Quote - Lol.
In the professional world it's all about originality.
YOU DON'T USE SOMEONE ELSE'S STUFF, PERIOD.
Especialy not if it comes with a license plastered all over.

Well, that very well may be true.. but then again I wouldn't know.   I'm not a professional artist, nor is it likely that I ever will be.  My application is far different than that, as are a lot of other peoples application.  Not everyone that uses a 3d rendering program does so with the intention of selling their finished render as a standalone work.

Quote -
Seems too few people here are able to understand what I'm talking about, so let's try it this way:
The HotRod movement started in the 30's and came to a high in the 50's because of what ?
The Ford Flathead V8 and the Chevy smallblock V8 engine.
Two simple. powerfull engines everyone and his brother could modify and tinker with with a few simple hand tools.
It was completely DIY, it was a grassroots movement, it was for the common man and many talented people turned cars into rolling pieces of art.
A few people became professionals and sold speed equipment and opened shops, but they still were part of the community.

Actually I understand what your getting at, but I hope you'll forgive me when I point out that perhaps you might have missed a point or two yourself in this discussion.  Take your example of the hot rodders of old, who began working on their own engines and souping up their cars.  That's all well and good for them, but what happens if you want a fast car but you're one of the people who doesn't know how to work on engines?  You were either stuck driving your mom's station wagon or paying a boatload of money to have someone who could work on engines do the work for you, there was no in between.  

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Nowadays ? Look under a modern car's hood and you can't even spot the engine because it's buried under a ton of gadget and gizmos and stuff that breaks for you and shifts for you and thinks for you and all the crap people are told they can't live without anymore.
Cars became fat and sluggish, and then they needed MORE power just to move as fast as the older cars could.

The automated systems on modern cars do a lot of things the old hobbiests could even dream of, and it wasn't that people were told they "couldn't live without it" or that it's a bad thing that it exists.  Take my daughters neon for example, it's a lightweight car with a small 2.0 litre engine in it but it's still a blast to drive.  It's got plenty of pickup and handles like a dream.  Back in the hotrodding glory days you couldn't get that kind of power and performance unless you had a fairly good sized engine that was properly built and tuned.

And having done a fair amount of hotrodding myself, believe me once you take that hotrod down the track a few times guess what?  Your going to be tuning the engine some more.  Not so with the little 4 cylinder power plant in my daughters neon.  Computers sense the amount of oxygen in the exhaust gases and automatically adjust the fuel flow to the engine real time to decrease wasted fuel.  Computers also monitor various other aspects of the engine and constantly adjust things like airflow and fuel intake so that the car is runnning efficiently at all tempratures and speeds.

The old 72 ford pinto I used to run 1/4 sprint track in was an awesome machine and a sight to behold, but it didn't have any of those kind of features.  Tuning the engine required a mechanic, and the engine had to be constantly monitored and maintained because it was built for performance, not drivability.  It's entire design concept was different, it was designed for maximum horespower and speed in a short sprint.  We even had to take the engine entirely out of the car to change the oil filter, which is what happens when you shoehorn a V8 into a car that was originally designed for a V4.  But our design concept was simple.. light weight and massive horsepower equals speed.

It wasn't designed to be easy to use for the novice driver.  But hey, if nobody had ever built a car that was designed to be easily maintained and built for long trips the only people who would be driving today would be mechanics and their families.  The rest of us would all be taking the bus.

So really what your comparing here is apples and oranges.  Granted, you won't see many professional artists using Daz Studio - but then again not everyone is a professional artist.  You won't see too many people driving dodge neons at the Indy either, but then again not everyone is a professional race car driver.

So while my daughters Dodge neon certainly won't be winning at Indy next year, it's still nice for her to have to get back and forth to work in.

Just my 2 cents worth.