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

[dmarkwick 261]

I know you're trying to expose some people as hypocrites but I think that discussions about future ideas are more productive than discussions about past individuals.

*snip*

Moreover, I think we can describe the merits of old systems vs. new systems without resorting to the old 'everyone is doing it' defense.

I think everyone can see the massive irony and fundamental flaw in that argument.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

It's a but underhanded, I think, to call someone elite in a pejorative way, then to put quotations on it as if they are the ones calling themselves elite.

No I think it's to differentiate between "elite" as in being very good in what they do and "elite" having the eliteness attitude of being over protective and secretive about their found solutions.

Going in circles - again? :rolleyes:

Did someone found a proper and working solution or got a good idea how to protect creator's ip? What about encrypting parts of p3d's?

Lol, yeah. Well I've tried and I've seen others try to propose different solutions than locking, but they were all pretty much ignored at least among the yay sayers.

If I remember correctly the big blow up was that you didn't like wagn compared to mediawiki. :rolleyes:

Huh? What has this got to do with anything here? There were several complaining about ACE changing to wagn (and I think Evil Echo [thanks for those words btw, nice to be referenced by something else than what I'm usually referenced by in this thread] kept working on a wiki version), but now that they properly link to the @config changes they describe it has gone from unusable to just slightly annoying (which I can live with).

The only CC option I could see for something like ACRE (which it basically falls under by default since people can see the code, but we lock down the use of it) is the cc by-nc-nd version.

Yes, but nd does not mean "don't fuck with my files" as I elegantly saw it described somewhere :) You still allow poking and looking at it. Was this trust ever misused? Consider TeamA and TeamB working on fairly similar things. Using that license wouldn't prevent one team from peeking into the other and learn from it, and it works both ways. Go nuts and copy everything, the community would react in disgust, probably shutting them down. By locking, this sharing of knowledge is prevented - is that a good thing? Locking even promotes theft, since you can hide it up and there is no way of proving that theft without admitting to using illegal cracking tools to prove it. I think most of us wants more and higher quality stuff released. Locking also blocks out anyone working on completely different things. I'm doing mission work, and when I used ACE as a basis for that mission, I had great need to monitor the changes that were done to it (ref the @change in wagn that wasn't linked). Was it a classname changed? Big effect on the mission. Did they change how viewblocks were created? Big effect on the mission. And so on and so on. If it wasn't open like this, do you think I would even use it?

Not on it's own, but in combination with all the other reasons, not so unreasonable.

The only good reason I see, only for model work, is preventing commercial exploitation, which copyright law already covers (look at Rock, he fought it and won).

Ref Idea-Expression Divide:

Some courts have recognized that there are particular ideas that can be expressed intelligibly only in one or a limited number of ways. Therefore even the expression in these circumstances is unprotected, or extremely limited to verbatim copying only.

The more I read, the more convinced I get that encryption isn't even legal for our line of works. :rolleyes: With legal I mean that if you use copyright for your claims, you should also abide to its limitations.

iotherwise, they should harden the f* up and be happy that ppl would use their work and ideas in the first place.

Yeah I agree, but it is a sensitive area:

Young community - he used my stuff - cool!

Developed community - he used my stuff - I sue you!

Edited November 11, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[Evil_Echo 11]

wrong place - ignore

[janh 0]

I understand the fear some people have with unlegitimate copying of code/models without giving proper credit. But asking for a encrypted pbo format is not going to solve the root cause of this problem, but just fighting the symptom -- and history and experience shows that that never works. It wouldn't take weeks until someone cracked the format. Besides, it would surely negatively impact game performance, especially for often accessed files on the hdd.

The only smart, and true solution is going after the cause, and that could be done by (a) outing mods of people who can be proven to have copied 1:1, and (b) by hosting ARMA news sites to remove such addons. Tedious, and would require a group of volunteers to look through such cases, but the only real solution that will lead to lasting effects, and not just more annoyance. More promising is just to appeal to modders, and I would think the large majority of the people are honest and will improve.

I for my part would never offer any addons except under the sole prerequiste that both "usage" AND "further development/taking ideas" be done under the open source paradigm, and that anyone who uses these addons, and implements anything taken from those, must himself offer his addons under the same conditions without restrictions and encoding. And I would not use and encoded addons myself, by principle.

