Just an interesting point, will we see at some point a free store where old poser props and outfit's are kept that you cant buy anymore.
Or even if the people who made stuff for sale wont make anymore or who have passed away, as thier is so much stuff out thier, and remember around the world thier are 10s of thousands of people who can not afford better comp, or poser 5, 6 or 7.
I dont no about you but i think it will be a great pitty if we loose lots of poser stuff that can never be shared with future generation's, as i have old stuff you can not find anywhere and other people around world have same.
So what is peoples thought's and please i dont want people ranting on about piracy as we are talking about poser stuff, that has been made and you can never find the people who made it.
I was talkking 1 chap on internet whose father died and he had made some poser stuff, and the  son would have loved  to have shared with people.
His old man had said they could not be redistributed but on his death bed said i  dont want to let people loose my work.
Trouble is they had a fire so the son lost all his fathers stuff, so what im saying as renderosity and renderotica get money from people buying stuff, why dont they do a page where we the poser users can post pictures and names of props ect.
That you cant find the people who made them, then renderosity and renderotica and the poser users could try find out, and if you cant find the people, or if they not arond anymore put the stuff for download as abandonware.
I think it would be terrible to loose all the poser stuff that was made even for poser 2 and 3. and one advantage abandonware is if someone finds a relatives stuff on thier then they can contact to say what they hink about the stuff being avalible.

Now that PosetteV3 (my remapped version of Posette to V3 texture stadards), we'll se a renewed interest in the older P4 stuff.  Just a year ago, I could find dozens of things for Posette in freestuff.  Now, I can hardly find any.  More's the pity, because with each piece that disappears, we loose a slice of history.
DPH

Attached Link: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Abandonware

You wouldn't be able to post it as abandonware. Copyright lasts for 70 years after an artists death. If the readme states it can't be re-distributed then it can't. The items may have been passed down to the heirs of the estate and as such only they could post the items.

Check the link for a description on Abandonware

*Copyright lasts for 70 years after an artists death.

*Depends on the Country actually. the UK it is 50 years for example.

A group of friends and I where discussing a similar thing a few nights back on the 'distrubtion' of software you buy but don't want anymore. In this case passing on XP to a mate if you downgrade to Vista.

For example say you decide to sell your DVD player and a couple of movies.  As long as you obeys the laws as a seller, even for second hand things, and you ensure the buyer legal rights as a consumer are maintained thats all legal. 

But you can't do the same with software or poser content. Thats because it's not strictly yours, you only licence the use of it. One mate reckoned if you treat licensing is in effect paying for a service. Then whats to stop you selling on content that you don't use ?  

He raised the idea that any attempt to stop you could actually be an offence under consumer laws - perhaps under the banner of unfair terms and condtions. 

Quote - He raised the idea that any attempt to stop you could actually be an offence under consumer laws - perhaps under the banner of unfair terms and condtions.

Exactly, any clause of any license or readme that violates some law is considered illegal and so, it has no legal value.
Even more, depending on the clause and its content,  you can sue the responsable for the clause.

Thats a interesting point. 

I've always assumed that a licence is akin to a contract between the buyer and seller. 
One where you have to accept their terms regardless, even if some could be seen as unfair.

Then I wonder how if you could argue that licence agreements inside 'sealed' products are invalid to start with. After all you can't read the terms unless you open it or buy it, so how can tell if the terms are unfair or illicit. 

Then if these terms are ilicit are in your country - can you do  as you wish with the product and for example re-sell it ?  

Quote - I've always assumed that a licence is akin to a contract between the buyer and seller.

Yes it is a particular contract, but as any contract it must be subjected to the law. A contract doesn't make a law, it must obey the law!
A little exagerated example:
"The fabricant of the  gun model xxxx.xx grant you the license to use and kill people with this gun"
You buy the gun and kill your nasty neighbour with it, what happens?, you go to jail no matter if the gun's license allowed you. The license cannot make null a law!!!!
"This product cannot be used by black race people"
If some black race people use this product what happens?, nothing!!!, again, a license cannot deny rights given by the law and Constitution.
And in this case this clause violate the law and the fabricant, in extreme, can be jailed due racism!
"The fabricant of this product in not responsable if it doesn't work"
Another invalid clause, no matter what his license or readme says, it is responsable and you always have the right to give back the product and have your money if the product doesn't work.

