KaZaZ, and similar P2P file sharing.

"Oh I only let my friend borrow a copy and whilst it was in the shared folder some other guy downloaded it also. No big deal thats only two copies."

Do the maths if your friend and that guy does the same that's over a million stolen files in 20 days.

Remember my Romantix series? A whole boat load of original clothing for a ridiculously cheap price? Renderosity store has sold 21 copies, I've sold similar from my site. I spent an interesting weekend on KaZaA, and yes that IM saying "hi" from PhilC@KaZaA really was me.

Am I down over this? Not really, even though I earn my living by creating 3D models, I knew this would happen. Frankly I reckon that if my stuff is not being warez then it was not good enough in the first place. Am I going to be "policing" KaZaA? Nope I have better things to do, like creating the models.

I once got an email from a friend, it read:-

You have been sent the Amish virus
We do not have computers or electricity.
You are on the honor system.
Please delete all your files.
We thank thee.

We are indeed all on the honor system.
I thank thee.

I hear ya. I did the same thing, the other day. While the university firewall prevents me of connecting to any of those p2p-things, I decided to have a look at my friend's house to see if I can find any of my stuff in there. And I did. Four of my items, actually, one of which never sold much here... But as annoying it is, I was also a bit proud... that probably sounds stupid but it made me feel like my items are wanted, too, even though I'm not such a big name. But sigh I don't have any income besides what I make with my Poser stuff.. so it would be rather nice if people actually paid for them.

Gentlemen, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more. Tommy.

Gentlemen, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more. Tommy.

Gentlemen, think about this message, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more.
Tommy.

Gentlemen, think about this message, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more.
Tommy.

Gentlemen, think about this message, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more.
Tommy.

Gentlemen, think about this message, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more.
Tommy.

Gentlemen, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more. Tommy.

Gentlemen, think about this message, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more.
Tommy.

Gentlemen, think about this message, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more.
Tommy.

Gentlemen, you are as good as "letting the cat out of the bag" by telling the rest of the world where and how to shoplift yours and others goods! Now go down to the local Safeway and post a list of your household appliances, your address and what times you wont be home on their notice board. Can I suggest you delete your posts immediately in order to protect your own interests. I may seem blunt but assure you I care so please go into damage control, before it costs you more. Tommy.

thomasrjm, I think we get the message. :-) However, I'm pretty sure all the p2p things are well known by now. The cat's already out.

Hummmmmm.........looks like Tommy wants you to delete your posts! Those who are prone to use these warez sites already know about them, so posting this or not, will really make no difference. I personally love my Poser and have spent Hundreds, maybe thousands on products/models to use with it. I personally can't or don't have time to create anything on my own, but throughly appreciate the work of those like PhilC and Eowyn, who help make my pictures come alive. Thank you, and to all the other artists out there who have made my Poser much more enjoyable.(: I have bought and paid for everything I use, Heck I may be one of the few who ever paid for "Win-Zip" .........but I truly believe that, in doing so, it will help keep the costs down, encourage the artists to keep "creating" and when I post a picture, I don't have a bit of guilt that I have used something that was stolen. The honest folks will remain honest. I am sorry about people stealing your models, but I assure you, I am not one of them. I wish there was something I could do to help prevent this, but I wouldn't know where to begin? Take care and thanks again. Genny

Tommy: I see I'm not the only one who had trouble refreshing the page after posting a message in Renderosity this evening. I finally figured out to press F5 when that happens. Philc: It's good to see that you have retained your sense of humor about it. Amish virus - (he-he).

Heh why should I delete the message? I don't think there are that many people left who don't know what those programs are. The bottom line is: the honest people pay for my items even if they know where they could get them for free. How do I know? Because that's what I do myself. I know where I could get stuff for free but I pay for it instead.

Genny: I paid for WinZip also...:-)

Genny, I also paid for winzip!

personally I think (just so people don't go crazy over this) that anyone who is considering selling anything in one of these store should figure that for every copy they sell, 100 will be gotten for free. Sad but true. Just try to keep in mind that 99.99% of those people never would have bought it, if they couldn't get it for free they wouldn't want it anyways. Know this going in, save yourself the agrivation later. NW316

I can just add my support to all you modelers out there. That IS, indeed, the internet. Now, I have to go pay for my WinZip... Jeez. Great to see you keep your cool about this, Phil. Stay well, Q

Wow! I thought I was the only numbskull who actually paid for winzip- LOL! I never knew what warez was until I came here- I knew you could get music, but I guess I'm too niave to think of stealing software- duh! While it is nice that these two wonderful people are having a sense of humor about this, it is sad that they and others are being taken advantage of in that manner. Eowyn is right though, that is kind of a feather in your hat to know that people like your stuff that much. As Phil says though, them's the breaks and it's happening and will continue to happen. I guess all that hoopla about Napster didn't accomplish anything........like they thought it would- what a joke! Keep up your sense of humor Phil and Eowyn, it looks good on you and shows what great poeple you are.

wow !!! do you mean to say we can actually download all this market stuff for free on Kazaa and other p2p places ??? Kazaaam...I'm off to download right now !!!! There sure are a lot of dishonest people around, aren't there ??? Its truly a shame. But, on the other hand, do you think everyone actually realizes the stuff they're downloading for free is actually licensed and is to be paid for here or other stores ? There are a lot of people that are a bit dense, you know. Software like Photoshop, etc,I can see as putting up flags, but 3d modeling components, maybe not as much... Its kinda like the business philosophy thats finally getting let out of the bag--rip everyone off until you're caught, then get bailed out anyway.

ain't life a... hmm........ (nope not that one, it's violation) Ok....... hang in there....... hopefully future will holds something best for us all........

