It all started with this, posted by PhoenixRising:

Commercial items are not meant to be used as development or
resource tools to make freebies or other products. This includes mesh, morphs and
textures. Actually there isn't anything I can think of that would be allowed.

These are the big things to avoid.

Never use Daz morphs to make characters. This is not allowed. Morphs must be from
scratch with no help from Daz morphs even at the lowest settings. This is something we
were lax about with V2 we are watching closely now.

Don't use Daz meshes as a starting point. Like textures and morphs, the work must be
completely from scratch.

Doing to for your private use is one thing but must not be shared. I know you were just
asking about the texture but since others will read this I wanted to cover the basics. Hope
that helps.

Anton
Daz3d.com

And later added:

People can distribute pose files only. Using Daz morphs for third party characters was never
allowed. Too many people just looked the other way. The morphs are not commercial tools
for vendors.

People can still do characters using custom morphs and pose files. But spinning dials and
spawning a new morph is not a valid "custom" morph.

We are slowly looking into V2, Michael, and Stephanie characters, so if anyone cheated
please take them down before we come across them.

This includes filtering the morphs onto the MilGirls. All these things should be explained to
vendors and checked by store management at all Poser stores.

Anton

To which I replied:

This could get ugly, no?

Who's to say if a squished morph contains .010 of "Mouth Narrow"? My guess? It's
impossible to tell. But DAZ will be "closely examining" marketed characters for morphs that
contain even the slightest bit of theirs.

So, what is the method used to determine? I remember a post when V3 came out that
pretty much said "Look, we can just TELL, okay?" which implies that the method used is
totally esoteric.

Which means DAZ, essentially, is on a Witch-hunt.
-WTB
...

Here is where deflection (total side-stepping of question/issue) begins: PhoenixRising: Squishing a morph is removing all lines except those that start with "v" from the obj file. This new obj file is considered "squished" and can only be used as a morph in poser. This protects the copyright of the mesh. Darth, don't stir the pot ok? try to be constructive. Am I stirring the pot, as he says, or just observing there could be trouble? What Ivory Tower does Anton reside in that I must "Try to be constructive" when addressing what he says? Why doesn't Anton try to be constructive when responding to me? Is Anton better than me, or any one of you, that he deserves special consideration in a public forum? But still, I try to play along and be constructive: Okay. The way I see it, you don't want people who haven't bought the morphs to benefit from the morphs, correct? It's not a matter of protecting the mesh, because morph squishing does this effectively. So, what if a spawned morph target that contained fractions of your morphs along with original material such as magnet work or the like were both squished and coded with Mover against the original installer exe for whichever morph pak applies? This insures they own the morph pak in question. The reason I ask these questions is because making Characters IS HARD WORK. I try to do likenesses, and it often takes 25 versions before something decent emerges. This can take several months sometimes, and results in 400 pose files and a dozen spawned morph targets. In short, it is impossible to have one pose file at the end of the process. So, if the result DAZ wants is to protect the sales of the Morph Paks, the squisher/Mover solution works just as well to that end as does the Pose file solution. There's your constructive. Now, I must politely ask that you cease telling me what to say/not say. I call them as I see them, and I'm really interested in this process you are going to use as you closely inspect items for elements of your morphs. When someone tells me to shut up, that just makes me think I'm hitting something pretty near the truth. -WTB

Here I offer a constructive suggestion/alternative with an explanation why I think one is needed. I express interest in the process by which Daz intends to "Watch very closely". But none of this is considered, and insulting begins: William, no it means your being annoying. lol. Lighten up. No amount of Daz morphs, however small, can be used to create characters for sale or distribution in any form. Period. If poses are not used, then all morphs must be from scratch. Only the JCM morphs in the base are allowed in the cr2. I think that pretty much covers everything in triplicate. Sorry cmjackson for highjacking. later, Anton So, he asks for constructive ideas and then completely ignores them and calls me "Annoying" No elaboration on "Watching very closely". No consideration for my suggestion, which would clearly pacify their need to protect sale of morph paks. WTF is going on here? Is this any way for a DAZ rep to behave? I have never sold anything but have offered freestuff characters in the past. The need to distribute characters as a morph I listed above. I offered one way in which this is possible without violating anything. I dared ask questions about what it means to "Watch very closely" and how they intend to prove violations if they find them. I suggested the possibility that this would become a witch-hunt. Why can't Anton handle direct questioning? -WTB

