Just out of curiosity, what would be your response if someone created their own independent version of that model (or hell, made a better one) and undersold you or gave it away for free so it showed up in 20 documentaries and 2000 amateur videos? Would that not have the same effect? And how would you deal with that?

Keeping up with and knowing your market, you respond in a way that makes sense for your business. There's plenty of healthy, legal competition in our market. Sometimes we compete, and sometimes we cooperate. Some of us know each other very, very well. Its a small "serious" vendor community and its a lot friendlier than you might think.

A lot of vendors have similar ideas or work from the same concepts, but their expressions are all different. They often have different licensing (granting you different rights) and different prices to go along with them. Everyone has different after market strategies. Geometry, textures, setting up how various parts work in Poser / DS, compatibility, etc, are going to be different, even if we are all making a rocket powered toadstool.

Someone could spend their time making a model like a commercial model and giving it away for free. That could be their market approach. But that's their choice, their work, and their gamble. It would surprise me if any of the serious poser / ds vendors start working on a model they intended to license to others without doing some sort of search to see if someone else made something just like it. That influences us on what we do next. For example, I considered making some Lovecraft monsters many years ago, until I saw the great work Sixius1 does; we went ahead and did themed buildings instead.

Creating a model using the same base idea and competing in this market is completely different than taking my model and uploading it to upload.com or jumbling it in with 2GB of DAZ models via torrent distribution, or remapping it and trying to sell it on another site.

Best regards,

chikako
Meshbox Design | 3D Models You Want