Recently Curious Labs has been the subject of frequent and emotional discussion. Most of this has revolved around Poser 5's EULA and copy protection system. Some of us agree with CL's choices in this regard while others find them distasteful, to say the least. Either view is fine and a worthy subject of discussion. What is not fine, in my opinion, are the unecessary and unsubstantiated remarks questioning CL's integrity or corporate intelligence. It has even been suggested that their intent was to bury this matter in the hopes users would not discover this too quickly. This despite the fact that they made the P5 user manual available for download and actively encouraged people to do so. The EULA appears very near the beginning of this document and no attempt was made to conceal or omit it. CL has consistently encouraged open discussion of their products and has frequently stated their reasoning for internal decisions even though they are under no legal or ethical obligation to do so. In the past they have even ceded to public wishes, a rare event in the corporate world. Poser is their product and they may market it as they see fit. While I may personally feel strongly against their copy protection system I am not privy to the complete circumstances that led them to this choice. My primary interest is "what is good for me?" while their interest is "what is good for them?" and that is as it should be. The bottom line is that we can't always get what we want when we want it. It would be nice if we could but the world just does not work that way- too many conflicts. So please, by all means continue the discussion but in a non-hostile manner. Anger serves nobody but itself. - Jack

It's been discussed to death...I say wait and see from those who preordered it...I'm sure they'll be happy to tell us if it's painless or not....

I agree . Although I really don't like the new registation system I pre-ordered my copy yesterday. The worst thing that can happen is it could cause nothing but trouble and I will have wasted 179$ . But I trust that Curious Labs isn't stupid enough to throw something out that could put them out of business if it doesn't work , because if they do they can be certain that they have lost MY business and probably other peoples as well . On one point I disagree , Curious Labs and other software companies need to remember that the customer ALWAYS comes first and they should always try to give thier customers "what they want when they want it" . I work for BOSCH making car parts and that point is always on our minds . One of our customers is General Motors and believe me when they call and tell us to jump, we say "how high ?"

I have no problems with any kind of registration software and the EULA! Only hope ,the whole registration process will work properly here from germany and with my serialnumber from the time poser 4 was still at meta creations. Remember the time bryce5 came out and many people had troubles with their old serialnumbers,and had to make long phonecalls to fix the problem.

I would like to know though why some customers are getting letters telling them the arrival date, yet although I pre-ordered almost from the first day I have not gotten a letter. Were they pulling my leg on this one? Thanks, Marque

While I don't like the fact that if I have to re-install, I'll be made to feel as if my motives are suspect, I understand their reasons.
As long as I can put my copy on both of my computers I'm ok with it. I'm the only person in the house who uses it anyway.

But I was reading the EULA and saw this:
" F. If you purchased a Site License, you may distribute Restricted Content between all computers containing valid copies of Program or other Curious Labs products and/or other software able to process Restricted Content."

Now the only thing I'll do is install it in my main computer and possibly my computer at work. (why do I feel the need to express that, again, I'm the only one who uses these) Does this affect my use of my purchases between the two? I've not heard of a "Site License".

Marque I think those letters are to people who ordered their copys from secondary companys not directly from CL. I got no letter either. Kendra a site license is nessasary for multiple users not for one user who will be loading the program on more then one computer for their own use. It states clearly In the eula that it is acceptable to load one copy of a program onto multiple computers as long as only one is being run at a time.

The big question is still, in my mind, the language concerning the derivitives. Sure I agree in principle. If you re-edit my movie and sell it as a revised copy, you infringe upon my rights as creator or owner. That's what the language concerning the dirivitives is concerned about. You create a competitive product to mine using my own creation. So the mesh, as it stands is theirs. But Poser characters are made to be changed, in that sense they are primitives, therefore new language would be useful to refine the definition of the evolving (read dirivitive) product and how it can be distributed. Not an easy problem to resolve. Q

I have pre-ordered my copy. I have not spoken before this. I would hate to see CL damaged by piracy and am willing to live with the protection scheme. As far as anything else is concerned. I am willing to meet with the entire staff of CL this Friday for McDonald's Fish Sandwiches and discuss what I would like to see in Poser 6, once they send me plane tickets. After the conversation, we could have desert and a malt. Then to work off the calories, they would allowed to walk me back to a cab to fly home where I could save them the cost of overnighting my copy of P5 by taking my copy home with me. I believe that my offering to meet them halfway is the most rational response.

