"If someone wants to sponsor a contest, there are proper ways to do so. Renderosity could be held legally liable for something we didn't even approve or know was going on" Not exactly true since all participants knew the contests were not endorsed by Renderosity but were instead endorsed by individuals it's the "endorsing" of a contest that holds one liable for it. An easier solution to this would have been to have those running the contests simply add a line to their contests stating "this contest is not endorsed by Renderosity or it's affiliates in any manner". Would have saved alot of headaches and irritations. Also hard to believe no one knew it was going on - it's been going on forever and was originally started in the Poser forum and the "Romance Long Ago" was not the first "contest/challenge" with prizes. It was a positive activity. If admins didn't know about it the mods and co-ords certainly did or should have. Besides AB already stated that they had complained about a previous contest requiring specific products in the image as being illegal. Not an entirely correct complaint unless it is illegal in tennessee as there are exceptions to that - DAZ proves that case by requiring the use of DAZ products to enter any of their contests. It is not illegal to run a contest that is intended to showcase or promote products. It has in fact been an aspect of advertising for eons and still is. You may have a "sweepstake" that requires a purchase where the winner is random (the exception being a drawing of purchased tickets) but that complaint in itself was not valid in this particular case. However, the point is that there were admisn that knew about it and that becomes the issue. Then Jenyk comes back and says that it all depends on which admins are on. No it doesn't, admins should be discussing these things and not making arbitrary decisions that they are not all aware of, period. Your TOS quote is not very adequate either - posting images to the gallery is not a misuse of the gallery unless those images violate the TOS in regards to content, there is nothing that states images have to be titled a specific way. If you are going to scream copyright violations as your excuse in this latest contest than perhaps you should scan the galleries themselves better first before making the HUGE mistake of singling out an individual or individuals - that can indeed lead to legal repercussions for 'rosity (not that 'rosity has ever card about that before). Images never ever should have been pulled for a naming issue - and that is exactly what it boils down to - creators should ALL have been given an opportunity to fix that since to their knowledge they weren't violating the TOS and now you are "marking" their records - how elementary school. I think the main issue is not the "unauthorised contests" because 'rosity can not control those, by that I mean that someone could post off site about a contest, the images could be in the gallery here and the links emailed to the sponsor. I mean anyone can offer a prize for anything they want to and they have been doing that in one form or another for years here. From images to product naming and "guess what this is" there have been contests here. After all that was the very point of opening the "challenges" forum right? If those images had been titled "challenge" would there have been a problem? 'rosity can not tell individuals that they can not give a gift/prize either - sorry but you don't control wallets or what we do with our own products. If the naming is the problem an individual could instead ask that a link to the entered image be emailed to them. There were a dozen viable ways that this could have been handled, that you all chose to take the most asinine/illogical choice is par for the course. Perhaps these contests were receiving more attention than those from "sponsors" and that is the real problem. I'm not even going to get into the recent "gallery overhaul" of moving images that a moderator feels are commercial - I see that at least one specific merchant here whose images are ALWAYS commercial and ALWAYS fall well within the outline posted for no-nos still has her images exactly where she put them and they are not now labeled as product showcase images. Just goes to show that it all depends on the whims of those here, not that it is anything new - Jack has it right on the head here. It happens every year, and it never does get resolved fully. I never take part in the contests, but I do shop here quite a bit - think I'll just continue to offer DAZ GC's or private payment to artists here instead. I don't think I'll be shopping here or adding my products, several of which were ready to go until I read that "exclusivity" cut that shgowed 'rosity isn't even being subtle about preferential treatment anymore (I wasn't even going exclusive, that just sat badly with me). By making a private payment merchants aren't being harmed they may refuse that option, but at least they will have the option, there's nothing here I can't do without. I may be only 1 person, but it's still my right to do so. As hisminky stated you can all do what you want - but as individuals we don't have to support it. Yes other's will come, but there is no longer any assurance that 'rosity will remain the biggest fish in the sea, they won't disappear that's for sure, but more and more product producers of real quality products are going elsewhere and expanding their market(a smart move for name recognition anyhow). But if you want to buy a dozen packages of flood filled textures or poses with intersecting body parts, you will always be able to get them here, as long as the zip opens correctly ;-)

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I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-Galileo