Not wanting to pollute the

Thread with this, so I'll reply here

21 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

You dont own the software you buy in the same way that you do not own the copyright of a book you buy.  You own the physical book but not the right to do whatever you want with the words therein, and especially not the right to photocopy it and sell more copies of it to others.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48829661

"Should be illegal"

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Mr sparks what agenda do you have, seems you dont want anyone to earn any money

7 minutes ago, mjrhealth said:

Mr sparks what agenda do you have, seems you dont want anyone to earn any money

DRM loses you money and customers, that's why Apple, king of making money from happy customers:

https://support.apple.com/guide/music/intro-to-the-itunes-store-mus3e2346c2/mac

Quote

All songs offered by the iTunes Store come without Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection. These DRM-free songs, called iTunes Plus, have no usage restrictions and feature high-quality, 256 kbps AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) encoding.

 

Edited September 30, 20214 yr by mSparks

There’s nothing anyone can say that will change anyones mind. Gizmo DRM was cracked several years ago, and my sales dropped to almost nothing. As soon as it was updated, my sales recovered almost immediately. There is no way I will create add ons without DRM. Period. iTunes plus is a completely different model from a $2 trillion company. Not even close to the same thing as an add on dev. 

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

king of making money from happy customers:

Yes apple, buy our cables, buy our devices no you have to come to us you cant get it else where yes apple the un upgrade able path, The only reason why they have customers because once you get in your stuck. Most expensive rubbish ever. They sell because of I I me me I pad I pod I phone, its all about you. They win the psychological warfare battle and people actually pay for it. As for DRM just about ever plane sold now has it, we just put up with it like we put up with all the whiners and complainers on here, If the world was filled with nice happy people we wouldnt need it, but look at the rubbish that gets posted here. You would be here if anyone else like all the rest if any one else could put up with them.

Now we should close this one, has nothing to do with XPLANE, I dont know why they call people Trolls, as Trolls are nice happy things that live under mushrooms.

1 hour ago, GoranM said:

Gizmo DRM was cracked several years ago, and my sales dropped to almost nothing

But this was pretty much the point I was making regarding Laminars DRM vs the new zibo DRM.

There must be a way to build a better future that strikes the right balance between making sales and not stripping away users rights in the process - and this is a long way from a solved problem in xplane.

I think a Laminar marketplace would go a long way to solving it (making it easier to buy than get from a shady website), but there are still issues there that havent been solved (like steam users).

OrbX central is probably a great example, they cant really DRM their stuff, that doesnt seem to be holding them back, great store platform, great products. Nothing Ive bought from the org store has had drm either.

The key challenge to breaking the cycle is to make the paid product more valuable than the pirated one, DRM inverts that, because a DRM'd product is worth less to users than a non DRMd one. Back in the CD software days the first thing most anyone did after buying a new game/software was go looking for a NoCD patch so they didnt have to keep the disks out or keep swapping them every time they wanted to use a different program, search engines for those were more popular than Yahoo or Hotbot, such patched software has virtually vanished now, replaced by (superior) GNU alternatives, and "this software isnt activated" notices that annoy rather than prevent use.

 

Edited September 30, 20214 yr by mSparks

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48829661

"Should be illegal"

The article really has nothing to do with whether an author retains a copyright over their material (which applies to both literature and software).  The only thing you are paying for when you buy a book or buy a software program is the right to fair use -  reading it in the case of books, using the software as intended with regards to software.

If you were truly buying the copyright you would be paying a LOT more.

14 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

The article really has nothing to do with whether an author retains a copyright over their material (which applies to both literature and software).  The only thing you are paying for when you buy a book or buy a software program is the right to fair use -  reading it in the case of books, using the software as intended with regards to software.

If you were truly buying the copyright you would be paying a LOT more.

Is that supposed to be a logical argument in favour of applying technical measures to remove legal rights?

They bought the books, microsoft stole their ability to read them and deleted any notes they made on them - The posit is that this should be just as illegal as making illegal copies of the books.

1 hour ago, mjrhealth said:

Most expensive rubbish ever.

3 or 4 years ago I wrongly thought that.

The iPad and now my mac mini showed me how wrong I was. They are expensive because they are amazing quality, high quality commands a premium price.

Edited September 30, 20214 yr by mSparks

1 minute ago, mSparks said:

Is that supposed to be a logical argument in favour of applying technical measures to remove legal rights?