Darth, knock it off. Is this drama really neccesary. jeesh. This type of stuff is just going to prevent me from posting anymore which I don't really mind but would prefer not to have happen. Using my job like this is pretty low. What you want them to fire me or something? This is manipulation. This policy of not using Daz morphs in characters has been around since Vicki 1.0. Don't make more of it than there is. I already told you twice I wasn't attacking you. But I don't like being quoted like this out of context. It is very unfair. Anton

Err... I just read the original thread. You seem to be over-reacting. Simply put, it's a copyright issue. You can't use someone else's work as your base- that includes morphs. :)

Again, you deflect the issues. I don't want you to be fired, I want you to talk like a human being. You ask is this drama really necessary? I have asked you that question first. I have shown you a way in which DAZ drama regarding this issue is not necessary. I have genuine concerns over the issue of Character distribution. You say "You Guys" like I'm part of a cartel. I'm just me, I very rarely post here anymore. It does not matter one bit when the policy began. When the policy began is not the issue, this is deflection. The issue is fresh because you and yours intend to "Watch very closely" You never said you weren't attacking me, you basically told me to keep quiet and that I was annoying. Why am I annoying, exactly? You had a chance to react like a decent person and you didn't. I am not quoting you out of context, I have posted everything you said in the thread verbatim. That is not "Quoting out of Context". Anton, I guess what I'd like is for someone else from DAZ to elaborate on "Watching very closely" and to explain why my suggestion is not feasible...what about my suggestion would undermine DAZ's overall objective with Morph Paks? I ask for someone else because you have demonstrated that you cannot/will not address this. -WTB

WTB: "Why can't Anton handle direct questioning?" Obviously, he can. Why not take this to IM or e-mail. Address him civilly, and I'm sure you'll get your answers. They might not be what you want to hear, but it's been the experience of LOTS of us that DAZ staff are very helpful (and quite pleasant) when treated with normal, everyday civility. The "witch hunt" is clearly not DAZ', ahem. Your invocation of "Gestapo" is incredibly silly, probably offensive to some. In essence, it's hypocritical. BTW I'm not associated with DAZ, nor am I anyone's apologist. You're just going way overboard, and frankly, it's a ugly as it is annoying.

"Don't rock the boat, don't tip the boat over baby..."

Like it or or not, this is just a straight-forward statement of copyright law. I can certainly sympathise with the concern, the temptation to use some of the general purpose facial morphs to tweak things like eye height or the shape of the mouth must be fairly irresitable, but at the end of the day, it is still a definite breach of copyright. What DAZ choose to do with merchants in the situations of minor infractions is, however, still an open question, and in the past they have certainly not been heavy handed in their dealings with infringers. If they want waive the copyright in some limited cases, they still must draw the line (arbitrarily) somewhere, and that does entail a close examination of what is on the market. Anyway, why not view it as an opportunity, rather than a threat. This looks like a market opening for a some entirely non-DAZ general and expression morph packs for the millenium figures. With a waiver of copyright, potential merchants would be more that happy to snap it up. Bill

WTB, I too read the original thread... You're blowing this too big. Just because your comments were being buried in the other thread, you started a new one apparently simply to fight. DAZ owns the copyright to the meshes. Whatever restrictions they wish to impose, they may. Hopefully their plan will allow for development of third party stuff for V3 and thus more interest in V3, and thus more sales of V3. If not, it's all of our loss. I agree with the above comment, take this private.

That is not the issue, from what I can tell. DAZ/Anton says you can distribute characters if they are in the form of a Pz2 (one assumes a FC2 file is acceptable as well.) This shows that they don't mind if you make money from making characters out of their morphs, as long as you do it this way. Why that way? Because as long as it's a pz2 or fc2, then the person on the other end MUST have the morph paks, which means a sale. I get that. Making characters, however, takes many elements besides DAZ morphs. It takes Magnets. It takes mesh manipulation in outside programs. It takes third party morphs. It takes a million efforts, subtle tweaking and even collaboration. The chance that a character will emerge from this process in one DAZ friendly Pose file is...astronomical. So I offer a method which would assure DAZ's protection on spawned morph targets. Squeeze 'em and Move 'em. But if Anton is all we got, then we must assume that DAZ is totally uninterested in solutions and not at all willing to discuss the means by which they will investigate possible violations.

