Do you think it's necessary for BIS providing lockable binPBO?

[max power 21]

If you aren't making money off of it then what is the reason to control it, at least controlling it so heavy handed as some suggest in this thread?

The rights of content makers. Full stop.

What do you mean by heavy handed? Do you feel like you're being punished if you must ask to open someone else's files? :crazy:

Oh I see, you've labeled them as fallacious and therefore of no worth? They have real substance, and dismissing them as fallacious doesn't work. In fact, your own view is every bit as fallacious, perhaps even more so if you wish to measure the argument by that method. Encryption of content will not prevent theft or IP misuse, which is the reason you would do it in the first place. It might prevent casual usage, but I still maintain that casual usage is fine (within the obvious limits) and is the activity of embryonic modders.

When all's said and done, there's nothing fallacious in the idea that this is the system that BIS have decided upon, and has worked fine for the mass of the community.

I have not labelled them fallacious. They are fallacious because they employ logical fallacies to wrongly come to a conclusion.

"I like cheese, the moon is cheese, therefore NASA should go to the moon... And who are you to question my like of cheese!?"

This is an argument where one of the premises is false. The arguer could then appeal to the conventional wisdom that the moon is cheese, NASAs tradition of going to the moon, get on his high horse about his right to like anything he wishes, etc ad nauseum. The fact remains, the argument isn't cogent and therefore is weak.

@all can we get off of these 'locks are meaningless because it is possible to break them' horsefeathers. This argument has been answered already in the thread. If you don't have an answer for that answer, please leave it alone. I believe I have already said in this thread that rehashing your original claim in an answer to a counter claim is not a valid defence of your idea. If there is some merit to this claim, you are doing it a disservice by taking a sweeping shortcut to actual thinking.

[whisper 0]

@all can we get off of these 'locks are meaningless because it is possible to break them' horsefeathers. This argument has been answered already in the thread. If you don't have an answer for that answer, please leave it alone. I believe I have already said in this thread that rehashing your original claim in an answer to a counter claim is not a valid defence of your idea. If there is some merit to this claim, you are doing it a disservice by taking a sweeping shortcut to actual thinking.

If you've seen the link posted some pages before, you've seen how useless these protections are against people willing to get the model for their own use, outside of the game, which is exactly the profile of the Turbosquid resellers.

Their tools don't even need the original data format, just access to the renderer, which isn't what your protection system is about.

Unless you can point me to your "answer" protecting your data against Turbosquid users methods

Note that I'm only talking about people really having the willingness to get over the hassle of using these tools, having the knowledge and the will, ie typical money makers.

I'm not talking about casual A2 modders type, for which, yes, a protection system will be usefull if you don't want them to peek at your datas. I've stated it would work, and I don't have much problem with the idea, bare a fear of seeing everyone switching to a protected model, not by will, but by necessity, which was the whole point of my post. Don't focus on the Turbosquid argument when it's not the central point I'd like to make, tyvm.

Edited November 2, 2010 by whisper

[max power 21]

If you've seen the link posted some pages before, you've seen how useless these protections are against people willing to get the model for their own use, outside of the game, which is exactly the profile of the Turbosquid resellers.

Their tools don't even need the original data format, just access to the renderer, which isn't what your protection system is about.

Unless you can point me to your "answer" protecting your data against Turbosquid users methods

No, that's the same argument. It's not new information and it has been addressed already. The answer reads in part, "any reduction is a good reduction" and something like, "no delusion about stopping it entirely".

Note that I'm only talking about people really having the willingness to get over the hassle of using these tools, having the knowledge and the will, ie typical money makers.

I'm not talking about casual A2 modders type, for which, yes, a protection system will be usefull if you don't want them to peek at your datas. I've stated it would work, and I don't have much problem with the idea, bare a fear of seeing everyone switching to a protected model, not by will, but by necessity, which was the whole point of my post. Don't focus on the Turbosquid argument when it's not the central point I'd like to make, tyvm.