Quote - One where you have to accept their terms regardless, even if some could be seen as unfair.

There are some clauses of contracts that are considered draconian by the law.
If a clause is draconian under the law, it has zero legal value and you can ignore it.
Depending on the laws and countries, contracts that have clauses written in tiny letters have no legal value.

Quote - Then I wonder how if you could argue that licence agreements inside 'sealed' products are invalid to start with. After all you can't read the terms unless you open it or buy it, so how can tell if the terms are unfair or illicit.

You can ignore in this case the license, it has no value.

Quote - Then if these terms are ilicit are in your country - can you do  as you wish with the product and for example re-sell it ?

If you can re-sell it or not will depend only on the laws that are existent in the country and not on what the license/readme tells.
Again the license/readme cannot make the law. If the law of the country grants you the right that anything that you purchased is your own property, then you can do anything what you want with it and anything against this in the license can be easily ignored.

Fabricants use to put a lot of ridiculous, illegal and draconian clauses in their licenses and it works!
It works because people are ignorant of the legal system and laws, people are ignorant of their rights, people believe in the urban legend version of the laws many times promoted by the media that of course, is payed by the same fabricants.
If some person is aware of the laws and their own rights and ignore the illegal clauses, the fabricant cannot do anything against, he will do nothing because he knows very well that his claim will never be accepted by the justice.
But as I said before, most of the people are ignorant, lawyers continue to send illegal letters full of threats without any legal value and ignorant people are frightened and obbey them, so it works!!!....

sounds like this thread might be a good candidate for the copyright forum. the part about a site that redistributes old poser content is interesting. even if it weren't illegal (I ain't a lawyer), who's gonna wanna run a server with 500 GB of old files for which they hafta pay hundreds per month in bandwidth costs, and they'll also be asked to provide hand-holding services for those trying to get the old files to work in new OS and new versions of poser.

*You can ignore in this case the license, it has no value. 
*Unlike zipfiles where you can easily extract and read the licence to see if it's fair and or legal could you argue that Poser products that use executables, where you have to install it to read the licence makes the licence invalid ?

*If you can re-sell it or not will depend only on the laws that are existent in the country and not on what the license/readme tells.
*Thats interesting as I know once I've totally paid for something in the UK, it's mine to do with as I wish.  

*Fabricants use to put a lot of ridiculous 
*If a clause is fair I'll abide by it. But I've seen texture resource kits aimed sqaurely aimed at vendors yet the readme says no commerical useage. So whats the point in buying it ? 

I must admit to putting totally silly rules into mine - like you can only use when there's an Z in Tuesday or your're a woman named Bob. 

*lawyers continue to send illegal letters full of threats 
*Thats very true. Most people don't realise that a letter from a lawyer has as much legal weight as a letter from my cat.

It doesn't help that there is no guidance for writing consistent license agreements with freebies. Open a half dozen Poser freebies and there can be a half dozen different terms that essentially say the same thing in very different ways. I remember a discussion once where one freebie creator thought that saying, "no commercial usage" meant "no selling the item" and didn't realize that it prevented using the item in a commercial image--a restriction that the owner hadn't intended. I'll make a post in the copyright forum and see if anybody, with more expertise than me, can help create some standard agreements to help a freebie owner decide what should be in their readme.

One of the things that I've found frustrating as I continue indexing my older content is finding bad zips of files that are no longer available. In some cases, those files are needed for other files. A lot of freebies used to rely on TwoSword's old freebie clothing as bases for their products and TwoSword closed his website. A Thorne mermaid used DaCort's old P4 mermaid as a starting point and I found that my copy of DaCort's mermaid was corrupted. I posted a query in his forum, asking permission to request others for a copy of that figure (no longer available on his site) and never received a response. These are characters that I'll never get a chance to see.

Old Poser content is disappearing and there's not much that can be done about it. The problem is only going to get worse as time goes on. How many people here still have the email/website address they had ten years ago? ISPs come and go. People's interests can change over time and Poser may have been a passing fad for them and they've completely dropped out of the Poser universe.

The main reason I find discussion like this of interest is to spur thought by new freebie providers about what they put in their readmes. Do they want to see their older freebies disappear into the mists of time? Or, do they want them to go on and still be used by new Poser artists?