I agree that third party morphs would be nice. I always thought Traveller's Morphs were better than DAZ's, but I think he's taken himself out of the mix. I think everyone should be aware, particularly merchants and freestuff providers, of Anton's Statement "Watching Very Closely". I asked for how this would be done, and Anton told me to not "Stir the pot." He found my line of questioning "Annoying" very publicly. The gloves are off, I did not draw first blood here. As for IM's, I must embarrasingly admit that I only just discovered that Anton sent me IM. I don't spend much time here these days and was unaware that IM's were no longer giant boxes at the top of the screen. I will go there from here but will continue to stress why I think this is important in this thread to those who aren't seeing it. -WTB

Seems pretty simple to me.....don't use DAZ morphs to create new characters! I'm sure those who model know how to create characters without using the DAZ morphs. I would guess running the product by DAZ before putting it up for sale would also be a simple thing to do.

Personally I'd like to see more clothes for V3 before many more characters are created:)

William, The models that DAZ makes are their intellectual property. They hold that copywright. You do not. I can understand that you make a character and want to share it, but if you use the original morphs to make your own, how ever small, it is still a violation. I would really hate for you to be sued by DAZ, but that is the way that you are going if you continue. Anton has responded to you thru here. He has told you what you need to do. I would take his advice and let the subject drop.

Well, While I have my reservations about Anton (Nothing personal, but you do tend to start witch-hunts every now and then. Not as bad as StefyZZ, but bad enough...) I can see no wrong on his side in this discussion. DAZ does not want you to redistribute their geometry. It is their damn right to so. PERIOD! I wouldn't want you to redistribute my commercial geometry-data either. Allowing the use of pz2- and fc2-files is a way to allow the sharing of a character containing this commercial geometry-data - a very friendly move by DAZ if you ask me. Other corporations might even forbid the commercial use of such reference-files. But using commercial-geometry of someone else to create freestuff or your own commerical material if definitely theft. If you want your character to have a broader jaw, then model that morphtarget yourself! Don't use DAZ geometry if you want to sell something. Also, while I am actually rather script-stupid, even I havew found an easy way to strip object-files of everything but the v-lines. (Just load it into PHI-Builder and remove everything but the v-lines.) On this case, Anton is definitely absolutely right. Joerg

Anton has always been very touchy about people ripping off his work, whether it's here, in the warez groups, or the p2p servers like kazaa or the other one run by Shawn Fanning (sp?). But Daz has the right to protect their work, whether you like Anton's methods or not. So you should just agree not to rip off Daz's (or Anton's) work and drop the subject. Your work can't be 75 or 80% original anymore than your girl-friend can be 75 or 80% pregnant.

I know how touchy Anton is and while I dislike the way he starts those witchhunts (and how vengeful he is), I said exactly that: He is absolutely right in this case. Joerg

Personally, I think DAZ (Anton) is right in principle, but totally wrong in presentation. I have read many threads recently wherein threats, intimidation and bullying tactics are the norm, and I for one resent being treated as a criminal by the company that gets a couple thousand of my hard earned dollars every year. I think this current argument is just PETTY! - Damn the MORPHS! I don't think anybody "owns" them except in their original and complete form. To claim fragmentary ownership of a morph is just rediculous! You can't own a displacement parameter any more than you can own a single vertex - it simply has no meaning unless viewed in SUBSTANTIAL form. Anton - get off your high horse - most of us aren't stealing from you, but you are making it MIGHTY TEMPTING!

i have known Anton for a few years. before he worked at DAZ, he was very helpful and quite freindly, he always gave me good advice. i was proud of a fellow broker making into DAZ, and i'm sure that when he started he starting to learn the ropes from daz. he has come long way, and will always trust his advice. and all thurthe years i've been doing this, i had heard soo many negetive things about him. until i met him, and all the stories i heard were never true. Atnon is a Great modeler, and i see big things happening for him in the future. and the info he is passing onto you about morphs, meshs.. well i'm sure that was part of the ropes he had to learn .