I'm not sure who is focusing on turbosquid stuff. I just took it for part of a larger situation. I, for one, am arguing about addon makers rights vs. common practices.

[whisper 0]

You are because you each time don't say a word about what my post is about, but insist on something else :)

[jw custom 56]

The answer reads in part, "any reduction is a good reduction" and something like, "no delusion about stopping it entirely".

But the people it will stop is people who just wanna peek for learning purposes, those who wanna make money on it will find a way, just like with game hacks. The people who uses the data in their own addons without permission the community deals with pretty good already.

[max power 21]

You are because you each time don't say a word about what my post is about, but insist on something else :)

You'll have to clarify the statement for me because it sounds like you're saying that I am focusing on turbosquid because I'm not responding to your posts in a manner you would like.

But the people it will stop is people who just wanna peek for learning purposes, those who wanna make money on it will find a way, just like with game hacks. The people who uses the data in their own addons without permission the community deals with pretty good already.

Getting something usable from 3dripper dx is more labour intensive than export\3ds. Getting a usable addon out of 3dripper dx would be almost as labour intensive as creating it from scratch yourself. An ugly, triangulated mesh with only 1 LOD, no named selections, etc from the direct x cache is very far from a usable product. Any time you increase the complexity of a task, you cut out a certain percentage of the people who are knowledgeable enough or willing to do such a thing. Anytime you make something harder for someone to accomplish, the more they are alerted to the legality of the situation. Moreover, encryption implies legal protection. If someone breaks an encrypted file, that act alone is illegal, irregardless of what comes afterwards.

Regarding the 'pbo snoopers' and 'personal use individuals/clans', that has already been covered in detail. The answers, not the least of which is the option to contact the author for permission, and if you are opening a file for which the license doesn't make provisions for you are violating the license, I think are fairly well established.

Edited November 2, 2010 by Max Power

[dmarkwick 261]

I have not labelled them fallacious. They are fallacious because they employ logical fallacies to wrongly come to a conclusion.

"I like cheese, the moon is cheese, therefore NASA should go to the moon... And who are you to question my like of cheese!?"

This is an argument where one of the premises is false. The arguer could then appeal to the conventional wisdom that the moon is cheese, NASAs tradition of going to the moon, get on his high horse about his right to like anything he wishes, etc ad nauseum. The fact remains, the argument isn't cogent and therefore is weak.

Well you lost me with the cheese fantasy. I think it's fallacious to say it pertains to my argument :) and in any case, the strong opinion stands on its own merits, whether or not you regard it as logically sound. There is a definite, logical reason not to enable encryption, whether or not you hold the same opinion. In fact your own fallaciousness has been sidestepped, if I might make a non-foodstuff counter-fantasy:

"I wish to stop this activity using this method, which I fully acknowledge will not stop the activity. The other reason is a vague feeling that it's my right to hide stuff created for public consumption."

@all can we get off of these 'locks are meaningless because it is possible to break them' horsefeathers. This argument has been answered already in the thread. If you don't have an answer for that answer, please leave it alone. I believe I have already said in this thread that rehashing your original claim in an answer to a counter claim is not a valid defence of your idea. If there is some merit to this claim, you are doing it a disservice by taking a sweeping shortcut to actual thinking.

You know, sometimes the same answer is required due to the same counterpoint being raised. Pages move fast in this thread and inevitably someone raises a point that has been answered but not seen. And in any case, the same reasons remain the same reasons :) You maintain that encryption should be an option for modders, I disagree, we both have valid points to discuss. Personally I'm enjoying this thread and will make a point of not carrying anything outside of it.

Over the pages it's become more apparent to me that encryption abilities can only lead to a negative outcome, while the proposed solutions have little actual worth beyond the most simple of file opening attempts.

