Hi. My name is Fionn, and I am one of the parties in question here. First of all, I want you guys to know that I am a huge supporter of Renderosity (as my account would show) and I faithfully purchase all meshes that I have used. Now, the question remains...am I stealing these? God, I hope not. Am I violating copyright through unauthorized distribution? Here is what happens. About 50% of the meshes that I used in the past (give or take several original pieces) used work that was from various artists in the community. I use Rhino to do most of my stuff now, but there are several times, even of late, that I have used these meshes to help our community. I can't find better quality, and happily admit that many appreciate them on a different level. But, let me address a couple of issues that were brought up in this forum. #1 credit. Agreed. It has been an oversite on my part (though I was sure to credit the Studio Maya mesh that I used recently)and will be rectified. I assumed too much in the area of the usability of the given material, and will be sure to give the credit where it is due. While I have freely admitted my use of this website and the artist's files to everyone, however, I want to make sure that I have corrected this error. My readme. txt files include such credit, but let's be honest...no one reads those. #2) Backwards compatibility. The process with which I have to convert the meshes available here to products available for the use in the Sims makes it extremely difficult, nay impossible, to convert them back to use in Poser. I shouldn't say impossible...there are people out there with much greater skills than I that could do it, but why would they want to when the products are readily available here? To save a few bucks? The time taken would far outweigh the advantage of saving the pennies. And, if they are that good, they should be providing content here. There are three areas of concentration with which the files would be nearly impossible to reuse, and I want to outline those, if I may. A) Shaping. In order to use them, I have to enlarge and reshape the files. In many cases, I have to duplicate frontal faces, and of course, the .skn format, used by the Sims program, does not even support bump mapping, so the conversion process dumps that aspect of the object files entirely. I also have to attach them to default cranium files in Poser. B) Poly Reduction. Many of the lovely subtleties of meshes available here are entirely lost due to the tremendous polygon reduction that has to occur. In most cases, 90% of the original polygons are lost, leaving only the border and shape of the hairstyle. I use 3D Studio and a couple of prioprietary vert reducers to accomplish this. As a rule, these files must be reduced to something shy of 4000 vertices; converting to less than 1 mb. of file space, once the conversion is made to the Sim's format, .skn. What this means, of course, is that even if someone could take these meshes, change them to the appropriate size needed for Poser conversion, resize, then the product would be far inferior. Indeed, much of the effect that keeps these files looking like their Poser counterparts is illusory. C) UV Mapping. This is the area with which it would be impossible to do a backward conversion. In order to work in the Sims, I have to fit my meshes on a standard 128x128 bitmap, and as such, only 40% of that area is available for mapping with the hair. So, the UV mapping has to change. In many cases, I opt for conserving what I can of the mesh author's intended mapping, but I rarely can. So, most of the reconstruction occurs in this area. I hope I have helped with this issue some. It is not my intent to defraud or discourage this community in any way. I have learned lots of meshing techiniques from the experts here, and have in no way, I hope, defamed or stolen their great work. Also, I want to say this: if any artist feels that the work is a violation of the understood rules for purchase here at Renderosity (or at DAZ), or is an abuse of freely available policy (as in the case of Studio Maya), please e-mail me at barbarosx@comcast.net, and I will IMMEDIATELY take whatever steps are necessary to correct the problem. I want to quickly address Batty's comment...we are a PAY site because we believe in the purchase of materials that we have used, and that payment helps to compensate for that. Last year alone, I spent about $400 in the purchase of meshes (I know...I did my taxes) and gladly support the artists when those new and great meshes are made available with my funds. As to the furniture, that comment is a little misleading because while my meshes might be remotely usable in a backwards way, the furniture is really just sprite snapshots of the 3D file, and not convertible in any way, in any other format. In that case, no part of that file could ever be reproduced by anyone. I welcome all comments and questions at the posted e-mail address. Thanks for your time. Fionn