Okay guys. I am really sorry but I can't be apart of this stuff. I need to withdraw and leave the forums to someone else better suited for this stuff. I am just drawing to much aggression which is not why I am here. This type of speculation is potentially really damaging to me and Daz. I really can't respond to any of this less it look argumentative so I really have to step out of the forums. Please always feel free to use email. Standard questions and such can be sent through our email links on the store. Been real....interesting, Anton

Hello, I know you need to tkae a break from this. But I do hope you will stay around or come back after a little while. You provide a wonderful and quick response from a Daz like prospective. Thanks, Super

@ronstuff: I tend to disagree here. A morph can be as much copyrighted as a final mesh. In the case of a moprh, you do not copyright the mesh represented by the morph, but only the changes to that mesh. Since these changes can actually change a figure to something totally different, this is a very powerful yet easy method to get a new character. If this isn't worth of a copyright, I don't know what else should be. Since these changes are represented in the v-lines of the morph-files, these v-lines are the part that you have a copyright for, if you created these morphs. So DAZ is absolutely right in asking you to remove those parts of the morph, that is owned by them (the geometry-data). And why shouldn't you do so? What keeps you from doing so? It is easy (Bushi even wrote a script for it.) and reduces file-sizes by about 60%... As for DAZs methods: Sorry, but I haven't seen any threats, intimidations or bullying-tactics by DAZ up to now. If I missed them this is my fault, but we all have different ways of seeing things and what one may consider a threat may seem like a simple way of saying: "Not this way!" to me. @sargebear I don't know Anton in person and hence cannot say anything about the way he really is. I trust you on what you say about him, but all I have seen, are many of his threads here on Renderosity. And some of these threads do not shed a good light on him. To someone who doesn't know him - like me - he seems aggressive and very vengeful. But like I said: I don't want to make this personal. If you say that he is different when met personally, I do believe that. Joerg

Joerg, sorry about that, I should have made it more clear that I was directing my remarks at William. I've seen Anton really rip into people for theft, and he was very nasty about it, but I can understand how angry a guy can get when all these warez loserz are stealing his stuff right and left, and the ISPs or sys-admins are too lazy to enforce their own rules. Sometimes you have to be nasty to get the job done.

So, yet another source of help and information has been driven away from the forum. Well, I can't say as I blame Anton. I wouldn't want to listen to this BS, or have my name bandied around in threads as a pseudo-Nazi. William, I hope you're proud of yourself. It's totally obvious to anyone but a moron that DAZ morphs belong to DAZ. You're just trying to find a keyhole you can crawl through to steal them. And what's more, this should have been done via IM or e-mail, not in a public forum. You only make yourself look silly. mac PS If this seems a tad harsh, that's because it's meant to!

Actually I can sometimes understand Anton. I remember a thread, where he mentioned that the sales of Poser-related material helped him better his living-conditions. If my living-conditions would be based on my sales here, I too would probably be more nasty seeing my stuff pirated. (Well, big words for someone like me, who has only one piece at all in the marketplace.) Joerg

I disagree with both ronstuff and Joerg ;-) Daz owns all of their meshes, including the V-line changes to their meshes. They are nice people that grant you a lot of priveledges to modify their geometry that they DON'T have to grant... but in interest of promoting their products and gaining more sales, they let us do a lot they don't have to let us do. Some people, they may grant more privvies than others, depending on how close the relationship is, and what is actually being done, and how its being distributed/sold. In the end, its all Daz's decision what they do with their work. I'm sorry to see Anton go, but you know, this stuff happens all the time to people in his position, and I do understand the why. He's always going to draw fire because he's a big icon around here, and everytime he tries to protect his work from theft, people that resent his talent and position, resenting the fact that he tries to protect it from their takg the shortcut by stealing his work... are going to band up and drag him down in the juvenile attempt to make themselves look better. And others not involved, seeing that BS, believe the little propagandas as the harrassers usually have more time to harrass and carry on. So its no wonder at all to me that Sargebear met a really nice guy that didn't resemble any of the stories about him. Consider the source when people tell you stories, is all I have to say.

Joerg - You are describing a morph that is fully implemented (set at 1.000 or 100%) and that is without a doubt proprietary. The problem arises when one claims ownership of all TRANSITIONAL values of each vertex between the settings of 0 and 1.000 - at some point the morph becomes "recognizable" but at lower values, combined with other custom modifications, I just don't see how anyone can claim ownership, as these transitional values are NOT recorded in the v-lines and are therefore "soft" values. I repeat what I said before, I agree in principle to the position of DAZ but take exception to the extremes which Anton seems to be taking his point.