[whisper 0]

You'll have to clarify the statement for me because it sounds like you're saying that I am focusing on turbosquid because I'm not responding to your posts in a manner you would like.

The statement :

Protection will permit copy-cats to use non-protected stuff in their own "creation", protect their "creation", preventing the original creator to prove the theft, therefore forcing people originally unwilling to use the protection system to use it anyway, because it would actually protect thieves instead of themselves.

Therefore, this system would not be optional anymore, and generally widespread, unless for the few who don't care at all about even getting credited for their work.

Today, people re-using addons without permission for public releases get caught rather fast, because checking the work source is easy, by doing exactly what they did to get the model into their "creation".

With a working encryption system in place, proving the theft becomes impossible. You're protecting the very guy you wanted to be protected from ....

[jw custom 56]

Getting something usable from 3dripper dx is more labour intensive than export\3ds. Getting a usable addon out of 3dripper dx would be almost as labour intensive as creating it from scratch yourself. An ugly, triangulated mesh with only 1 LOD, no named selections, etc from the direct x cache is very far from a usable product. Any time you increase the complexity of a task, you cut out a certain percentage of the people who are knowledgeable enough or willing to do such a thing. Anytime you make something harder for someone to accomplish, the more they are alerted to the legality of the situation. Moreover, encryption implies legal protection. If someone breaks an encrypted file, that act alone is illegal, irregardless of what comes afterwards.

I have no idea how these things work, but if people can steal models as it is now encryption will only buy so much time before decryptors will be available. I don't see how encryption makes it more illegal to steal though, people who cares usually include a disclaimer.

Regarding the 'pbo snoopers' and 'personal use individuals/clans', that has already been covered in detail. The answers, not the least of which is the option to contact the author for permission, and if you are opening a file for which the license doesn't make provisions for you are violating the license, I think are fairly well established.

And thats what i fear could be problematic, i fear people will get all "me me it's mine, mine alone" with the option to protect the data and that will damage the community.

[max power 21]

Well you lost me with the cheese fantasy. I think it's fallacious to say it pertains to my argument :)

All joking aside, it was not meant to parody your argument. It was an example of poor reasoning. The way it relates to your argument is that they are both examples of poor reasoning.

and in any case, the strong opinion stands on its own merits, whether or not you regard it as logically sound. There is a definite, logical reason not to enable encryption, whether or not you hold the same opinion. In fact your own fallaciousness has been sidestepped, if I might make a non-foodstuff counter-fantasy:

"I wish to stop this activity using this method, which I fully acknowledge will not stop the activity. The other reason is a vague feeling that it's my right to hide stuff created for public consumption."

No, strong opinions never stand on their own merit in a logical debate. I care as much about your 'strong opinion' as much as you do mine. No one should care about how emotionally involved we are in the debate. The only thing we should care about are the facts and reasoning.

You know, sometimes the same answer is required due to the same counterpoint being raised. Pages move fast in this thread and inevitably someone raises a point that has been answered but not seen. And in any case, the same reasons remain the same reasons :) You maintain that encryption should be an option for modders, I disagree, we both have valid points to discuss. Personally I'm enjoying this thread and will make a point of not carrying anything outside of it.

I sympathize with your premise that sometimes people need to be reminded what we are talking about. The thread is complex and intense, two major hurdles to understanding what we are talking about. I think it's also a person's responsibility to figure out how they can contribute to the discussion. If we have to rehash the whole thing everytime a new person joins in the thread gets bogged down and the discussion becomes artificial. I think if we didn't have to rehash the same points, this thread would have only really been about 10 pages long and would have been over by now.

Over the pages it's become more apparent to me that encryption abilities can only lead to a negative outcome, while the proposed solutions have little actual worth beyond the most simple of file opening attempts.

Then you are neglecting some relevant evidence.

The statement :

Protection will permit copy-cats to use non-protected stuff in their own "creation", protect their "creation", preventing the original creator to prove the theft, therefore forcing people originally unwilling to use the protection system to use it anyway, because it would actually protect thieves instead of themselves.

