looking at the warez szene which is 99% Genesis2/Studio now, I can only congratulate SM:

Mission accomplished!

Soon nobody will bother warezing Poser anymore.

Well, nobody will bother paying for it anymore, either, but I guess you can't have it all, eh?

my OS phones home and is activated. my Phone calls home to google. my tablet does. gaming? everythings reported to Steam and is activated. Xbox360? same. 

welcome to the world of 2015. it's not going to change any time soon. complain if ya want, but unless we ALL complain, constantly and do not use the products, nothing will change..

and that ain't gonna happen. so relax. get a drink and keep ya BP down. 

EDIT: You know what? Just ignore me. I really am ill. You meant content for the software and characters, not the core. That makes more sense. I'm the idiot. Carry on.

As I said in another post, seeing how merchants leave in droves to greener pastures and not even bother with "pity conversions" anymore (Latest example: http://www.daz3d.com/the-streets-of-old-london),

Streets of Old London includes an obj version, which any software can use; I don't think it's anything but a static prop, anyway. As far as the topic, lots of griping here, much of which I agree with....

http://forum.runtimedna.com/showthread.php?95828-YES-IT-APPEARS-OFFICAL-YOUR-POSER-PROGRAM-AUTOMATICALLY-DEACTIVATES

However, I think Baggins made the point very succinctly above...

Three reasons to avoid poser (Any version, it's not just Game Dev anymore:

• Internet connection required for periodic product activation service

• Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 or newer

• Adobe® Flash® Player 11 or newer

Bagginsbill nailed the problem.

I forgot to say that this stopped me upgrading to 2014.

So I went the DAZ route instead.

I have to say, this was a sad development for me.  Smith Micro has been adding some pretty cool tools to Poser, which make it a really attractive program (I'm currently using PPro 2014).  But, if their set on using this auto-deactivation thing for future releases, I may be done with Poser.  I get the anti-piracy thing, but setting up the program to de-activate on paid customers is ridiculous.  As bagginsbill said, there's already a hack to get around it, and there always will be, no matter how sophisticated the anti-piracy measure.  Remember Lightwave and their software dongles?  You had to have a physical attachment to the computer to use their product, and pirates STILL managed to hack the software.

 Punishing paying customers is not the way to defeat software piracy.  Finding and punishing the sources of software hacks is.

I don't understand how it is so easy to defeat the protection - but clearly it isn't worth doing if the crack reached the public just days after the product was released.

Is there any program that can't be cracked? I sort of doubt it. The people that do that are some of the best programmers in the world. Are there other programs that check in as well? Yes, there are 1000's upon 1000's of them.

This type of licensing setup is big money, and it is here to stay.

Smart phones check in, computers programs check in, your cable box checks in, Many new cars check in, (Onstar, etc)

Many used car lots now put devices in the cars to GPS track it, and to keep it from starting if you forget to pay on the loan. 

To all those people that have these, are you fine with those things constantly checking in? Did you even know they do?

If your cable box cant check in, it blocks all the stations, wont have a guide, etc, If your smart phone cant, well you are not going to make any calls then either.

If anyone thinks for a min that this is going away, it is not.

All credit cards will soon require RF chips by law and wont work if you take it out. So you will be checking in whenever you walk near a reader. And those things are all over the place, in just about every store by the door, etc. You will still be able to pay with cash. But the store knows you when you walked in, and when you went out if that card is in your wallet....

Saying you are not going to put up with it, does not change the fact that you already are on more fronts than you might first realize.

The difference is you didn't realize it, or dont really care about the other ones because they are not inconvenient.

Yes having to do something to unlock it can be a pain, but at least you know it wants to check in. The stuff mentioned earlier never even asks you to do so....

You have to pay your cable bill to keep the box unlocked, same with your cell phone. SM is not charging to unlock it are they?

Food for thought...

Anyone that is not happy about this, is allowed to have that opinion and I am not saying that you should not. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. 

If you are moving on because of it, that is your choice. Just keep in mind that most computer programs are going to this. And most of the ones on your cell phone and tablet already have. Anything that is subscription based is as well.

I am not 100% sold on the idea but at the same time I realize that it is nothing new, or going away either.

I don't understand how it is so easy to defeat the protection - but clearly it isn't worth doing if the crack reached the public just days after the product was released.

Is there any program that can't be cracked? I sort of doubt it. The people that do that are some of the best programmers in the world. Are there other programs that check in as well? Yes, there are 1000's upon 1000's of them.

This type of licensing setup is big money, and it is here to stay.

Smart phones check in, computers programs check in, your cable box checks in, Many new cars check in, (Onstar, etc)

Many used car lots now put devices in the cars to GPS track it, and to keep it from starting if you forget to pay on the loan. 