I have been an intellectual property attorney for ten years now, and I am not concerned about the EULA. I don't think it works a substantial change over what is already in effect with Poser 4.

Still, I think CL could make everybody happier by acknowledging that it is not claiming any ownership in bitmap images (e.g., JPEGs, AVIs, MOVs) etc. output by the program. (As I have not been following this issue too closely, perhaps they already have done so, and I am not aware of it.)

Note: the prohibition against derivatives refers to the Program and Derivatives, which are defined terms. Conspicuously absent from those definitions is any mention of the bitmap images output by the program. Moreover, the EULA contains numerous permissions to generate and distribute content that works with the Program (e.g., textures, props, etc.) These permissions seem pretty consistent with what is already in place.

--Scot

Here's my 2 cents:

In my opinion, most Poser users (and computer users in general) are totally unaware of recent and current legislation concerning computer software. The DMCA and UTICA have profound consequences. And users of Win XP wSP1 and Win 2000 wSP3 probably haven't or won't even bother reading the changes in MS's EULA.
Do any of you use Win XP? Do you know that Win XP silently updates a list of programs and files you are not allowed to use? It's called the digital content manager. A few minutes of speculation should open most peoples eyes about the future of using software.
Now, in this kind of atmosphere, I'm supposed to trust software manufacturers? Come on....

obsessed I've been reading through some DMCA articles & it's scary stuff, specially the right to read story, ah but am I allowed to mention that? I might be breaking the law by mentioning it. I've got XP & it doesn't do any upgrading without my permission, in fact as of right now I'm not upgrading anything else apart from Poser, if it means shutting down my net connection permanently then so be it. Rob

c1rcle, I believe the upgrade list obsessed was referring to is the digital content manager, which I believe keeps track of usage for content i.e. adobe books ect. that request it. It allows content publishers to limit a persons usage of a digitally downloaded medium.
The concern I have is will companies be required to support re-registrations after they end support for a product? IE: when poser 9 comes out and one has not upgraded and you have to reload poser 5 will you be able to? These issues have to be resolved, I think some of the motivation for the protection is to reduce piracy but I believe, someone also saw the potential of forcing people to upgrade by eventually not supporting re registration of older products.

Bop on over to the Inquirer; seems that some code monkey's have already defeated the 'anti piracy' and the 'we -will- force you to register with US' aspects of the yet-to-be-offically-released SP-1 for XP. This illustrates the single most important point that -any- business seems incapable of grasping: The net is a different world, and those who dwell there are pretty decent people. And they have little to no compunction about striking back at =anyone= who makes an attempt to limit their freedom of choice. Or tars them with the wide brush of thievery without a shred of evidence (how many times has the RIAA site been hacked since they said they were going to use -their- hackers to go digging in people's systems if they can get a certain law passed under the radar? Those idiots can't seem to understand that their $$$ are nothing to netizens...and all too many of us could and would throw up an electonic barrier to make the Great Wall of China look like the waste of bricks it ultimately was. If we were pushed far enough.) There probably is going to be a period of this nonsense. Then the real netizens, not the fluffy-bunny crowd, are going to get tired of it and push back. Most EULA's won't stand up in a court of law, as nigh onto all of them tread on fair usage and/or actual constitutional issues. It's just that no one has had the cash or the mad-on to push it. Yet. But it will happen.

Invoking both the controversial 1998 DMCA and computer crime laws, HP has threatened to sue a team of researchers who publicized a vulnerability in the company's Tru64 Unix operating system. In a letter sent on Monday, an HP vice president warned SnoSoft, a loosely organized research collective, that its members "could be fined up to $500,000 and imprisoned for up to five years" for its role in publishing information on a bug that lets an intruder take over a Tru64 Unix system