Therefore, this system would not be optional anymore, and generally widespread, unless for the few who don't care at all about even getting credited for their work.

Nice reasoning. This is a good argument. However, I don't see how this works as coercion. If an addon maker wants to make his work available for whatever reason, it is available of course for all reasons limited by the license.

Regardless of how a thief is found out, it starts with a suspicion. I don't think suspicions start by poking around in someone else's models. As it stands, these suspicions ought to be brought to the attention of a moderator. How they handle that is a mystery to me, but I wonder if the moderating staff could help in these kinds of disputes.

Today, people re-using addons without permission for public releases get caught rather fast, because checking the work source is easy, by doing exactly what they did to get the model into their "creation".

With a working encryption system in place, proving the theft becomes impossible. You're protecting the very guy you wanted to be protected from ....

Like I said above, I don't think the point at which the thief is caught is at the point of examining the files. Examining files is gathering evidence, and the evidence maybe can be gathered in another way.

I have no idea how these things work, but if people can steal models as it is now encryption will only buy so much time before decryptors will be available. I don't see how encryption makes it more illegal to steal though, people who cares usually include a disclaimer.

As I understand it, encryption is a legal lock. Breaking it is illegal. Binarization is just data translation. It's open to be read by a reader, legally. This is of course outside of an in addition to the license on the ip contained within the binarized files.

And thats what i fear could be problematic, i fear people will get all "me me it's mine, mine alone" with the option to protect the data and that will damage the community.

Well, how and how much vs. how much benefit? We have established that we have a helpful community, one that will chat, answer forum questions, provide tuts and examples, etc. We have past example models, configs, code samples, scripting discussions, etc to draw upon.

I think I've chatted too much in this topic today so I'm going to give it a rest for a little while. I don't want every second post to be mine. I'll come back here again soon if it's not locked already :)

[dmarkwick 261]

The only thing we should care about are the facts and reasoning.

In that case it seems to me you're avoiding some facts and reasoning yourself, and writing the rest off as fallacious. Your own reasoning is as meaningless as you maintain mine is: that you believe you have the right to encryption. Or at least the right of choice. I'm not interested in the rights, only the practicalities, and encryption is not a practical solution in this case, and further will lead to the lessening of casual addon interest.

Well, how and how much vs. how much benefit?

I believe the benefit to be imaginary, or at the most marginal.

Edited November 3, 2010 by DMarkwick

[nuxil 2]

encryption is a legal lock. Breaking it is illegal.

that is not necessarily true.

some years back here in norway ther was a man called jon Alias DVDJon

he released a tool call DeCSS which where used to breake the dvd encryption.

he whent through several lawsutes for breaking it. he was found not guilty on all charges. if you want to read more about that. google.

i think in Us it can also be done with copyright act 1976 section 107 or something

Edited November 3, 2010 by nuxil

[soul_assassin 1750]

right. ok, I give up. I hereby boycott this thread :D

[nuxil 2]

i poste some facts and you boycott :\

and im not sure about the us laws. thats why i said. think. i didnt say i know.

each contry has its own laws. what might be allowed in norway might not be allowed in Us or any other parts of the world.

if you cant stand hearing the truth and fact. well for all means boycott

Edited November 3, 2010 by nuxil

[soul_assassin 1750]

it wasn't in response to your post, just an overall conclusion to the whole thread :)

[max power 21]

If everyone's getting fed up and leaving, maybe I should post this here now.

that is not necessarily true.

some years back here in norway ther was a man called jon Alias DVDJon

he released a tool call DeCSS which where used to breake the dvd encryption.

he whent through several lawsutes for breaking it. he was found not guilty on all charges. if you want to read more about that. google.

i think in Us it can also be done with copyright act 1976 section 107 or something

This is a wikipedia page link on Anti-circumvention. It's wikipedia but it does an alright job.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention

It delineates global anti-circumvention laws in the WIPO Copyright Treaty. It mentioned the WIPO and native laws in the USA and in the EU.

