Morkonan,  We've obviously taken some of the same marketing and business courses.

And falling into the same old trap that a lot of people are when it comes to understanding what a modern digital economy means, that thinking of it in "traditional" terms is going to screw you up.
There have been assorted people looking at how you can make money in this type of environment, and the first thing that it requires is to stop thinking of digital content as being the same thing as physical products and that the business models of the latter are appropriate for the former.

For example, just off the top of my head, quite a few creators could easily adopt the Kickstarter business model. If X dollars is raised (and you can determine whatever X is however you want), then the software, or 3D model, or whatever is released. However many computers it ends up on, it doesn't matter. You got paid in advance. And, in fact, the more the file is shared and the more people who use it, the better for your business model because that means there will be greater demand for your next product.

In essence, what you're selling isn't the product, it's your reputation, that it's coming from you. And the better your reputation, the more you could ask for in advance. All those file sharing and torrent sites? They aren't your enemy, or "stealing" from you any more, they're your marketing team.

I know some artists who have had their digital work taken from subscription sites and it shows up on assorted free sites and torrents, but the way they look at it, sure, they might lose some money on subscriptions, but they make good coin on commissions. The piracy creates a demand for their work which they then exploit in a different manner.

This obviously won't work for everyone, but I could see it working for content creators with good reputations.

Unfortunately, that is not a business model. That is a "hope and pray" model. There is no fundamental paradigm shift in economics introduced by "teh internetz" when it comes down to analyzing a standard "value" for "work performed."

A producer works xx hours creating a product. Let us consider that, for the moment, we are examining the current business model that is actually in use by Poser Content manufacturers, not an ambiguous model that is not currently in use by Poser Content producers, which is what you exampled.

The content producer works xx hours and uses an online marketplace to distribute their products. This model is no different than producing a widget and giving it to a distributor who distributes it on a commission basis to buyers.

However, the internet and the nature of the widget makes it such that the widget can be multiplied, many times, without the intervention or consent of the manufacturer or the distributor and, as a result, the widget can be freely distributed amongst recipients without any money changing hands. In short, the product can be purchased, only once, and then freely distributed without ever having being purchased again. The producer receives no remuneration for the copying and distribution of their work performed.

In the standard economic model, a Poser/DS Content producer is choosing the most lucrative and most profitable sort of business model available in any market. That simple model is "work once, get paid multiple times." That model is used by the most lucrative professions in a capitalist economy, namely investment strategists, stock brokers and patent-holders. For one button-press, one innovative invention, the worker gets paid for multiple transactions for the same amount of their work, which was performed only once. (ie: The value of the work done is multiplied, repeatedly, without any additional labor being performed. So, a Poser Content producer, due to the nature of the product, works once and gets paid multiple times for that work. In theory... )

However, where that basic model, which has not changed in this market, gets disrupted is alarming. What happens is that the table is turned and the producer is not getting paid multiple times for the same work, but the product is getting devalued multiple times, so much so that the consumer is the one who is receiving the benefit as the product gets constantly devalued through the "copying and redistribution (illegal)" of it, many times. The producer is now working once, but benefiting multiple consumers, many of whom may not have paid the producer.

What happens, then? The single instance of work performed or value produced is inverted and that means that for every bit of labor exerted, it returns only a very small amount of value, enough for initial and incidental sales of the product produced followed by a slew of missed opportunities due to illegal distribution.

The result is that the artist may have to choose to produce many more products in order to obtain a "living wage" (or some other arbitrarily derived income amount) and their "work" no longer has any truly definable value based on either its quality or the amount of effort involved. In short - All value of the work performed is left out of the control of either the producer or the distributor and is, in short, left up to the whims of the marketplace - "Value", from the perspective of the producer, becomes a slave to the Random Number Generator.

Or, the artist may try to choose to increase the initial price of the work performed, raising their prices in hopes of recouping lost monies by expanding the profit margin of the product. Which is, in this market, not a very good choice, since pricing for products is fairly standard and higher prices also act to encourage illegal redistribution.

One can not operate with any predictable results in such a system where Piracy is a significant factor. The only way that one can achieve some sort of predefined, imagined, returns on labor performed is to rely factors that are outside of their control. The strategy to build on, in this instance, is simple mass production and hoping that random sales of many products will, somehow, net a desired income. A slight increase in profit margin would also be a likely possibility, in hopes of recouping the cost of labor within fewer sales. But, only a slight increase would be absorbed by even paying customers without resulting in increased losses due to increased desirability of piracy.

You can not have a predictable economic model for small producers in this sort of environment if you must include upon and rely upon product theft in order to somehow,  with some stretch of some sort of imagination, "market" a product or a producer.

All your example does is encourage the future piracy of a desired producer's products, which nets little to nothing for the producer. This is not some new, amazing, Kickstarter dynamic nor is it some neat and innovative justification for piracy and theft. There is no new dynamic here which can come to the economic aid of Poser/DS content producers, considering the model that they, many as individuals trying to make a living or gain a little needed income, must use in order to gain value for their labor. The current market, as it is in use now, today, is not one that is robust enough to weather such losses and content producers often do not have the resources to continue to expend effort for continued reduction in returns due to piracy/theft.

You can see that effect in action, directly, considering, for instance, Aery Soul's products. At one time, these wonderful artists produced some of the most outstanding and desirable products in this marketplace. Then, in the heyday of places like the first Pirate Bay and during the first torrent-frenzy of piracy, AS's products were raped, repeatedly, by pirates and consumers who had no interest in remunerating AS for their work. The result? AS left the marketplace and did not produce new products, no matter the quality of their work nor the desirability of their products. (They have returned, somewhat, marketing on another site, but only after a very long hiatus.) (Note: This is just an assumption, on my part, and relies on my memory of this particular period, which may not take into account unpublicized facts. But, I think it's a good assumption, nonetheless.)

Note that "Contract Work", encouraged by illegal distribution of products, is just so far outside of any predictable mechanic that it's just not something that can even be rationally introduced into such a discussion. It basically shifts the profession being discussed from one thing to something entirely different. And, the consumer base is not willing to pay fifty to a hundred dollars an hour for a conforming outfit for V4. A few consumers might, but that is a tiny market and completely unpredictable, certainly nothing that most current content producers could rely upon to pay their light bill or to feed their children with.

I respect and accept your opinion and input, but it's just not applicable nor, more importantly, is it anything that is predictable. One may as well suggest that unicorns will solve the problem, so it's okay for those who steal content to continue doing what they're doing and they should feel good about it, for some reason...