To all those people that have these, are you fine with those things constantly checking in? Did you even know they do?

If your cable box cant check in, it blocks all the stations, wont have a guide, etc, If your smart phone cant, well you are not going to make any calls then either.

If anyone thinks for a min that this is going away, it is not.

All credit cards will soon require RF chips by law and wont work if you take it out. So you will be checking in whenever you walk near a reader. And those things are all over the place, in just about every store by the door, etc. You will still be able to pay with cash. But the store knows you when you walked in, and when you went out if that card is in your wallet....

Saying you are not going to put up with it, does not change the fact that you already are on more fronts than you might first realize.

The difference is you didn't realize it, or dont really care about the other ones because they are not inconvenient.

Yes having to do something to unlock it can be a pain, but at least you know it wants to check in. The stuff mentioned earlier never even asks you to do so....

You have to pay your cable bill to keep the box unlocked, same with your cell phone. SM is not charging to unlock it are they?

Food for thought...

Anyone that is not happy about this, is allowed to have that opinion and I am not saying that you should not. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. 

If you are moving on because of it, that is your choice. Just keep in mind that most computer programs are going to this. And most of the ones on your cell phone and tablet already have. Anything that is subscription based is as well.

I am not 100% sold on the idea but at the same time I realize that it is nothing new, or going away either.

I understand all that and agree with pretty well all of it and, while I don't like the the deactivation feature very much, I accept SM have the right to implement it.   The biggest objection I have is the way it was introduced and the confusion surrounding it.  Yes other companies do it but for SM it was a change in the way the program worked and that change was not made clear to purchasers so they could decide if they wanted to accept the change. The web site now states that both Poser 10 and Poser 2014 have the same activation requirement which would be a retrospective action so again it was not something Poser users would have been aware of when they purchased those versions of Poser.

To give credit to Nerd3D he has now stated that this is not the case with Poser 10 and 2014 and it only applies to the Game Dev version as first thought.  Not his fault but that information is at odds to the web site so initially no information was there and now what is there is is wrong.

Is SM worse than any other company, of course not, and they, like all the others, have a right to do what they are doing but I do think they also have a responsibility to make the information clear to the people that pay good money for their product.

Having worked in the mobile phone industry I know what you are saying is true, and then some, which is why I choose not to have a smart phone.  I used the credit cards online mostly for Rendo, although that looks as though that is coming to a end for other reasons.  Other than on line I mainly use cash and often when I go out that is all I carry, the cards stay at home.  OK has minimal impact but I have some idea of what is going on and make my decisions accordingly.

So one of my complaints is that I am not sure what is going on at SM.  According to Nerd3D they are looking again at the process and my hope is that, whatever they decide, it is made communicated to the potential purchasers before they buy and also make it clear if the new system will be applied to older versions.  Others may disagree but I do not think that is an unfair request.

I'm curious whether SM is implementing this function because of their strength in the market (like Adobe) or because of a weakness (they need to capture every potential sale). I've read sooo many instances of paid customers losing access to similar protection schemes because of glitches in the host server (happened with Adobe recently). I know this kind of thing is becoming standard proceedure, but not for free or open source software (Gimp, Blender, Daz Studio?).

There are a number of reasons to try Poser's competition, which I've been too set in my ways to explore. I'll have to at least give it a good workout before purchasing the next version of Poser.

There are a number of reasons to try Poser's competition, which I've been too set in my ways to explore. I'll have to at least give it a good workout before purchasing the next version of Poser.

Daz is brilliant but has one huge and massive flaw...there's no documentation.  The wiki is years out of date and vastly incomplete.  They have no tutorials worth watching and requests for some are met with simply "look in the forums."

Since I use Poser, hopefully this doesn't start an app war.  ;)  Poser's Documentation is good, but Studio's docs are vastly improved over past versions'...

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/start

Studio also has extensive documentation of their file format, which Poser has always lacked...

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/dson_spec/start

I vastly prefer Poser, but Studio is pretty darned good for the price, which is something SM needs to keep in mind when putting their next version together...

That DSON format guide is something I've not seen before, thanks for the link.

When I bought Reality4, the thirty bucks included a comprehensive manual that explained the function of everything.  The IRay renderer in Daz's spanking new 4.8 release is causing some grief as folks are left to stumble through it on their own.

It would be nice to mash both programs together, using the best from each.  I used Poser for a few years and made some of my own content but recently went back to Daz.  The folks at the leading Blender forum keep talking dirty about making a plug-in that would allow Blender to use Poser/Daz content natively and in the same manner.  That would be brilliant.