They bought the books, microsoft stole their ability to read them and deleted any notes they made on them - The posit is that this should be illegal.

 

No I'm not arguing against your argument.  I'm saying that the argument you brought up had nothing to do with what I was talking about.  The article was given as a response to a quote by me about copyright and you linked an article about ebooks not working.  If you're going to respond to a quote you should at least do so with something relevant to the conversation.

26 minutes ago, mSparks said:

But this was pretty much the point I was making regarding Laminars DRM vs the new zibo DRM.

There must be a way to build a better future that strikes the right balance between making sales and not stripping away users rights in the process - and this is a long way from a solved problem in xplane.

I think a Laminar marketplace would go a long way to solving it (making it easier to buy than get from a shady website), but there are still issues there that havent been solved (like steam users).

OrbX central is probably a great example, they cant really DRM their stuff, that doesnt seem to be holding them back, great store platform, great products. Nothing Ive bought from the org store has had drm either.

The key challenge to breaking the cycle is to make the paid product more valuable than the pirated one, DRM inverts that, because a DRM'd product is worth less to users than a non DRMd one. Back in the CD software days the first thing most anyone did after buying a new game/software was go looking for a NoCD patch so they didnt have to keep the disks out or keep swapping them every time they wanted to use a different program, search engines for those were more popular than Yahoo or Hotbot, such patched software has virtually vanished now, replaced by (superior) GNU alternatives, and "this software isnt activated" notices that annoy rather than prevent use.

 

I really don't think you realize how bad the problem is.  There are people out there who will spend months trying to bypass a DRM.  There are people who have sworn to NEVER pay for a product.  No matter how good it is.  

6 minutes ago, mSparks said:

The iPad and now my mac mini showed me how wrong I was. They are expensive because they are amazing quality, high quality commands a premium price.

And Apple have now taken even more of your rights away from them with the new generation of products.  The iPhone 11 was the last iPhone where the customer was able to replace the battery, camera and screen.  The iPhone 12 got worse.  Battery and screen was not replaceable.  Now, with the iPhone 13, they've added the camera and flex cable to the irreplaceable hardware.  They make awesome hardware, but you are now stuck with a 100% stock product, and if anything fails, you are forced to go to Apple to get it fixed.

Edited September 30, 20214 yr by GoranM

I'm currently staring at pirated forums, and the counter of the amount of people stealing my work. I love the libertarian fantasy, but it really does not align with reality.

30 minutes ago, GoranM said:

There are people out there who will spend months trying to bypass a DRM.

I used to be one of them (never shared or made money from it though).... Nothing to do with the product - its all about the challenge.

DRM is unethical, and its a challenge to beat it. Beat a big one and you'll be an internet superstar like GeoHotz

In my day writing software viruses was part of a typical college workshop.

Which is another problem with DRM, having it in your product is an invitation to anyone who likes a challenge to prove they are better than you, and simultaneously creates demand from even paying customers for a version without it (who hand out their bought copy and request it to be patched, which then ends up on various shady sites)

30 minutes ago, GoranM said:

There are people who have sworn to NEVER pay for a product

And the falacy that mistreating and inconviencing paying customers with DRM will make them pay - mostly pushed by microsoft and the music industry - has been proven wrong over and over and over again.

see also

https://austinmeyer.com/ok-this-is-just-plain-funny/

Edited October 1, 20214 yr by mSparks

Like I said, no one will change their mind.  That's why a thread like this is pointless.

Our challenge, as payware developers, is to make products good enough for people to accept the DRM.  

No one is forcing anyone to buy anything.  For me, having DRM in my add ons is absolutely, 100% worth the cost out of my own pocket to use it, and if people choose not to buy my add ons, that's fine by me.  I'm certainly not going to force them or question them.  If the reason is because I have DRM, then I wish them well in finding something they like without DRM, and no hard feelings.

25 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Our challenge, as payware developers, is to make products good enough for people to accept the DRM.  

This. Exactly this.

But also to make sure no paying customers are inconvenienced by the DRM itself, which judging purely by the threads we have seen on here Gizmo hasnt been achieving,

I looked at the way sasl "protects" its planes and nearly puked. 

LR isnt convinced their own store is a good idea.

In the absence of an LR store I would still very much like to see 3PD licence validation being something inbuilt into the xplane SDK (e.g. using a public key system like google does)

Edited October 1, 20214 yr by mSparks