unfortunately for artists of all media types, there really is no way to prevent file sharing/file theft, unless the internet is shut down completely. its a grim fact that everybody who creates anything that can be put into a digital file has to accept. laws need to be created that prosecute individuals who participate in file theft to the same degree that laws prosecute someone who walks into your home or a store and steals something off the shelves. Its the same thing, so the penalties for it should be the same. but even then, file sharing won't stop. for every file sharing network that gets shut down, ten more spring up. and even if all the file share programs were banned/shut down, etc, as long as there are people on the internet, there will be people sharing files, either by websites, personal servers, etc. it sucks, but its a part of life that we have to accept. eventually, if enough people get together to get laws passed then maybe it wont cause as much damage, but until then, 8-( svdl does have a point though, with the first part of his post: sharing bogus files. music companies do it all the time. its pretty much the only method they have at the moment to prevent theft of songs. they put 10 second snippets of songs in a loop file that is roughly the same size as the actual song, and release it on the p2p networks. that way, over time the loop file gets spread, making it harder and harder for searches to produce a full length copy of the actual song. I don't see anything wrong with a similar method being used for things like textures and other items of poser content. Create an image, similar to the one posted above, or with a caption stating something about theft being wrong, and put it in a zip file with the same name as the real file that's being stolen. Then when some a-hole downloads the file, instead of getting the real file he gets a guilt trip. hehe. Spreading viruses over p2p networks is bad though, and could get you in a lot more trouble a lot faster. make sure the bogus file is clean. E.D.

Message edited on: 10/03/2004 00:59