Poser 11 Pro, 11.3.818

"You must have an active internet connection to renew your lease"

What lease ? I bought Poser 11, didn't I ?

After I connected my internet cable and started Poser again I had no problem.

But I'd like to know what this lease thing is all about.

This is software legalese. If you look at your Microsoft, Apple ... any software licensing agreement. When you purchase a license for software you are not purchasing the software (any software) outright. You are purchasing a license to USE the software ... to lease it. The software remains in the ownership of the manufacturer or whomever they've sold it to. Basically you are renting your software.

Check out the thread on "licensing issues" in the Poser OFFICIAL forum for details on getting this notice, or contact sales department ... depending on the version of Poser you have.

It's not really legalese at all, Bondware outright changed the wording to lease from license when they updated Poser to call their servers for authorisation. A lease implies a specific time of rental of something. If you look at your licensing agreements when you install something, they say you own a license to use said software, not a lease. You would only have a lease on a subscription model, because then you are renting it for the period of payment.

In fact, look at the screenshot for Poser 11.3 installation and see how it says license and not lease. In reading through the entire EULA the word lease is used once, in the Program License paragraph where it says 'you will not relicense, sublicense, rent, lease, or lend the Program for third-party training, commercial time-sharing or service bureau use'. Also, nowhere is it mentioned in the EULA that internet connectivity is required after initial installation at times in order for the program to re-verify itself, you would only find that out later. But there we go.

Boni: I understand all that - I was a software monkey for many years. :)

But that reply missed the point.

However, Raven hit the mail on the head.

Raven: Of course, that's what bothered me - to me "lease" implies a subscription model. So maybe some over-eager software bunny jumped the gun with the wording ? ;)

Rendo is entitled to run their business however they wish, totally agree with that, and I get that software piracy is a real issue. But I'm wondering if this lease business is really that smart of a strategy.

At full retail with no discounts or sales etc, Poser costs $200. But for most folks, that's not the real cost of the program. Most people will want to buy content for their Poser figures, and that expense can easily exceed the software purchase price. Point being, best I can tell, Rendo stands to make much more money from selling Poser content than Poser software.

As a new user who generally loves Poser software (with one big exception), and would like to buy content for it, here are the inconvenient questions I'm facing.

1. Why should buy content when I'm not actually going to own it? Whoever runs the license checking server, whether it be Rendo or some future owner, could turn off my access to Poser and my Poser content at any time.

2. Why should I buy content when the content install system of Poser seems almost intentionally designed to discourage new users from buying content?

3. Why should I invest further in Poser when even the most experienced users seem not to grasp that the FUBAR content install system is more of a threat to them than it is to new users? Because of the license checking system, long time users could lose access to their extensive Poser content libraries if Rendo, or some future owner, can't make money selling Poser content to a growing universe of Poser users.

Summary: It seems the leasing system protects the software while putting the content selling side of the business at risk.

Solution? My guess is that Rendo should make a clear minded choice. Either go to the subscription model like so many other 3D services, or allow users to actually fully really own Poser and their Poser content. Trying to keep a toe in both worlds seems a recipe for sales killing controversy to me.

With that activation system the Poser Owners not only have control over The Programm but they also have control over any bought assets for poser no matter where they have been purchased. would it be an asset offer exclusive from rendo then it might be understandable having such a activation system , but they also controll any assets bought from Daz that were made for Poser or any other external store.

At first all where shouting how great it is that Bondware took over, Pretending that SM Failed, but my experience as a exclusive Poser creator tells something else. Since Bondware took over the sales had a drop back of almost 80% slowly going to zero! While comparing to the time SM owned Poser there was a steady Increase until August 2019. Since that date , the Date Bondware officially had Poser and the servers changed, Permanent licences got removed by Bondware there was already a Fall back of 50%.

So I really have to wonder if SM really was failing as Pretended by users. Most of My customers and for sure not few considering that there were over 500 jumped since beginning of 2020 to Daz Studio. And most claim the reason to be due that activation system ( Fearing to loose there Investments ) and that there Pissed about the loss of there Permanent licences of Poser 11 ! So all this was not a Fight against Piracy it was a fight against Honest Costumers ! And A big loss to, as these will not come back that fast after jumping Ship.

bondware did not remove any permanent licenses, Smith Micro did that when they closed their license servers.

Either way actually does not matter who did it the Result are dramatic for sure. The Server change might of caused a conflict as for SM could not of killed the Permanent licences as the Server was Locked when testing so it was an other server who send the deactivation to registered Licences.

The main issues are the loss of Hundred loyal Customers, It already happen once when Daz took down RDNA and this was the second heavy Hit. I really hope that the Marketing strategy of Poser 12 will not be the one used on Poser 11 as Bondware will have to come up with something really good to get Creators and Customers back using Poser.

Not saying that I would stopp making Poser content even if it is a hard task, as to say when the day comes that there are not even any Interest left for Poser Freebies then for sure there is something going terribly wrong with the marketing structure.

Meaning that not only sales Dropped back big time even the interests of Poser Freebies are almost down to zero ( Most do not even want them as a gift ) At the end it is not up on the customers to keep it running but it is based on the Creators, if they do not like the Marketing they will not create, and if there are no creators there will not be any customers. So Bondware will have to find a good solution for the Creators convincing them that there Investment of Money and time will be rewarded. Also offering a solution to them using some older essential Plugins (PY) for the creations or at least good replacements . So an Update with a store in the Poser library will not do any good if the store is staying empty not offering new great Poser assets :)

Azath posted at 1:35AM Sat, 03 October 2020 - #4400855

Either way actually does not matter who did it the Result are dramatic for sure. The Server change might of caused a conflict as for SM could not of killed the Permanent licences as the Server was Locked when testing so it was an other server who send the deactivation to registered Licences. to registered Licences.

actually it does matter as this kind of erroneous misinformation only serves to hurt poser and the community even more.

The "permanent license" was never really permanent, ask anyone who had to reinstall their OS, or change a hard drive - it was only permanent as long as it remained in the same place and on the same OS as it was when it was registered.

Bondware issue an extended license which lasts up to a year before you need to renew it. You have to contact them for it.

This however is not an issue to discuss in this topic as this is for people who need assistance getting their license working.