Attached Link: http://www.posinsolutions.com/

The way I read it is that they have rendered the models from all those angles; what you get are those renders. It seems to be a reference source for light, shading, musculature, etc. for more traditional media...

"This is a collection of 2D images created in Poser to be used as reference material for artists." I have just been sent the following information - so it appears they are legit... Since I don't believe there is anything stating that you can not sell your images you make... Though this isn't anything I want to buy myself :) lol (but maybe a cheap option for those not wanting to buy poser themselves :P lol) WiNC

Well, even if I were interested, no thanks. You have to sit and wait for some long intro to load before you can even get in. Me and my wee modem said fuggetaboutit.

lol - you can skip the intro I think - but it is all a flash animation I believe :P

Looks like a ripoff to me. After buying all their disks, you could own Poser and make your own. This is just a CD full of images they created from Poser to sell to companies who use stock images in their publications. Their site gives very little information on what you are actually getting. I already own just about every figure DAZ ever put out so I wouldn't want it either, but it isn't a bad idea. They should have a sampler CD for a lower cost to show what you are getting. That's what I would do.

I have one of their CDs. Crazy things in the Poser world...

kupa - LOL! Now honestly I wouldn't admit to that :P So it is just pictures of poses? And are they all naked? I suppose it is used as a trance for artists to "copy" from yes? Just bought it up because I was a little suspect at the time I saw it - and was thinking they were full models in OBJ format (after all - I never thought anyone would sell just pictures of poses by themselves :P lol) WiNC

It's just pictures, and I actually paid for the CD, but not because I wanted to use the product. It is very disorganized, btw. What we were looking to examine was how they sort of transformed all of Poser into a clip library, and there was nothing we could do about it.

probably not - unless you could prove that it was a breach of the EULA - which I don't know if it can be classed as a compatition product against Poser4 - though in essence it could be... After all - they have taken poser 4 and placed it all in a product which is to compete against Poser 4... I know a stretch :P But I have been stretching in places against Poser5 - so I should be able to stretch in my support for Poser 4 :) lol i can kinda understand one of the EULA statements now in Poser 5 :) and why it was put in there :)

that was it...

In fact - there could be a angle that could be taken - copyright law states that you can only use 10% of a product/books original content for your own content... If they have used more then 10% of Poser 4 original content for the use of making their own product, it could be stated that they have been in breech of Curious Labs Copyright. It would be the same as someone taking my music - writing it out on paper, and breaking it up into sections to sell as a CD for other musicians to copy (no I'm not that good - just using it as an example). Or for someone to take a movie and then using that movie in their own CD collection. Hell Paramount did their run against companies because of them using screen shots from their TV series Star Trek -and they managed to win a number of court cases over some of the larger fan sites. In essence, because they are releasing their product as compatition against Poser (since they the product is there to remove the use of Poser) one could argue that it is a breech of copyright. I might have issues with the Poser 5 security Kupa - but I certainly have no issues with Curious Labs (or yourself) and I don't like to see people making a buck off a company I feel has been so damn helpful to people. We might have a differences - but I don't like what Posing Solutions is doing here and I'm sure there has to be a way to stop them... it feels - illegal to me... and just wrong :(

copyright law states that you can only use 10% of a product/books original content for your own content... - WinC The 10% figure is a popular myth repeated often... Only 0% is allowed to be copied ;) Oh cooler... this is your cue. :) Otherwise, where have you found it "stated"?

Incorrect April - 10% of a document can be used for Academic use (therefore you are legally allowed to repeat a small part of a document in your assignments, and books as quotes etc.) This is also used for the copying of screenshots in tutorial books (like Dummies) and other such stuff. I could find it but it might take me a while (I have to find my copy of New Zealand Copyright law books from University)- and it isn't written (that I remember) as "10% of your product is useable for academic purposes"... it is longer - you know how laywers are :P You could be right about it not being usable in Posin Solutions position - because I can't see how it could be seen as a academic product. I have just read through the EULA for POser 4 (can't find the one for Pro Pack) and can see a number of terms Posin Solutions might be breaking - but the problem is - cost of lawyers and such have to outweigh how much Curious Labs think they could be lossing from this company. I would thin Curious Labs have looked into it - it just miffs me when I see a company doing something like Posin are... It would be far to sell a book of your own original art (that is what Poser is for after all - original art) but what they have done is taken poses (and probably a number from Poser, or Free sources here, or Schlabber) and have just rendered a number of pictures to sell to poeple. No original art, etc... and no where on their site (that I have seen) do they give credit to Curious Labs, or even make reference to Poser software being used. Frustrating...

frustrating indeed...

gotta love your long responses Kupa :) lol

that's what responses look like when you're wearing an issue-based ballgag ;-)

LOL!!!!!

