Everybody knows that a "copy" of art is no longer YOUR art. You cannot just claim something is your own when it isn't. That is the crux of the issue - not whether these Poser renders are art or not, but rather that Poser renders are essentially institutionalized plagiarism. Like collage.

Who cares if you "posed" it - if it's not your creation, the pose is original, but the image is largely made of plagiarism - plagiarized mesh, plagiarized rigging, plagiarized materials, etc.

I would agree with that but then I am not an artist just an hobbiest playing with 3D.  The only problem I have is that over the years people have seen art in a pile of bricks, a tent with names scrawled on and an un-made bed.  I could of course go on, but none of these so called artists made the bed (quite literally) the tent or the bricks.  I suppose it doesn't help that I am not educated to a high enough level to see this as art but I suppose it does show that no-one will ever agree on what is art. 

Moving back to the thread, it really is a loaded question in that I do not see what I am doing is art and therefore how can I possibly see using Poser as cheating.  I have a vivid imagination (or I am totally mad is another viewpoint) but never had the skills to draw or paint to any degree that pleased me.  Thanks to Poser I can give my imagination a tool to bring my thoughts to others, the others being family and friends.

For the last few years I have had calenders printed with the renders I have done over the year that I like the most and give them away to those close to me.  Do they think it is art, I'm am not sure but most are amazed that a computer can produce these images.  Do they know I use other's people's work, not really as Poser is a mystery to them, of course my wife does as she sees some of what I spend at Renderosity and SM.  Strangely she still likes most of what I do but she knows I am no artist.

 

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.