A few short hours later....
Sorry about the typos in my posts I was very tired. ;0)

Having thought about it some more during the blissful few hours of sleep the question remains, and I hope neither CL or Daz or indeed the community view this as a an attempt to ferment trouble. It is not, my concerns and question is genuine.

Before this we knew (or thought we knew) the position of ownership. Daz owned the P4 meshes which they licensed to Metacreations and subsequently CL for use with Poser 4.

I know of several instances in the past when P4 obj.meshes converted to other 3D formats were being given away on certain legal web sites. These sites had their activities stopped by Daz. This would suggest and imply that Daz still owned the P4 content meshes and were in fact defending their ownership and copyright by these actions.

To date Daz has been quite liberal on the use of its' meshes by licensed Poser users as regards free and commercially orientated product created by third party developers. They have only insisted that meshes be encoded to the P4 content to stop non-licensed people from obtaining the mesh.
In the case of the millennium figures (V2 and M2), there are further special rules as regards the cr2.

This "custom and practice" has pertained for the whole period to date. It could be argued that Daz (whose primary business is the sale of meshes and related product) allowed this to happen to encourage the market and further sales of its' products.

It must be remembered we do not own either Poser or the meshes, we are licensed to use them under certain conditions.

Now in a situation, for example, where a developer was using Judy or Don to create a high quality product to compete with say Vicky 3 or Mike 3, or one that could be perceived as such, what would Daz do? Assuming that Judy and Don are derived or developed from the P4 meshes?

Daz could make a very strong legal argument that their licensing of the meshes to Metacreations/CL and their allowing the "custom and practice" usage of these meshes for commercial products in the past was never intended to allow a situation where their own meshes were being used by third parties to compete directly against Daz premier or any other products. And that in such a situation they had a right to selectively revoke their licence, and thus prevent commercial or free distribution of those competing third party products.

I think a court could well look favourably on such arguments.
Either way if it did come down to a legal action by Daz the involved cost would make a challenge to such action prohibitive for most and the time spent in processing such a challenge would effectively put the product out of date by the time it was resolved.

This situation throws up the spectre that Daz could have an effective veto over any third party commercial or free product that references their meshes (in any way) and that they see as threatening to their products. Moreover, that in such circumstances they (Daz) could prevent distribution of such product by legal action.

In the circumstance where Daz have announced that they are developing a program to compete with Poser 5 the possibility of such action becomes more likely.

If I am correct, the situation is thus unacceptable to Poser 5 users and developers. Why would anyone spend months developing such product if it could be stopped in its tracks by a court order or injunction based on the Daz ownership of the original meshes?

The fact that neither Daz or CL will give a simple answer to the questions of who owns the Don and Judy meshes make me even more suspicious that they are aware of the issues and that there is more to this than meets the eye.
I also understand and respect why Anthony may not be able to "make any public interpretation of the P5 EULA beyond what has been publicly stated." However, CL assurances to "Distribute your morphs, sell your content, etc. just as you did before" do not make me or others feel any happier. I would hate to have to fight Daz in a court action based on such an assurance.

So please both CL and Daz give us a straight answer to the simple question. "Who owns the Don and Judy meshes?"

Regards to all
STORM