DAZ only recently let V3 and M3 go for free... It is a competitive marketing ploy to ensure that any other figure developer enters the market at a severe disadvantage It is a marketing ploy, but it's more to entice new users into buying all the extras than any serious attempt to stifle competition. Anybody bringing a new figure into the marketplace was at a severe disadvantage long before V3 and M3 were put out for free. Add up all the content for all the non-DAZ female figures on the market and it's a tiny fraction compared to what's available for just V3, let alone V2/V1, S3, The Girl, and Aiko. It's hard for DAZ to get somebody to buy textures, clothes, and other products for their figures if that person doesn't own the figure. Giving away M3 and V3 is a way to let new users get used to those figures with the expectation that a lot of those users will be buying the morph packs, textures, clothing, and so on. Like any company, DAZ won't be shedding any tears if this makes it more difficult for competition. It's not as if there has been any significant competition from any other figures prior to DAZ's main figures being offered for free. That's not to say that there haven't been very good figures from sources other than DAZ--those other figures simply haven't been embraced by the Poser community to the same degree as DAZ's figures. No bias is intended for DAZ products--there is simply far more community and market support for Victoria than any other figure by a wide margin. If DAZ is concerned about anything related to their figures, it's more how to increase the size of the marketplace than competition for their human figures. The primary Poser competition DAZ faces is not in their human figures, but in the complementary products sold for those figures. There are more outfits and textures sold in non-DAZ markets for V3 and M3 than there is at DAZ. Poser users, as a whole, are spending more money in non-DAZ markets supporting DAZ products than they are for non-DAZ figures. Probably the main reason why DAZ won't likely license their figures to be included in new versions of Poser is that doing so gives new users less reason to visit DAZ. Right now, any new Poser user will eventually find their way to DAZ to get V3 and M3. Include it with Poser and the average new user may not even realize who created the figures. It's a psychological thing that unconsciously makes a difference in how a new customer views DAZ. In the current situation, DAZ is perceived as being the makers of the most successfully marketed Poser figures. That means something more than just being one more Poser marketplace supporting figures included with Poser. Perceptions like that matter.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon