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.

So, to summarize, the business model depends on the basic theory "God, I hope no one does anything different from we do or we're screwed"?