The reason is as simple as I had stated it above: The OFP/ARMA community to large part today is only what it is because of this open, highly active and interacting community that was enable through the high-modability of the ARMA series. It doesn't take much to realize that without this, a niche product like ARMA2 would not have attained such a fan-base, modding community and long life. Allow to encrypt addons, and everyone will do so -- and development and exchange of ideas, which is undeniably necessity for fast progress, will decline rapidly. Nothing will move in a year from now. And with but few addons ever seeing light, and the modding scene quenched, the future of the ARMA series would look very grim. It is a niche product, and will die as such when this modding scene dies. You would be sawing off the branch on which you are sitting -- for absolutely no gains other than volatile honor?

Edited November 11, 2010 by janh

[WackyIraqi 2]

As stated multiple times in various threads by Dwarden, these days it is far to easy rip models via the DirectX API. BIS is not going to devote the time and resources to developing a public "lockable pbo". It is far to easy for anyone to rip any and all content from a game, especially when they have no commercial interest in protecting the community's models.

The tools available on the internet provide a one click capture of anything being currently rendered by the DirectX API.

Back to the analogies everyone likes to make; The argument has been made about "Why make it easy for thieves by leaving the window wide open?" Well that doesn't apply because these days your houses don't even have windows or doors to lock, they are just wide open holes in your house.

Edited November 11, 2010 by WackyIraqi
left out a sentence

[xxbbcc 6]

I know you're trying to expose some people as hypocrites but I think that discussions about future ideas are more productive than discussions about past individuals.

It's a but underhanded, I think, to call someone elite in a pejorative way, then to put quotations on it as if they are the ones calling themselves elite.

Moreover, I think we can describe the merits of old systems vs. new systems without resorting to the old 'everyone is doing it' defense.

Wow, you somehow managed, in 3 sentences, to beat the hilarity of this entire topic. Well done.

If you don't mind, I'm going to submit it to Dictionary.com.

[max power 21]

By "elite" i mean the skilled modders/scripters or whatever who have been around for a long time. It seems to be mainly them who want things locked up.

So the old system worked fine until the "elite" got so good it's not necessary for them to peek anymore?

They are the most vocal but I don't know if they are the only ones who are in favour or protecting authors' rights in this way. Not to put words in anyone's mouth, those who have been participating in the Authors' Rights social group about this topic but have not been participating in it actively seem to be pro-encryption. Not all of these people seem to be long time modders.

Essentially, the argument is, and the point that I was making before was, we can learn now using community endeavors to replace the old system, which was wrong and was always wrong. Where these community efforts are lacking we can seek to enhance them. The criticisms of the biki, for instance, are criticisms of a transitory state. Anyone who is complaining about the biki and who isn't contributing to it is a direct cause of the problems with the biki.

I think everyone can see the massive irony and fundamental flaw in that argument.

Please enlighten me. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Just to remind you that earlier in the thread I talked a number of times how I have learned / am learning to mod.

No I think it's to differentiate between "elite" as in being very good in what they do and "elite" having the eliteness attitude of being over protective and secretive about their found solutions.

You're still using elite as a pejorative and equating being good at something with being protective of it. Are none of the people arguing against good at what they do? There's an attitude in these 'elite' comments of the haves vs. the have-nots here that I think isn't representative of the actual issues. I think we've already established that the modders on this forum are quite generous with their time in terms of answering questions and such. I think that the major difference here between heretofore called elites and what we could term non-elites is their views on this subject, and not actually what their capabilities are.

Wow, you somehow managed, in 3 sentences, to beat the hilarity of this entire topic. Well done.

If you don't mind, I'm going to submit it to Dictionary.com.

Edited November 12, 2010 by Max Power

[UNN 0]

First off, education is a right and anyone who believes otherwise, is being manipulative, not to mention stupid.

But applying education to IP is stretching the realms of credibility, in my opinion. Privately extracting information isn't for the benefit of everyone, only to those who want to profit. Talking to people on the forums, about the addons they make, is!

Just look at the WIP threads.

If proper encryption means you have to ask a direct question, to the very people who invested so much time in learning the stuff, then is that so dreadful? Assuming you get a reply. Even if you don't get an answer from them, someone else will probably provide one :)

[dmarkwick 261]

Privately extracting information isn't for the benefit of everyone, only to those who want to profit.