Well, isn't that just nice. Another voice of sage advice driven off by what amounts to rumor, sidelong comments and one person's seemingly insane need for attention. Gestapo Indeed, Do you, William have any Idea how insulting that is!!! I dont know Anton and sometimes he seems heavy handed at times but this was very uncalled for! You say he ignored you..I say you ignored posts after yours trying to reason with you! You say you didnt know about "IM" Well maybe you should learn about such things before starting such "flames" You said that Daz/Anton was ona witch hunt?? well buddy boy you seem to be the one ringing the bell and yelling "Witch!!!!" the loudest pal!

ronstuff said, 'The problem arises when one claims ownership of all TRANSITIONAL values of each vertex between the settings of 0 and 1.000 - at some point the morph becomes "recognizable" but at lower values, combined with other custom modifications, I just don't see how anyone can claim ownership, as these transitional values are NOT recorded in the v-lines and are therefore "soft" values' Ronstuff, If you want 'transitional values', how about you make 'em yourself? It's like ripping bits off from 20 texture maps and saying it's yours. 'Soft values', my ass! mac

@Dynamoe The one who said that Anton tended to produce witch-hunts, was me. And I stick to what I said. I have seen threads where Anton demanded the removal of people from the community because of things long past. While he was right on demanding the removal of people who use warez and who steal his work, the way he does so, is not very nice (to be friendly). So, in my opinion, Anton is right at what he does, but not in the way he does it. @bijouchat I tend to disagree again... The v-lines represent only the changes between the original mesh and that, what is new. The new deformation was created by the one who created the morph-target and the difference is effectively not copyrighted or even copyrightable by DAZ. Som the copyright for the difference is by the person who created that difference. However, this is highly theoretical, since different states will have different copyright-laws regarding exactly this case. And DAZ has no problem if morphs are distributed in v-line-object-files. @ronstuff I have my problems with the idea of those transitional values. THe morph itself is copyrighted. This does not say, that only the 1.000-Morph is copyrighted, but also everything that is derived from this morph is actually copyrighted. If I buy a asian-morph for Vicky 3 from DAZ, use 0.5 of this morph and a few other morphs to create a half-asian-looking character, I still used the DAZ morph to create this effect. If I sell this morph, I am making money with something that DAZ created. Sorry, but for me, such a thing as a transitional value doesn't exist. The whole morph at any value possible for it is copyrighted by the one who created it. Joerg

yikes...this thread is getting out of hand. chill out folks, grab a cold one.

No amount of Daz morphs, however small, can be used to create characters for sale or distribution in any form. Period. If poses are not used, then all morphs must be from scratch. Only the JCM morphs in the base are allowed in the cr2. > Never use Daz morphs to make characters. This is not allowed. Morphs must be from scratch with no help from Daz morphs even at the lowest settings. This is something we were lax about with V2 we are watching closely now. >People can distribute pose files only. Using Daz morphs for third party characters was never allowed. Too many people just looked the other way. The morphs are not commercial tools for vendors. Now I am confussed. I thought that you could distribute pose (morph name and setting) files and could not distribute .cr2 (morph data). Thus I could combine DAZ morphs to make a character and distribute the pose file (morph name and setting). Is this correct?

... that's what this thread is. 'Bloody' parrot droppings. :] Fish

Everyone is ignoring a basic fact of this whole thread: I offered a solution to the problem that lets DAZ protect their sales and lets character creators distribute a Morph Target. He asked for me to be constructive and I was, and it was ignored and called "Annoying" long before this thread began. Everone is ignoring another basic fact of this whole thread: Anton said that DAZ was going to start looking very closely at distributed characters. I asked How they were going to do this...measure the proof and validity of any claims that will result from them doing this. Anton said "Don't stir the pot". Until anyone can step forward with something better than "Because I said so" and can explain why my solution isn't valid or why my questions are not valid, I totally stand by everything I've said, including the term Gestapo. I did not say Anton is Gestapo, I said DAZ is hinting at Gestapo Tactics. I'm not the bad guy, people. -WTB

If there is any doubt or question about a morph or file, or copyright contact Daz3d. Helpful, nice, and knowlegeable people. Daz3d.com has a FAQ about what can and can't be done, just read it, it's pretty clear. Anoton is correct, this is NOT new information. Doesn't have to be such an issue.