How about that weather?

It is certainly a pitty Poser 4 didn't come with Poser 5 Content Distribution Section D, or G... but again I can see why they are included now. I think (if memory does me correct) it comes down to what is a program and what is documentation. I think that was the arguement used in Paramounts case against Fan-Sites, was that the content of the websites were in conflict with their copyright rights. I feel for ya Kupa - must be a pain when you have to face these issues... that is when I start programming for money I'm going to create programs that no one wants. In fact they will be that unwanted even warez groups will ignore them :) I know there is a flaw in that thinking somewhere - I just haven't figure it out yet :)

Ick, to think that someone would want that!?! I feel sorry for the poor slobs that get tricked into buying that when they could get poser 4 for less & get so much more bang for the buck!

Attached Link: http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrights/fairuse.htm

I'm not sure what the conceptional problem is here. They're not selling the figures so there is no way the product will hurt Curious Labs or DAZ. I don't even think they are aiming this specifically at the Poser or 3D market. More likely it is intended for traditional media artists. There are already similar pose books in the market place for artists. The only difference is that this product is a cd instead of a book and that instead of a camera or pencil artist they are using Poser and DAZ models. If we can sell "art" prints created with Poser and DAZ models why can't they sell reference images created with the same tools? Am I missing something fundamental here? - Jack ps. whether this cd represents a good value is an entirely different story.

We're lining up some AMD processors running P5 here to stave off an early cold snap.

Oh weather is nice outside - we are just coming into Summer, and from what I'm told that is the Season to be outside and doing stuff which has nothing to do with computers... Um - - - - okay - I don't know anything to do without computers... I think I really need a life :) April - yeah - that is it :) Fair Use - which I believe Posin is kinda breaking isn't it? I mean - damn it! You are right - there is very little you can do against it, unless you argue that all pictures made with poser are bad.. The thing is - It is like one of those situations where you just want to go around there and bop them on the nose :P WiNC

HEY! No picking on our powerful AMD internal heating systems! I have saved a lot on heating this winter :P

"There are already similar pose books in the market place for artists" Wel no - those books are usually tutorial guides, or are books full of original art. What Posin are doing isn't original art - it is stock poses rendered on many different angles so that artist can use them in pictures, or as reference material. Buying one of the art books, or Tutorial Guides, doesn't go in direct competition against Curious Labs - I personally think Posin's offering is direct competition - because if you buy their stock poses, you remove the need for poser (if you are interested in just stock poses that is :P) But again - Kupa has already said their hands are pretty much tied on this - so I'm not going to push. But you know me - I'm passionite :P

I didn't really see enough examples on their site to tell if all the poses were stock from Poser. If so, then I think at the worst they are only being "tacky" and unimaginative. I really don't see much difference between their use of stock poses and the hundreds of stock pose images at this site. As the saying goes... "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." I'm still not sure that this is really competition for Poser. If all I wanted was reference material I'd buy a book or one of those $20 artist mannequins. I certainly wouldn't be spending $349 for Poser. If I recall correctly reference was the intent of the original Poser but it was a lot cheaper too. Poser has gone well beyond its humble beginnings and price. Ah well- opinions are just... opinions. - Jack

Jack, well not everyone here is selling those stock poses for 49.95 and most at least have backgrounds which make them look like art :)

WiNC- Yes. I think I said "tacky", "unimaginative" and even questioned its value. On this we agree. It's not that I'm supporting them. I just don't think they're doing anything illegal nor do I believe they represent competition to Poser. - Jack

Jack, if you created a program that had a figure which you could pose which was not that good (not saying poser figures are bad :P) but its main intension was for reference in 3d art... then someone came along and posed your figure with the stock poses (that you include in your program) then published all those poses from many different angles as pictures (ie - all they have done is remove your frontend and probably more expensive program) wouldn't you feel that they were stealing your work, and trying to sell it as their own?

talk about cheeky, they don't even mention on the site it was all done with Poser, I didn't see a CL or MC logo anywhere.