By profit, you mean education, to which you say is a right. And one person's education when applied benefits everybody in the form of new addons. I don't see why looking at how a script works (particularly by someone who may have not much idea of how to code at all) is outside the terms of Fair Use.

---------- Post added at 10:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------

Please enlighten me. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Just to remind you that earlier in the thread I talked a number of times how I have learned / am learning to mod.

Your dodging of previous questions to your learning methods speaks, my friend :) and, I don't believe I need to enlighten you, I'm sure you know precisely the meaning.

[xmongx 0]

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

Seriously.....THIS IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

you fucking retards.

[[frl]myke 14]

Well, i guess it is time to settle a bit and change the whole approach to this entire topic. Until now, everyone was defending their point of view (including myself) but obviously this wont lead to a solution. Maybe a good start is to define the exact meaning of often used words in this thread. Since we all come from different locations and cultures, we surely have not the same understanding of several concepts so we have to define wht certain words mean inside the community so we're all talking about the same.

Next step would be to start to accept that whatever happens (or doesn't happen) will never satisfy everyone. It is simply not possible. Instead we should see what we all could live with, even if it goes further than one expected or not far enough.

And finally, based on the above, formulate some guidelines that could work.

So, lets start with the dictionary.

IP (Intellectual Property)

IP belongs to those who created content of any sort. Important in here is to differ between content thats worth to be protected and content that doesn't make sense to be protected.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean that, let's say scripts, are worth less than 3D meshes. Sure thing on several pretty complex scriptworks (MMA just to name one) there is much more time spent on it than on a 3D model. But thats not the point. A 3D mesh has a certain value also outside of the armaversum. Turbosquid already was mentoined but there are also other cases (export to other games as example).

On the other side, scripts, missions and configs are of no value outside the armaversum.

Plagiarism is pretty well handled in this community so such cases would be handled immediately in the community by the community.

Outside the community this might not be given.

Also as reference material for educational purpose, there isn't much to learn from community made content that couldn't be learned by official available BIS sample models.

Conclusion:

Only 3D meshes do really need a protection against abuse of IP rights.

Since BIS does tolerate dePBO tools but not debinarizing tools, i guess BIS sees this the same way (pure speculation, makes sense nevertheless).

Respect

Forget about law and justice aswell as common sense. As said above, we all come from different systems and cultures so our personal understanding does differ. As a result, we have to define what "respect" means inside this community.

IMHO, it means to respect the work aswell the will of any content creator. So if a content creator states in the readme that he doesn't want his pbo being opened, then this will has to be respected, regardless if you like it or not. If you want an exception, then ask him.

If nothing is stated, then it would be acceptable to open the pbo for educational purpose. But if you want to use it (or parts of it), permission from creator would be required.

Of course everyone can formulate his own will about his work. As popular example: Xeno explicitly allowed tweaking/changing/releasing his award-winning mission "Domination" as long credits are given.

Conclusion:

Some might deny any opening/peeking/editing of theyr work, a lot will at least allow peeking/learning from it and also some might define it as open source.

However, basically there is no need to explain why someone decided to restrict access. It is their decision and people should respect this, wether they like it or not.

"It is this way since the OFP demo"

Well, 100 years ago, slavery was pretty common. Times are changing (luckily, regarding my example), people are changing. The world today isn't the world ten years ago anymore, let alone the internet. So we have to adapt our "common sense" to this changed circumstances.

Finally, all this would lead to the following request:

- allow optional encryption during binarization process for .p3d files.

Community made 3D meshes aren't vital to learn how models do work, there is already enough reference material around, hopefully more to come from BIS itself.

On the other side, it will protect the content from abuse that would have monetary meanings.

- People should respect content creators restrictions/permissions anytime

Ok, nothing that could be controlled. It's just, if you respect the creators work then you should also respect his will.

Since scripts and missions will not leave this community (at least not that far), the community acts as abuse control mechanism. Plagiarism will be spotted sooner or later.

I do understand people that demand encryption not only for 3D meshes but for scripts and missions too but i guess if people would start to agree to the above description of "respect", those people could live without.

[dmarkwick 261]

Well Myke, you didn't need to specify what respect meant, as there is nothing there that everyone didn't already agree on. The insinuation has always been that those who don't wish for encryption are lacking in respect somehow.

And, pragmatically, I have never seen a request for PBO being unopened, ever. Generally people who don't wish their PBOs being scanned simply don't release publicly, and I don't see this activity changing given some people's paranoia over rippers and suchlike.