Article 12 of WIPO Copyright Treaty "Obligations concerning Rights Management Information" requires contracting parties to

"...provide adequate and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly performing any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right covered by this Treaty or the Berne Convention: (i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information without authority; (ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast or communicate to the public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority."

In the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA:

* Circumvention of Access Controls

Section 103 (17 U.S.C Sec. 1201(a)(1)) of the DMCA states:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The Act defines what it means in Section 1201(a)(3):

(3) As used in this subsection—

(A) to 「circumvent a technological measure〠means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and

(B) a technological measure 「effectively controls access to a work〠if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

And in the EU:

This directive states in article 6, 'Obligations as to technological measures':

1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective.

These are just portions of the text, but you get the idea.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

ROT13 is also encryption, per def, of the Caesar Cipher type. It's not safe at all naturally.

Is it illegal to break it?

Military is full of decryption specialists.

Are they breaking the law by their very job?

And as already stated, deciphering AACS, to much of the industry's concern of course, was considered legal (on that level).

In any case, this is related to DMCA. There are loopholes, bad definitions, and national considerations making this a bit of a mess - not something for us to worry about really. And the whole act is controversial at best. If you read up a bit on DMCA (which covers that "deciphering is illegal" argument of yours, I think you'll find it doesn't cover what we're dealing with here at all. It has completely different purposes.

Please stop expanding parts of IP into where it doesn't belong. What's next, using the patent argument to protect your script? It's also IP, but it doesn't cover what we're discussing here.

@Max Power:

You forgot to tell us about exceptions... Anti-circumvention exemptions:

Exemptions are granted when it is shown that access-control technology has had a substantial adverse effect on the ability of people to make non-infringing uses of copyrighted works.

Do you consider it substantial adverse effect? I do.

Do you consider learning from code non-infringing? I do.

Does DMCA cover anything of what we do? No, not at all.

From Digital Rights Management (which DMCA covers):

Copying for personal, non-commercial purposes was also excluded from the range of the directive.

Edited November 3, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[dm 9]

At the end of the day CG, I dont care about military communications specialists, I dont care about people breaking DVD copy protection, I dont care about any of that. All I care about is that I dont want people like you poking around in my pbos.

At the moment the only option I have is to not release them. That means the community as a whole has to "suffer" because of people like you.

The same can be said of many addon makers - just look at the huge list of aircraft RKSL can no longer release because the models are vulnerable.

So just because you are too selfish to give up the ability (just like access to this forum, the ability to look into pbos is NOT a right.) to look into pbos, everyone else has to miss out on those addons...

[whisper 0]

Sorry but RKSL is an entirely different matter, DM.

RKSL can't release stuff he already sold to 3rd parties because of fear of breaching exclusive rights.

You can't release stuff because you don't want some people looking on their PC at your work, and modifying it for their personal use.

Not the same thing at all.

[dm 9]

Sorry but RKSL is an entirely different matter, DM.

RKSL can't release stuff he already sold to 3rd parties because of fear of breaching exclusive rights.

Not the same thing at all.

No, it is exactly the same thing - he used to be able to release them, because there was no way of unbinarizing the A2 ODOL format - which provided enough "protection" for the "exclusivity rights" to be satisfied.

Now that it is easily possible to unbinarize the ODOL models, he can no longer release them. Something he would be able to do if we were able to encrypt our pbos...

[CarlGustaffa 4]

No you are just being completely ignorant on all the downsides of doing so. Isn't that selfish if anything? You only care about your side of the story? The theft thing gives score 1:1 to both sides (since it can be exploited for bad as well). Then there are no other positives about allowing it, and plenty of negatives.