WinZip? Bah, I use command line zip/unzip. CLI rulez! ;)

When I first joined this community and bought Poser (and V2, etc), I popped into a chat room one night to get a quick answer to a question...why my shadows were on the floor before the render but not afterwards. Several people treated me badly...not what I've have come to expect since then. Later, one person, who shall remain unnamed, sent me an apologetic IM saying people thought I didn't have book, and therefore, had also stolen the Poser software. I explained I had purchased it but thought I could get a quicker answer than researching the book...which, BTW, the section on shadows didn't seem to address when I read over it a few months later. I even purchased my copy of PKZIP...and since I've been mistrusted before, I paste a little proof: "chuck_evans@charter.net Product Qty Platform Delivery Method Price --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PKZIP Suite 4.5 (digital) 1 Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP Digital River $ 29.00 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sub Total: $ 29.00 Total: $ 29.00" I hate software theft. I hate IP theft. I got a few pieces of software a long time ago when I didn't have the money to purchase it. Volkswriter and Visicalc, I believe. But not since then. Even a small unnecessary shareware utility, Screen Paver, was purchased: "This is to confirm receipt of your registration for Screen Paver. Thank you. The latest version is 3.0. You will need the following User Name and Registration Key to disable the registration reminder screens. Your User Name is: Chuck Evans Your Registration Key is:" The guy wrote a nice screensaver and was only asking $10 for his efforts. I wanted to use it, he deserved it and I sent it. I'll never give away anything that should be paid for. I'll not take anything that has a price on it. There are lots of people like me out there. Hopefully, enough to allow people like you to continue in your livlihood. I tend to agree with a lot of comments above. One being that people who took it probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. One comment NOT made, possible on the positive side, warez'd 3d models/programs may be seen by friends of the person who got it illegaly and decide they want to "dabble" in the art, too. Yet, being honest, they will buy it. People who might not have otherwise seen it. As creators/sellers/artists, perhaps you need to tack on a dollar or two extra, like Walmart does, to cover the expected losses due to warez ahead of time. Or, perhaps hire a secret agent like Renderosibee to snoop around and report on those illegal activities. (sorry, just trying to add some humor to an otherwise serious problem).

nu-be LOL I've been in that click fest a couple of times... You forgot to mention all the adbots and spybots that get installed :) But seriously...it is unfortunately a fact of life on the net, as mentioned tons of times....even if you sell on CD, folks copy it to the warez sites...same as movies, music, etc... I don't believe there is a real way to stop it right now...even legally..you might nab a handful of real bad cookies, but there is no way you could ever bang everyone that is using and abusing copyrighted material, unless there was a court and department set up to deal specifically with that. I suppose you could somehow have a spybot that gets attached to every download, (the FBI or some other watch group would have to hack it in), then nab the perpetrator by following his/her IP address...but the warez sites move so much I think even that would be impossible. Guess you just have to chalk it up as free advertising... and hopefully most folks are honest and pay for what they use. Perhaps if you could find/see some of your work being used, it could be written off as a loss on your taxes...knowing that a certain percentage of your product is being skimmed for free off the net....

Why is'nt some kind of protection offered by galleries and online stores to protect the artists and themselves? After all you don't see retailers sitting idly by while someone shoplifts, do you?

Exactly WHAT kind of protection? It's not like the perpetrators are actually "in the store" so they can be arrested. How exactly do you stop somebody from buying software and then copying it and giving the copy to somebody else, or selling it cheaply. HOW? So far, every single thing I've heard of that was designed to prevent that was circumvented in next to no time by the people who do such things. If it's art that's posted online, anybody can download it. Period. AFAIK the ONLY way to keep this from happening is NOT to post it in the first place. If it's something designed to be downloaded and used, there's just no way you can stop people from making and giving/selling copies of it.

What professional retailers do is purchase a certain number of units (or licenses) from the
manufacturer, say 50 units. They then sell 50. Then it is an effective incentive for the retailer
(with more sophisticated tools) to pursue said thieves. As far as "can't be done",
"impossible", it helps make a solution more probable. I have heard of links to the galleries here
being linked to other sites where some thief makes a profit off of them. Other sites prohibit hot linking.
To work for free,
whether you like to produce what you do or not is insane, from what I can see.