The appeal to convention is a perfectly valid argument, as we're dealing with a game structure less than ten years old not slavery 100 years ago. A GAME. And as such, I think it turned out pretty good. People can dodge the question and do flips and twists rather than admit it, but everyone here learned a goodly portion of their knowledge by looking at example. Denying the same activity for newcomers, when modding something for the first time is already hard enough for casual interests and offline tweaking, is a bad thing.

Encryption of models only - I've already said I'm fairly ambivalent about that. I doubt I'd even notice. However I'm not a modeler so I don't know what benefits such browsing would or would not bring.

[[frl]myke 14]

@DMarkwick

As already said, times change. Back in the OFP Demo days, there were close to zero information available. Compare it to today. The need for peeking at content is much lesser than back in those days. Although it is far from being complete, today is much more info already avaliable without looking at pbo's directly.

And also in the future i think there will be enough people around, willing to allow people to look at their work to learn from.

[xmongx 0]

My Arma2 directory has reduced in size significantly since i started reading this thread. Im taking names and deleting content appropriately. I've not even started the bitch in the last two weeks. Its started to feel a little dirty, vanilla conent FTW!

You dont want to give = i do not want and can do without.

This discussion is doing far more harm to the community than the imaginary rampant theft it suggests is happening ever has in my opinion.

But, then again, i am a total stubborn bastard :)

Edited November 13, 2010 by xmongx

[[frl]myke 14]

My Arma2 directory has reduced in size significantly since i started reading this thread. Im taking names and deleting content appropriately. I've not even started the bitch in the last two weeks. Its started to feel a little dirty, vanilla conent FTW!

You dont want to give = i do not want and can do without.

This discussion is doing far more harm to the community than the imaginary rampant theft it suggests is happening ever has in my opinion.

But, then again, i am a total stubborn bastard :)

Remember that BIS doesn't tolerate debinarizing tools either, also they never provided a dePBO tool aswell. Also they clearly stated that hexediting of their content is forbidden aswell.

Are you goin to deinstallate ArmA 2 now?

[dmarkwick 261]

Myke;1787353']@DMarkwick

As already said' date=' times change. Back in the OFP Demo days, there were close to zero information available. Compare it to today. The need for peeking at content is much lesser than back in those days. Although it is far from being complete, today is much more info already avaliable without looking at pbo's directly.

And also in the future i think there will be enough people around, willing to allow people to look at their work to learn from.[/quote']

That's all very nice but I'm for more options not less :) (option to encrypt notwithstanding ;)).

[CarlGustaffa 4]

(option to encrypt notwithstanding ;)).

Have you been reading a lot lately? ;) :D I mean, notwithstanding isn't something I hear often, except in a certain collection of text :D If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, just disregard silly attempt on humor.

Myke;1787379']Remember that BIS doesn't tolerate debinarizing tools either' date=' also they never provided a dePBO tool aswell. Also they clearly stated that hexediting of their content is forbidden aswell.[/quote']

I thought the phrase was "no harm, no foul", from a BIS official. I.e. hexing in such a way that the original (OA) content was still required, was harmless. Hexing in such a way that it made it OA content available for A2, was considered harmful. But they had to use those wordings to remove any doubt. And the obvious harm is commercially oriented. They seem to let us use "common sense" rather than "to the letter". Encryption does not.

Edited November 13, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[Grizzle 0]

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

Seriously.....THIS IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

you fucking retards.

:619: JAZZ HANDS...aaaaand scene.

[xxbbcc 6]

<snip>troll picture</snip>

A troll picture? Really? So you say that even though you looked at stuff without asking in the past, now it's your right to block others from doing so. Then when I point it out, I become a troll. Is that what you're trying to say?

You can peek & disrespect as much as you want, but others cannot, but let's forget about all that because it's all water under the bridge. You don't need to peek anymore (not at the moment, anyway), so now it's against the rules.

I particularly like the motto of your little group: "A group for those of us who have a conscience." - apparently those who disagree with you have no conscience. Guess that explains the need for quotes around "elite", doesn't it?

Myke;1787353']As already said' date=' times change. Back in the OFP Demo days, there were close to zero information available. Compare it to today. The need for peeking at content is much lesser than back in those days. Although it is far from being complete, today is much more info already avaliable without looking at pbo's directly.