Other than complete theft (which is typically handled very well around here), you have nothing to gain by hiding behind protection (unless you actually have something to hide), and everything to gain by opening it up (like speeding up development process for others).

I've always supported free and open, and I don't even demand credit for what I do. Do I have something to hide? Yeah, sometimes. But then I'll pretty much keep it to myself. And it doesn't harm anyone one bit. But the lessons learned from it are invaluable for other things I'm involved in.

And for that, I now get the honor of being called selfish. That's nice. Always a first time for everything I guess.

If you're that afraid for your models used in a game (which should be an LP version of the HP version you sell), then yeah, I guess your only protection is to not use them. Given the nature of the <censored>, I wouldn't even use a commercial model if it was protected.

Edited November 6, 2010 by W0lle

[whisper 0]

No, it is exactly the same thing - he used to be able to release them, because there was no way of unbinarizing the A2 ODOL format - which provided enough "protection" for the "exclusivity rights" to be satisfied.

Now that it is easily possible to unbinarize the ODOL models, he can no longer release them. Something he would be able to do if we were able to encrypt our pbos...

I was talking about the reasons not to release, comparing between RKSL's and yours, and they are very different.

RKSL didn't choose not to release because of people like CG.

[dm 9]

Same old scratched record there eh CG.

Aside from people being able to "hide theft" what are these "plenty of other negatives" you talk about? Because thats the only angle I've seen pushed here...

You're also still pushing this "my open source rights are more important than your rights to protect your models"

I dont care that you want your work to be open source. You would still be free to make your work open source (but then you couldnt complain about it when someone else used it, even in an encrypted pbo, because you released it open source)

I want my work to be closed source. Plain and simple. I dont want you poking around in it. There are more than enough people who will tell you that when asked I am more than open and helpful. I just dont want people poking around in my pbos. If you want to see my data ask FIRST, its not that hard.

At the moment I achieve the "preventing people from poking around in my models" by not releasing them. Which means the community as a whole has to go without. And now you're selfishly trying to prevent the only viable option that would allow me (and others) to release them? Just because you dont like the idea of not being able to poke around in my pbos. Seems selfish to me...

Edit to add: Reasons or not whisper, being able to encrypt the pbos would make it all go away...

[whisper 0]

At the expense of, I fear, forcing everyone to use encryption, as I described above :( (and as you said it yourself : "You would still be free to make your work open source (but then you couldnt complain about it when someone else used it, even in an encrypted pbo, because you released it open source)" )

My only fear on the matter, tbh

Edited November 3, 2010 by whisper

[[frl]myke 14]

Maybe we should explain our wish to be able to encrypt our works a little. Maybe this helps to better understand our points. DM already stated why he wants so i'll add my POV aswell.

I would like to encrypt my works (some, not all) to save time. Had id several times in the past that i got bug reports about some of my works which turned out (after some time) that the bug was caused by the people themself, poking around, changing things in ways that couldn't work.

So i spent time on finding a problem that didn't existed on my side just because people messed it up by pocking around.

This could have had be prevented by simply asking me if they could change it as i surely would have given hints and tricks what to look about.

Would had save me time, the other guy would have had faster a working result.

And future addons/script will become more complex, even more chances to mess things up by poking around. On the F-16 there are several systems that are cluttered in the model itself, the model.cfg, the config.cpp and several scripts. It will people take much longer to find out how everything works and what is related with eachother than it would take to simply ask me directly.

So to save me time for hunting non-existant bugs but instead fixing the real existing issues. These are my reasons.

And for the argument "addonmaker becoming elitist, not sharing their knowledge".....well, check the editing forum who is posting regulary there. Myself, i have released the instruments i've modelled for the F-16 as open source aswell the RWR including model, model.cfg, config.cpp and scripts. Also i already wrote some tutorials (another one about detailed proxy weapon handling on planes and choppers is planned).

As said, these are my reasons. Other content maker will have other reasons.