I hate to admit that I was a proud member of the file-thieving community for many decades.  Starting way back in the early 70's with 'shared' copies of Fortran compilers(?), then getting onto the Microsoft bandwagon in the late eighties with Windows 2.0, I've used hacked copies all the way to Windows XP and boasted that I'd never paid for any piece of software.  I got into games at some point and became hooked on Half-Life.  About this time I went back to school part time and learned a lot, not the least of which was how our economy works.  I also came to realize that programmers and developers where just regular people who also had mortgages to pay and kids to put through university.  I bought the entire HL (then HL2) series and felt good about supporting them.  I'd been dabbling in Daz for a few years and jumped into it when the HL2 series petered out ("C'mon, Gabe, where the hell is episode 3?!").  Although I snooped around my old file-stealing sites, I bought the content I used.  I finally moved from Daz to Poser when it went on sale last year.  I've been making items for a couple of years now but refuse to release them as I don't want to feed the punks.

The file-stealing punks have a funny mind set.  They love to use vacuous phrases to justify their thievery and associate themselves with journalists being censored in oppressive regimes. When the RIAA/MPAA (or other group) sues a torrent site or gets a file-sharing site shut down, they scream bloody murder about freedom and democracy without understanding what either of these two words mean.  There is no such thing as a copyright monopoly.  Any person who creates anything original automatically holds a copyright on it (in Canada anyway).  Every silly shot you grab on your cellphone camera is copyrighted by you. How is this a monopoly?  There is simply no excuse for file-sharing since consumers already have a mechanism to fight perceived overpricing or gouging.  By simply not buying an item and letting the manufacturer know why your not plunking down your money, you can exert a powerful influence, particularly if consumers ban together and boycott something.  Poser and Daz stuff is the ultimate expression of freedom since you can make your own stuff.  The tools are all free and there must be a billion tutorials available.  All it takes is time and a bit of skull sweat.

I took a beginners marketing course a few years back (needed a break from anthropology) and the class examined file sharing as part of the problems facing retailers.  I had a unique viewpoint as a longtime pirate and discovered that the biggest reason folks pirate stuff is simply because they can.  It's there, free for the taking, so people do.  Whining about lack of money is no reason.  You can't walk into a store and take stuff just because you wouldn't otherwise have bought it.  Requiring payment for anything is a powerful force for getting people off their arses and getting an education so that they can get a decent job and contribute to the worlds economy and culture.  and again, you can always make your own.

I'm gratified that this thread has taken off with so many well presented arguments against file-sharing.  I started it in the other vendor's forums and it was either derided or ignored.  While there doesn't appear to be anything that can be done about it; after all, if the huge economic power of the RIAA and MPAA can't stop it, what hope do we have.  I feel that being a small, niche provider plays into our hands. All content creators and their supporters can make ourselves known in the torrent and stealing sites.  Be polite but pointed; let them know that they're only cutting their own throats by stealing stuff.  The artists aren't making big money and seeing the items that they put so much time and passion into making being traded freely is a slap in the face.  I would dearly love to sell some items but will not tolerate it being stolen.  I've gone so far as to buy a few items of vintage clothing (quite cheap on eBay) so that I can photograph the lace and embroidery for some vintage wedding gowns.  Therefore I don't think that it's too much to ask that people pay a few lousy bucks for my item.  I know of two others who have stopped selling because of piracy and I wonder if this is the reason so many burgeoning content creators sell one item then disappear.  It infuriates me that a hobby I've come to love is being kicked in the head by short sighted, immature, uneducated and selfish file-stealing punks.  I spend a few minutes every day in one of the sites persuading folks to buy stuff and trying to educate them.  I wish the heck the rest of the community would join in vice throwing up our collective arms and crying that there's nothing we can do.  Moriador, your cockroach analogy is excellent.  There will always be a few under the floorboards but I'm sure we can 'turn' many of them.  I'm a perfect example of a success story although like a reformed smoker, I've probably gone too far.