Well, I wasn’t arguing that, I was arguing whether or not it was possible in the first place, not if it was preferable. But secondly as far as “should”; why though? There are three primary reasons I can see why anyone would argue against being connected most of the time;
-
Users of the computer may upload IP and share it illegally. This is a poor argument because they can do that anyway by just copy the content to a drive and share outside of the facility.
-
Hackers outside of the facility might hack into the network, access content, then share it. I find this to be fairly unrealistic solely because the vast majority of content created has a tiny, tiny audience, and the potential gain in hacking into that system is near zero, but the ratio of gain:risk involved surely isn’t worth it.
If this is Disney or Netflix we’re talking about and it’s about leaking content from upcoming blockbusters or series then yeah, I totally see why restrictions are necessary. Those facilities however generally aren’t using Cubase or Nuendo, and if they are they’ll be able to activate for a year at a time from what I recall reading. Therefore the hassle is limited to a tech doing the rounds one week per year, spending a few minutes connecting, updating, disconnecting every workstation. Virtually a non-issue at that level.
- Software might break due to malware which is completely unrelated to the IP that’s in the facility. A decent firewall and basic Windows Defender does a perfectly adequate job in most cases I’m sure.
Every single DAW or edit suite I’ve worked in in NYC has been hooked up to the internet. Every single one. Zero exceptions. For the last two decades. It’s needed for work and I’ve seen zero problems with it as long as management was appropriate.