No doubt the new encryption will curtail some of the casual illegal sharing among friends/family. However, if the crackers (meaning those that just love to crack software protection schemes) see this as someone throwing down the gauntlet, and worthy of their time, then the once encrypted content will show up just like the current un-encrypted content, either being fully un-encrypted, or with a simple way to install the encrypted content and have it fully functional on any computer. If this happens, then what will the real benefit to curtail real pirating be (not casual sharing)?

I honestly have trouble getting my ahead around this type of theory. There hasn't been a physical lock invented that 100% works every time, a Safe designed that will keep everyone out forever. All of these are security devices that mitigate. Have you ever heard anyone saying they are worthless because they are not 100% effective all of the time? I also think people have an inflated rating of the average pirates ability to hack or crack anything more difficult than a pack of Doritos. Most piracy is the form of exploiting a loophole. In existing content the loophole is the .zip format which has 0 protection.

A lot what happens if/when Daz 3D product encryption is hacked/cracked is pure speculation. As a lot would depend on the method. Can you use a cracked product on any version of DS? Will you need a cracked version of DS? Can you use a cracked version of DS with the store and not have the store know that its cracked. If you are using a cracked version what happens with upgrades, WIll your cracked version be dependent on a small group that can release cracked product etc? The only pirated encrypted product I have seen so far used an export method to circumvent the encryption and was rather sloppily done.

Plus cracked version of a pirated item are at least 5 times as risky, because the potential for a skilled black hat to embed malicious code is far greater than in a straightforward .zip of content that you can scan easily. Want to crack DS encryption? Just run this little program make sure to turn of your security setting first so Daz isn't alerted....

Casual piracy goes beyond friends and family sharing. It refers to an unskilled pirate picking up a .zip and uploading it to a torrent site with no actual barriers to impede them.

Content compatibility in my eyes is the biggest issue at the moment with encryption, alongside of continued access to paid for legitimate content in the long term. Hopefully we will see both of these addressed in the future by Daz, I would expect at least Carrara to see some love for the encrypted format in the future. As far as Poser compat goes, the issue goes well beyond encryption with the divide between the two apps growing with each incremental update.