Attached Link: http://rangi.knowledge-basket.co.nz/gpacts/public/text/1994/an/143.html

thanks Cool - to tell the honest truth I didn't have time to go around looking for it - I have a programming assignment (payroll system) which I have to finish and I'm having problems trying to get around OOP useage in Visual Basic 6 (darmn I wish we could learn C++ in this damn university - they just removed the class sigh) So thanks for the link - I need to have a read up on it again anyway since I might be publishing my own novel sometime in the near future, so want to get back to present copyright laws etc... Okay - so it is now it is 3% (sure it was 10% when I looked) :) I did my Copyright Business paper in Massey University in 1996 - and haven't really kept mush up with it - but yes - it is the "fair use"... thanks a million cooler :) I still think however that Posin is breaking the law - I just can't see how it can be enforced since there is nothing in the Poser 4 EULA that is really being broken... sigh - I just hope they buy Poser 5 and try doing the same thing with the new figures :) WiNC

Is poser "reference" material anymore. It seems to me Poser art is a direct part of the end product. How may Poserites Pose their scence(s) and then paint/draw them? Everthing I've seen uses Poser (and Bryce, Vue, etc), to create a direct image, not as a artist reference. I'm sure there are people who do(I',m one of them), but I don't think that is the main market anymore. Look at Renderosity, Daz, etc, they don't seem to be selling "reference" material.

Hmmmm, I don't think I like where this is going. This thread pretty well sums up a growing trend with Poser I'm less and less happy with, I'm going to call it the "Who's Render is it anyway" trend. This mostly has been discussed in reference to non-commercial licensing of free stuff, and I can support that, after all, it free. But this thread is apparently extending it to the content that comes with Poser. Now, I can understand not distributing actual objects or other Intellectual Property, such as the actual mesh or morphs for Don and Judy et. al., but having to invoke fair use doctrine to sell your own renders? To me, this borders on rendering (sorry) Poser useless as a professional tool. Are we supposed to keep a record of what percentages of pre-made content we use with every render? Must we then go to court to establish whether our render indeed belongs to us? Isn't a major selling point behind Poser the content that comes with it, or can easily be obtained? Now, I consider myself more of an illustrator than an artist, and am about as commercially savvy as a feral rock, but I have sold a print of my art before, back in my Amiga days, and the thing is, had I needed to get permission from the software makers involved, I would have lost the sale, proceeds of which were hugely helpful at that period in time. Curious Labs maintains that render a Poser figure from multiple angles and selling the resultant renders are competition for Poser (why buy Poser when you can just buy some prerendered images of Posed figures? However, isn't Poser itself (at least it started out that way) an attempt to bypass needing a live model. Does not Poser compete with these live models, why pay a model, when you can get models with Poser than can be posed in any position, at your convenience, with out the cost and hassle of obtaining and dealing with real models. Moreoever, as Poser has grown, adding more complex rendering and animation capabilities, does this not compete with 2D software? Why draw each model and pose by hand, carefully rendering the form, the lighting and shadows, when Poser does all that for you? Should Adobe proscribe selling textures for use with Poser, because then you would not need to own Photoshop? Where do draw the line? Regards- Lemurtek

Doesn't DAZ's license have specific language against using their figures for clip art collections?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=605491

No, because last time everyone was in favor of clip art collections (see link). ;P

Hey, what is wrong with you people? Well I don't want any more restrictions on my usage of Poser and Poser addons. If you deny someone the right to do a clip art collection then CL or DAZ will at some time deny you the copyright of your Poser images. Thats a fact. CL and DAZ are business, if they could, they would tax you every time you hit the render button or exhibit a rendering.

Lemurtech, Here, Here! ah heck I gotta go Time thing you know. - TJ

I agree this is getting way too restrictive. Someone who is satisfied with a collection like this is not a potential customer for Poser anyway. In fact I would say that CL could potentially LOSE customers through this new restriction. So many of the PSP groupies who love to share tubes want Poser just so they can do so. Remove that incentive and they have no reason to purchase.

Kupa, Say it isn't so! I don't want it to be cold in Santa Cruz yet, I want to go down there next weekend!! :) Boni

WiNC, Yes I would feel annoyed if someone did as you suggested. But I'm not sure that you even read my comments in their entirety. 1) Based on the Posin' website it is not clear to me that they used only the stock poses included with Poser. 2) Poser's primary purpose is no longer the mere posing of figures for use as artists' reference material. I suspect that most Poser users don't use it for this at all. 3) If Posin' is using only stock Poser poses then they are only doing what many Poser users already publicly do. While true that they do not add a background or colour or clothing, etc there is no law that say "art" or reference material has to be good, labour intensive in production, imaginative, completely original, etc, etc, etc Does the Posin' product allow one to create additional poses or adjust lighting or modify character features or augment figures with additional figures and props or change surface textures or expand its features with additional add ons or, or, or...? Unless these features and more are available I think it requires an incredible stretch of the imagination to consider this as any sort of real competition to Poser. If I tried to convince the Poser crowd that Posin' is an adequate substitute for their beloved program I would die of embarrassment as I was laughed out the door. The Posin' stuff isn't even clipart as there would be no point in using the images directly either as cut and paste paper images or as scanned digital insertions. At best it is visual reference material only. One might even argue that they add enhanced value by offering many additional angles thus saving an actual Poser user from expending the effort of twisting a virtual dial. If I were religious I might expect CL to soon receive a copyright infringement lawsuit from God for the unauthorized use of His original designs and models. I mean really, He isn't even given the courtesy of a credit line. Perhaps He will be joined by all the portrait artists, photographers and figure sculptors and they will initiate a class action lawsuit against CL. Ridiculous? Well, there ya go... - Jack Ps. This posting has no legal validity and in fact, is probably illegal. After due and diligent examination it appears that each and every alphabetic character or word is not original to the author but has merely been rearranged in suitable order for easier assimilation. Perhaps it would be if the characters were posed via backwards italicizing or texture mapped with multiple colours. But that's another story... - Jack

