Fat David is probably well into the realm of parody and would probably have no issues in a commercial application. Which brings up an even murkier subject with copyright Fair Use.

There's no copyright on Michelangelo's David, as the statue is over 500 years old. Copyrights do expire eventually. 130 years I think from the death of the creator. Something like that. You can find replicas of it all over the place. I have one in alabaster that's about 6 inches tall I got 20+ years ago.

Its weird, because it says in the description, for the fair use:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Because from what I could figure out, there is a commercial copyright or something on the statue of David, as companies have apparently used it to promote themselves without getting permission. However the Fat david above is clearly a commercial product, so either they have a license to make it or the copyright does not cover it.

But to take a photo of the statue and then claim copyright over the image and place the image in the public domain for anyone to use is likely see you in court with the actual copyright holders of the statue.

I doubt that, again looking at Ebay, there are lots of postcard being sold of him, some looks like they were made with a very poor camera. Check this one:

Look how low the color quality is, noise etc. yet its being sold for 2.5 pounds. I doubt a professional photographer would sell an image of such low quality. But i would guess that the person in theory have copyright to that image.

Im not saying that you are not right, merely that it seems that either people and companies like Ebay is breaking the rules, by allowing copyrighted material to be sold. Or the rules for what is allowed and ain't is nearly impossible to figure out.

Look at this, I doubt they got a license for this: (I added the black box, but its all there looking at you)

Cost 13.5$ From what I can see its just someone that think it funny that have made it. Its categorized as unbranded.

And if you were to give the V4 model - or any other human model - to 10 different rigging artists then you would get 10 different rigs. While the shapes may be similar from one human model to the next they are not exact, and the joint parameters would rarely match exactly

Yeah your right, but the question is still if a rig can be copyrighted, I really don't know. Because is it the dimensions of the bones? the amount they can bend, twist etc. which in theory have no limits. So what exactly is copyrighted? Not saying that you are wrong, but I would assume that to even get something copyrighted in the first place, you would need to be at least somewhat specific in regards to what exactly you want the copyright to cover. And I just find it very hard to believe that Daz or whatever company can say that they want a copyright for a specific rig. Because what you are saying is, that no one in the world in theory can make a rig like V4 or any of the other genesis character. Again im talking in theory, if what you say is the case.

Now what would happen, if I created a high res mesh, an exact copy of V4 just more polygons and sold the mesh as a highres version of V4, BUT to use it people would have to own V4 and copy the bones, morphs etc. from her to my model, before they could use it. Because reading their Eula:

Three Dimensional Works. DAZ wishes to encourage the expansion of the catalog of Content available to its users. Accordingly, User may access, use, copy, and modify the Content to create one or more derived or additional three-dimensional works provided that:

any such derived or additional three-dimensional works are designed to require or encourage the use of Content available through the online DAZ store either by (i) requiring the use of such Content to function, or (ii) allowing only limited function when not used in conjunction with Content from the online DAZ store; and
upon receipt of a written request from DAZ, User will immediately cease any and all distribution of the derived or additional three-dimensional works User has created from the Content, if DAZ has determined, in its sole discretion, that (i) such additional or derived work is substantially similar to or is a clone of existing Content; or (ii) such additional or derived work fails to require or encourage the use of Content available through the online DAZ store as described above.

The first part seems to fall into that category, my model would require people to buy V4 from Daz, however looking at point 2 it would clearly be a clone of existing content. Now I doubt that Daz would allow me to sell such product on their page, but nothing would prevent me from selling it on Renderosity would it?

Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL

Subject: Why are you still using V4?