Quote - One other thing; the important consequence of this ruling isn't that certain models aren't protected; it is that original 3D models are indeed protected by copyright, which is why this is such an important case.

This is confusing; ok, i understand that original models are copyright protected. Non-original models may be copyright protected if they are derived works. The model from what they were derived from, however, may or may not be copyrighted. But is it not the case that a large number of marketplace items are similar to the toyota car? Meaning, if e.g. Jil Sander took a lightwave course today, tomorrow a lot of merchants here would be surprised who the copyright owner of their model is?

A couple of days ago, a marketplace item had this ominous description in it:

Quote - The names were modified to protect the original work from any copyright issues.

does this mean, that changing a name could prevent one from being sued, or is it just to prevent the vendor from being found by potential copyright holders through search engines? My guess would be, changing the name alone would probably not make an original work, so it made me wondering (was a set of movie poses, btw).