We all did effictively argue your case. Even if creating a character is hard work, there is no excuse for using DAZs morphs to create this character. Creating morphtargets in most applications is easy. If you want to do a character, use your own morphtargets. If you use DAZs morphtargets, discussion is unnecessary: These morphs are copyrighted by DAZ and you may not use them for your files. Even if you remove everything but the v-lines, you still used their material, so removing those lines is no solution. What is so hard to accept in the sentence: Use your own material. As for DAZ watching characters in the marketplace closely: Well, I asked myself many times, where the big difference between this or that character and the basic DAZ-Character was. A small nosejob removing almost all nasal features and huge bloated lips tend to be all that is done with these characters. (Man, I am so sick of all those women without noses and those huge, blown-up lips that look like a bycicle-tire placed where the lips should be... yuck... How about some real women with real noses and real lips for a change?) It is high time that DAZ takes a look at all those "characters". People are asking as much as 30 Dollars for DAZs own morphs applied to form a "character" while real work like clothing, environment or textures come relatively cheap at around 20 Dollars. Joerg

Machine, I think they should come in and explain what is meant and how they intend to prove results from the "We're going to look at this more closely" comment. How can anyone protect themselves from accusations in the future by DAZ3d when they say a character contains their morphs??? What methods are they using to figure out that there's 5% of "Nose Ridge Thin" and 25% of "Eye Corner Down"? This IS NEW INFORMATION that they are going to "Look more closely". Anton even says they are going to go back and look at V1/V2/Mike stuff. Now watch this: In another thread last week I think, Anton says that they have a NEW PROCESS by which to identify their morph targets that was implemented in V3. NEW PROCESS. How are they going to go back to v1/V2 stuff if it's a new process to detect them? What, in fact, is this scary-good new process? I asked, and Anton said my questions were annoying, rather than explain how they intend to prove illegal Morph target distribution. This is all very new information, as it happens. As for the means of which to legally distribute characters based on DAZ morphs, there is a way. Pose Files. I offered an equal way to do this, at Anton's request to "Be Constructive" but it too was ignored. If this was you being treated thusly, you'd be just as angry and suspicious as I am right now. I know Anton's an Ivory Tower Dwelling Superhero to most of you, but try to see this from my angle for just a second and take a good hard look at who was first to be truly antagonizing in this whole affair. -WTB

First, I agree with much of what you said about characters that are being made, but that's a whole nother story. First, you are making a mistake. You are allowed to make Characters and sell them using DAZ morphs. To do so, they ask you to use a pose file, so that all you're selling are settings, rather than geometry. They do this because they don't want anyone to benefit from their morphs unless they've paid for them. It's very understandable. Settings are useless without the morph pak. If a person makes a Dazzy character out of their morphs and distributes it as a Morph target, then joe blow who only got V3 without the morphs now benefits (however small) from the Morph target pack without paying for them. I offer a solution for those who feel they need to distribute as Morph target and DAZ, who wants to sell morph paks. All it would take is for a person distributing a morph target to encode it with Mover or other such program against the seed file of the Morph Pak installer. This insures they have the morph pack in question in order to benefit from the character. It's win-win. Why would my suggestion be totally ignored? A lot of people and Anton seem to agree that "Because DAZ says so" is a good answer. It's not. Anton ASKED me to be constructive, and I was. He solicited suggestions, which means they are at least pretending to be open to new ideas which protect them and help the community. Though I agree with what you're saying about the trend in characters for sale, it doesn't answer the question: How will they know when there's been a violation, and how will we know if their allegation is true? What is the method they are going to use to determine this? At the moment, all we got is "They say so" and that is unacceptable IMO. I really want people to understand what is at stake here, and I want to know what is wrong with my suggestion and why Anton can't even bring himself to consider it as viable? They are fair questions and don't deserve slagging off with responses like "Don't stir the pot" and "You're annoying" Anton repeatedly sidesteps every single question and suggestion. -WTB

This issue is being handled offstage, as it should be. Closing this thread Lyrra (moderator)