heyas; i cant remember if nerd's backdrop came out before or after i did my 'product shot' background morphs with the ground plane. to tell the truth, i really never paid that much attention to nerd's backdrop prop (or the world builder thingies), since i dont need it; i usually render in vue, if i want a scene. i never used photos textures on mine... i never thought about it, really. all i wanted was that vertical-wall-curving-down-into-the-horizontal-floor deal for backgrounds to take shadows and stuff. but i noticed those free backdrop photo/texture things, showing nerd's prop, and i was kinda surprised that's all it was. not that it isn't a good idea; it's very cool. it seems to me that modelling it ain't the trick, its getting the ground/landscape photos to work correctly with it. so a well-wrought curve (that cathes light/shadows properly) with custom-fitted photos/textures is a decent product. but now back to this... it's kind of a grey area. i think the question you should ask is, do you want to release it for free? and if so, why? you say you'd feel bad if you'd hurt nerd's sales. then don't release it. then you won't feel bad. you can use it for your own stuff, of course. :) if you would feel worse for not giving the community this free goodie, then go ahead and give it out. that's basically what it comes down to.