Cliff, I used to defend them. Not any more. One event, or even a couple of events I can excuse, thinking that they are good-hearted and hard-working, if a bit prone to blundering at the keyboard. But this has been a series of events over the years with an increasing frequency (much like an imminent volcano) showing a certain oblivious mindset. It is better to watch a train wreck from somewhere to the side, but one can't avoid feeling emotionally involved when you know the people on the train. I don't know where the greed comes from (perhaps insecurity at maintaining a viable company), but they have ripped off too many artists I care about, and this whole hypocritic thing about copyrights shows a really ugly side to them. All the comparisons to Microsoft are apt. Microsoft smothered the game developing community back when they were launching Win95. The GDC had to put up banners saying that Microsoft hadn't bought them: it was THAT bad, and the minions were THAT pervasive. Microsoft made it so that you had to have their operating system to work or play, and their own software took advantange of internal hooks. DAZ is doing the same thing with content and DAZ|Studio. They want to own the entire hobbyist niche (load and render - snort!) and don't care who they trample or how many rights they violate in order to shove everybody else out of the market. Pure unadulterated greed. And as lacking in forethought as bacteria in a petri dish. Carolly