Lots of companys will pay more to have some one else do it for them...it happens all them time. Most photos you see in advertising(print) and even in a great deal of commercial websites use stock photos, drawings and art. Someone even noted that adverts for p5 used p4 images that had been around for awhile.... Companies think in terms of man power as well, it might be cheaper to buy the program, but the man power and company time could make it more expensive. Corel, gives a way tons of images with corel draw for royalty free use, and has a whole website of stock images for sale. Advertisers don't give credit for things in their ads...using poser to create royality free stock images shouldn't a problem as far as I can tell.

The main "Illustrator's Figure Reference Manual" book series published by Chartwell in 1987 aren't in print any more. You'll be lucky to find them used; I got them remaindered in 1992. I have three of them (24 angles for each posed model), and they're ok, but the lighting is flat and the photos were taken in color but printed in manually separated muddy spot colors (brown and blue, BION). Also, some of the models pose more stiffly than others, probably because they used only three angled cameras (models held their poses on a turntable with 8 positions). The original publisher (Quarto) doesn't have any book-specific information on their website; apparently their business is selling art books to smaller publishers. If anyone here is familiar with a substitute series, please post info.

I can see how the actions of Posin'Solutions could be vexing. However, I seriously doubt they have rendered every possible pose from every possible angle. Not to mention their clip art is only nudes. Now if they rendered every piece of clothing from every possible angle and every prop from every possible angle (in every possible color) then it might be competition for Poser. As it is, it's just about useless!

There are several Japanese series here is one, Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha Basic Pose #1152 ISBN#4-568-30049-5 Daily pose #1007 ISBN#4-568-30047-9 Moving Pose #1223 ISBN#4-568-30048-7 Couples Pose-1 #891 ISBN#4-568-30051-7 Couples Pose-2 #437 ISBN#4-568-30052-5 These books contain nude figures as well as clothed ones (similar to the "Illustrator Figure Ref, Manual's"), therefore are not for children under age.

Sorry for getting off topic.

Another series is POSE FILE/1 through 9, and up. Is is usually available at Art Stores. All nude figures, sports, dance etc. There are one or two other series available. These books contain nude figures(similar to the "Illustrator Figure Ref, Manual's"), therefore are not for children under age.

I can't imagine they're making much money from their crappy product. Its more or less a collection of "clip art." The real question is whether they're using legitimate software and DAZ characters that THEY purchased, or is it just a bunch of high school kids with stolen software churning out copies of CDs on their home computers. I was totally unimpressed with the website and the lack of details of what is on the CDs. And potential customers could mistakenly believe they're getting a real 3D program like Poser, and not just a bunch of images.

I wouldn't call it "clip art", clip art is usually finished art spots are used "as is" in various projects. I cannot see Posin figures used "as is", they are certainly not "finished art". I think the "reference" title is more approprate (as per jval). The figures are a bit rough, but I can see they might help an artist visualize some positions, or movement.

Actually, it is quite legal... all they're selling are renders. (Steve, I gotta ask - is THIS why everyone's rights are sitting in limbo right now? No offense 'mano, but this is very silly... so what if a pack of people whomp out renders and sell it as clip art? The demographic for all of that clip art aren't going to use Poser in a zillion years anyway... you know that, I know that. Also, they apparently haven't sold all that many in spite of it... So what gives?) Their market is most likely the advert/marketing types who can't afford the time and/or cash to learn Poser or any of that "3D Art stuff", but '...by Heaven they can Photoshop!' You use the images as a base, cutting and pasting and blending into layers, to make a scene that could be presented as a single effort, when in reality it is nothing more than a high-tech collage. I do that in Poser with photographic backgrounds now (my own photos, thanks much :) ), as do a lot of folk in the galleries. I dunno how much these guys charge for a CD, but I can see what they were striving for, and I suspect that in terms of time and money, it would be chaper for a marketing type to get the CD and use it like any other clipart. /P