This thread has been a good read for me and I am plesantly surprise to find that I am not alone after all.   Ever since I started using computers I have purchased all of my software and today every program I have was purchased or free because the creator deemed that it should be.  Worrying part of this though is I was beginning to think I was unique as pirating appears to have become the norm.  Some people have become upset with me in the past because I would not give them a copy of a program or a CD/DVD.

As for pirates trying to justify their actions on the high cost of software, well I still cannot believe what Poser Pro 2012 can do considering the program cost me around £90 in the UK thanks to an early adopter special price.  I have purchased every update since Poser 6 and went to 8 and then Pro 2010 for the 64 bit processing.  I do not regreat any one of the purchases as I felt they were great value for money considering the complexity, let alone the fun I have had over the years.  The cost of the items here at Rendo are also unbelieveable considering I am paying $10 - $20 for most for something that I could not create myself even if I had the many hours it would take to create.

I know many of the pirates would not have paid for a product so no revenue is lost but this is not the point.  My dis-like of pirates (I make no assumption of such for the OP of this thread) is not the money they save but the fact that it deters some very skilled people from creating anything.  That is a loss to the whole 3D community.  I admire the vendors that stuggle on and always support the work that I like with hard earned cash.  

 

 

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.