"It comes down to this. I'm not going to get mad if Visualkinetics posts his version, but some people will. Mostly because it sets a bad precedent and may infringe on intellectual property rights. The idea is legally protected by copyright law. It doesn't require a patent. I can't endorse this because of the ramifications to the rest of the vendors and the community as a whole. Like it or not capitalism won over communism. If we don't make money to pay the server bills, this place goes away."

While I certainly see what your trying to get at... I don't think there is a bad precedent here. It is a mapped plane. That covers it.  This is an idea that is not new to Poser and the Marketplace version is far from the first example of a prop of that sort in the 3D community... and probably not in the Poser community.

The concept of patent law accepts the reality that some ideas are too simple, obvious or inherent in a field of endeavor to be protected... and there is a good reason for this.

To make another such prop is in no way to set a bad precedent for the community than is the idea of a vendor looking at the Marketplace and saying "hey, I think I would like to build a pony tail hair" or "wow! textures look cool, I should do a texture of a pretty girl". to say that doing such a thing is derivative or a "bad precedent" is, to my mind stretching the point.

In the larger term, I really don't see how it is somehow "unpatriotic" in a Renderosity sense to make a prop available for free if it might compete with a vendor - the fact that the Marketplace pays for the servers is nice but shouldn't certainly afford the vendors the ability to continue to make money unless the product warrants it.

A similar example is the global lighting set-ups. If I decide to make one of my own after hearing about the technique should I not make it free? Of course I can. The technique is common - it wasn't invented by anyone here... even if I may have heard of it here. How many Dragons are running around out there for that matter... is the idea of a Dragon in poser protected?

The dangerous precedent would be for a simple, common and obvious tool of the trade to somehow be considered protected when it is not in and of itself protect able.

That being said, I would purchase it if I needed it. In fact I did purchase it - the version they sell at Daz. I wonder then if there are some who think it was wrong of Daz to sell one? OR for someone here to sell one if Daz had it? if course not. If I looked at the picture at Daz's site of the product I know all I need to to make one of my own... and I can give that away ethically clean - because it is too simple to be protect able... nor should it be.

Now only isn't this a legal problem, it isn't an ethical one that I can see. There is no technicality in play, there is no precedent that will hurt Renderosity or weaken vendor rights.

Sorry if that upsets folks... but there you go.