Storm wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> I can't help comparing and contrasting the wonderful reception all of this is getting here (not to mention the huge amount of free sales publicity for Zygote) with some of the critical threads on fellow Artists from this community selling their stuff in the Renderosity Online Store. <<<<<<<<<<< You illustrate the difference very nicely in your statement. Zygote sells its stuff in its own shop. Everyone knows that Zygote is a commercial outfit. They started that way, and continue that way. The Renderosity Online Store has set up shop in what was otherwise a user community, and has essentially turned that community into a promotion for the shop. I really don't think many people object to Poser users selling their creations. I think you'll find that the root cause of the strife is that they are selling them smack in the middle of this user community! I don't remember seeing this level of controversy when artists started selling stuff away from this place. Members of this community can take or leave Zygote's stuff as they see fit. Many of them obviously don't even know who Zygote are! What you refer to wrongly as 'free sales promotion' is in reality 'word of mouth'. People here can slag off Zygote's stuff as much as they can praise it. It's the best and most honest type of 'promotion' a company can hope to get. There is a fundamental difference in the way the Renderosity Online Store is set up, because it is automatically 'advertised' due to being placed in the middle of a useful and popular community. But the community is made useful and popular by everybody who contributes to it for free, not by dint of having a shop in it. This means that every member of this community ends up promoting the store (for free) every time they post a tip or put something in the freestuff. Yet the profits of the store are divided between only the artists and the storeowners. It doesn't surprise me at all that some people see a clash of interests. But, maybe it's a good thing that people who come here thinking they are part of a user community begin to realise that they are in fact visiting what has now become a business website...