Jim Burton opened this issue on Jun 21, 2002 ยท 87 posts
TygerCub posted Sat, 22 June 2002 at 7:57 AM
I can see a lot of good points from both sides of this argument. If a free-stuff item was repackaged and sold, that is clearly a no-no. No one wants to see his or her hard work stolen and used as a moneymaker for someone else. But unless a free-stuff item is the only object featured in a render, AND that object is being claimed by the artist as his or her own creation, the copyright of the object's original creator is not being infringed upon. I don't take a picture of a building, then call the architect and ask if I can sell that picture. Did I spend millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours designing and building that structure? No. But the architect didn't spend the time to wait for the light to hit the building just right, nor find the perfect spot to create the most dramatic angle for the shot. The building and the concept of its creation belong to the ARCHETECT. The photo and the concept of the setup capturing that building belong to the ARTIST. Using Poser is like using a camera. The artist might not own the world or the objects in the render, but the artist does own the picture. My free stuff is marked as commercially free because that has become the law of the land in Renderosity. But while I may create the morphs, characters or objects that are given away, I am not creating the final render that they are part of, and have no claim over that piece of art. Besides, the sale of a picture in something like an artshow isn't going to steal anyone's thunder, nor make the artist rich. It will, however, give that artist inspiration to continue to work and give him or her a little pocket money that can be used to help keep the craft alive. Y'all do what ya gotta do to maintain peace-of-mind... but please think about my point before crying "thief!" about someone else's artistic composition.