diogenese19348 posted at 7:04PM Mon, 01 February 2016 - #4252564

There is already a massive amount of content that can be used for DAZ, and that will always exist. If DAZ does lock things down, they will face the same problem Poser does - a massive part of their user base will be stuck on 4.8, and less and less new content will be usable.

I think they are aware of that issue. Most of the new items being offered still have DRM free options. The other thing DAZ is trying to do is get the file paths locked down to make updating easier. That is getting mixed up with the DRM issues. They aren't the same thing.

In short, there is no reason not to move to 4.9. Whether you buy encrypted content is up to you. If you don't like the concept, can't use the product because you want to port it, or any other reason, then don't buy it.

Frankly, as long as people are going to speculate, I speculate DAZ is eventually going to drop encryption because it makes the perceived value of their content less. In short there will be decreased volume unless they drop the price of the encrypted items. As of the present, they have pretty much given everything away. It will be interesting to see what happens when thy stop doing that. I guarantee you that encrypting is not going to increase revenue.

DAZ isn't going to drop encryption - they have sunk too much time & effort into it. They will ride the plan down in flames, because they never, ever have a plan B. If necessary, they will dump their entire userbase and get a new one - they have done it before. Also pay attention to the words that DAZ has used when talking about encryption "not at this time", "in the future, all content will be delivered by Connect", etc.

It is just like the issue of locking down content location - The easiest solution is to simply set standards and enforce them with vendors. Much cheaper and easier than developing a database to track everything.

Locking down file paths is worse in my opinion than DRM. That doesn't help when every single vendor has a different way of setting up subfolders under the 1st layer of folder. Currently the user has to remember which vendor made which product because almost everything is hidden inside of a vendor's ego folder. Not to mention that most vendors that sell add-on content for DS aren't smart enough to either insure their add-on product slides into the base product's file structure or the put the name of the base product anywhere in the file structure of of their add-on. See Mad Nurse for Genesis 1 & 2 and it's add-ons for a worst case scenario example.