And also in the future i think there will be enough people around, willing to allow people to look at their work to learn from.[/quote']

I disagree with you - many times when I look at a piece of script, I learn something new and I have a fair amount of programming experience. (I never look at models, since I hardly have any time for missions, let alone modeling.) The Biki is a nice to have but it has low practical value - it lacks details, examples, etc.

The current .pbo system is pretty much open source - as someone already said, try to open a .pbo in a hex editor or in Notepad - the script code is readily available. All dePbo does is saves the content into separate files.

Your call for calmness is a nice attempt :), but all you said was the same exact thing your side keeps repeating - no one can peek, everyone who does is a thief (or at the very least disrespectful.) You simply wrapped it more nicely.

Plus, as I already said, if a modder cannot live with how the community is now, they have the option to not release their mods. They knew how things work when they joined (many of them profited from it, too.)

I'm going to repeat this once more: locking .pbo-s will solve nothing. People that want to steal the models know how to do it - they do it for money and they do it all the time. Locking will do nothing against them. The rest is simply not a threat - the ones that do steal something get discovered.

I know I simply repeat what my side keeps saying, but... well, that's how it is.

Edited November 13, 2010 by xxbbcc

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Who profited from it? And how?

And no, I'm still on the same side :p Just wanted to know.

[[frl]myke 14]

Let me quote Maruk himself:

But last but not least: addon makers have to learn to provide clear licenses with all their work and respect each others licenses.

Source: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1729768&postcount=182

Answers to what? If hex editing or ripping content from a product and further re-distribute it is allowed?

Of course it is not and it never was for any BI game...

source: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1729346&postcount=178

@xxbbcc

instead of playing the same record over and over which doesn't help to work towards a possible solution you should go back and read my post again and this time more carefully. You will notice that there is nothing saying that pbo in general should be locked, just p3d files.

There is nearly nothing you can learn from a 3D mesh that you couldn't learn from the already free available smaple models, from BIS aswell as from addonmakers.

So there is no reason to keep them unprotected as good as possible.

I know pretty well that there is no way to make it absolutely impossible but at least there are ways to make it at least harder.

[jw custom 56]

Myke;1787573']

I know pretty well that there is no way to make it absolutely impossible but at least there are ways to make it at least harder.

Yeah it's gonna be tough, the scumbag has to use tool B instead of tool A. All such a protection will do is buying a little time and then what?

[[frl]myke 14]

Yeah it's gonna be tough, the scumbag has to use tool B instead of tool A. All such a protection will do is buying a little time and then what?

Well, binarizing was a good protection so far until a certain tool was released. It was good enough so that certain people were allowed to release models, that they have sold for money, for free to the community since binarizing was accepted as decent protection. Already at this time, there were ways to rip 3D meshes.

So to answer your question: encrypting will make you lose nothing since the things you could learn from a 3D mesh you already can learn by the already available free sample models.

On the other side, the community does lose some excellent addons since the respective addonmaker is not longer allowed to release those addons as the ripping process has become too easy.

So, encryption brings only benefits. Why deny it?

[janh 0]

Myke;1787585']...encrypting will make you lose nothing since the things you could learn from a 3D mesh you already can learn by the already available free sample models.

And encrypting won't win you anything either. Will only be a matter of time until a new tool will be made to circumvent it. Until then, it will only slow the game since decrypting upon loading would add only to the CPU load during playing, especially for complex models. Great idea...

Again, as Maruk said: Solve the root of the problem, i.e. teach respect for modders using other peoples content. Fighting the symptoms is a lost fight.

Myke, I like your work, but encrypted I would not be interested anymore -- that would be a dead end for the modding scene, quite surely.

I really don't see what fame you guys wan't to make with encrypting your stuff. It will not benefit anyone. Unless you want to make money with your addons, which I doubt will work well -- especially with BIS DLC as competition. If you'd encrypt your downloads, I am sure we would see another addon maker close the gap by making a new F-16 addon, for example, without, which would be modified and improved my other modders and surpass the existing quickly...

Edited November 13, 2010 by janh

[jw custom 56]

Myke;1787585']Well' date=' binarizing was a good protection so far until a certain tool was released.[/quote']

binarizing is not a protection.

How do you define "a good protection", i mean just because your not seeing tools in the public doesn't mean it's not broken, all it takes to break a protection is interest.