Attached Link: Herman Miller Combats Knockoffs in Second Life with Freebies

It's an interesting idea to offer free visualization models for companies that like to lay out their office designs in CAD programs. If they show off the new office layout, with specific CAD models, the customers will probably want them to buy those specific designs.

The heart of the issue here is the question of who owns intellectual property. It sounds as if Herman Miller sees a future in involvement with virtual worlds. Second Life, and other virtual worlds, continue to grow and have demonstrated a staying power. Some individuals can earn upwards to a six figure income at SL. That's not enough to make a signficant contribution to a large furniture company's profits, but it doesn't hurt to look towards the future. It's usually a good idea to be one of the first companies to exploit an emerging technology. 

The design world lives by the appeal of the aesthetics they create. When others take those designs and profit by them, they are taking money away from the designer. Poser content creators wouldn't be happy to see their designs being used in another virtual world even if the person, using their design, built an entirely new mesh from SL primitives.

Herman Miller isn't being unreasonable. They're offering free copies of their official chairs to people who have bought knockoffs and are politley asking the knockoff creators to knock it off.

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