Well, I tried to resist the urge, but maybe it's because today I'm wearing my tight shoes. . .

Nope. not possible to copyright a dial setting. That technically would require a process patent in order to actually derive some sort of government sponsored rights protection.

Meaning that copyright is not the only means of rights protection available to someone in order to derive benefit-or at least fair credit-for their work, effort, innovation, and generosity.

There are also thingies like license agreements, which say in basic terms that "I made this, and I expect you to respect my efforts in doing it. In return for said respect or other fair compensation, you may -blah blah blah -but you may not -yak yak yak-."

Perfectly legal and complete. Totally restrictive. Doesn't matter who "owns" the dials, the license agreement says "I figured this out-please use it according to the rules".

Now many of you may know that I frequently "give away" node settings and stupid shader tricks in the open forums. I also have penned a couple of tutorials on them and given those away for free. No strings. Just that kind of guy. But that in no way means that someone else can't restrict the fruits of their labors-even if they offer it for free.

Nothing keeps anyone from "tweaking" the dial settings that come as a freebie, in a merchant package, or in a tutorial, save for their own moral sense, and the respect for the work of the other artist.

You can argue the semantics until doomsday. You all know the difference between right and wrong, and you know when you are ripping someone else off.

I mean, the gentleman who started this could have just kept his mouth shut, and probably no one would have been the wiser. The fact that there was a perception that something about the idea seemed wrong should be enough to tell you it's a bad idea.

I make no judgement, and will not debate the points of "selfish" or "greedy". I will only say that all the online communities used to be flush with superb freebies of all kinds, and now it seems that much of what remains is subpar, or not of any great use. Selfishness of this sort seems to be widespread.

Let him with no pitchfork cast the first stone.

This is my personal opinion and reflects no sane thoughts known to humanity.-R