First, thank you for the notices about auctions on eBay. We generally search every other day for these auctions and issue a standard request to eBay that these items violate our copyright, and before the auction is complete, usually within a day of receiving the notice, the item is pulled out of the auction. Your emails are followed up on. This is the case with another CD dupe of Poser 4 for sale on eBay. I just received email verification from eBay that it was pulled. Thanks for the support, Steve Cooper

Anthony- FWIW= for what it is worth; as in BTW= by the way; or in LOL= laughing out loud (wish I were). Sadly, I have a very full day today, and I need to let this one go. Thank you to those who have expressed giving us a chance to prove what we are doing, and to our critics, it's been a very informative excercise; I have faith that we will be able to put your fears to rest. The updater will fix Pro Pack bugs, offer MAX 4 plug-in support, and be available before this thread has cooled down. And it will have interlock protection. Sincerely, Steve Cooper

1. When you run the installer for the Pro Pack's updater, the first use of our new system, you can choose to automatically or manually authorize or wait to authorize, giving you seven days of use of the app, if you choose the automatic process, you will be asked to enter in your Pro Pack serial number, email address and other optional information. The email address is used to send an email as a backup to the automatic registration process. A unique machine ID is generated on your system and is then tranfered to our server. You will be brought to a webpage which displays your machine code along with any other information for you to validate. Once that information has been validated, an unlocking repsonse code is transferred to the Pro Pack installer. You will not need to enter any other numbers or codes, you'll be done with the registration process. The Plug-ins will now work without any other steps, and this authorization code generated by our server will even withstand a reformatting of your hard drive. If you choose the manual process you will be supplied with a phone number, an email address, a website and a fax number to send your machine ID code to. We will then generate a unique authorization code and send it back however you request. If you need to reinstall on the same machine or hard drive, you will not need to re-authorize. If you need to install on another machine, or on a new hard drive, you will need to re-authorize. You will be permitted to re-authorize a reasonable number of times. 7. We haven't been able to test every possible hardware swapping scenario, but the code is tied to the hard drive, so other items will likely have no efect on your registration. If you swap hardware, and it does effect your running copy, you can re-authorize. If you have used up your default authroizations, send us email, a fax, or visit our website to request additional re-authorizations.

1. The new security system will be found in the soon to be released updater, due out very shortly. Current inventory of CDs will be sold as is, if new CDs are required, the updated version will be on the CD as well. Pro Pack was always intended to not be released without protection, but our registration process needed more work, and we decided to release Pro Pack unprotected. We saw the error in that choice within hours of release. 3. We market via the web and catalog. 4. Curious Labs and Egisys AG are doing very well, with lots of product development opportunities and strong partners. We are very solid today. 5. We have faith that the new security measures will provide solid protection and keep Poser in the hands of those who have legitimately purchased it. The system we are using is very unique, well engineered and has provides a very deep, yet very easy to use degree of protection both on our end and at the enduser level.

This post is exact as I requested. Thank you for the first post, and probably the best question of all... 1. In the unlikely event that we should not be able to continue doing business, we would create a simple update to whatever versions are current, that would allow for the installer to run without an unlock code. Steve Cooper

Ironically, it seems that all I have to do to precipitate a firestorm online is either be out on the road or on vacation. This time, I'm on the road in Germany, jetlagged and with limited connection times, working with our parent company to share our business plans for the future. It's hard to sort through the rhetoric and the legitimate questions in this thread, and the thread, sadly, seems to have devolved. I will start a new thread to specifically address security questions. As it is 11:30 PM here in Germany as of this writing, I'm not certain how much more time tonight I can devote to this, please accept my apologies. Sincerely, Steve Cooper President, Curious Labs

MartinC, You don't need to send your copy back, from what I hear it has all sorts of aweful bugs :-) We chose not to use dongles- they cost more for us to buy than what it costs for us to print and package Poser 4, and there is no reasonable cross-platform Dongle that is universal, USB vs Serial vs ADB vs Smart Card. And supporting them is very tough, development and hardware conflict wise. Lightwave is moving away from Dongles due to many issues with them. And should, as happened at Meta happen in your office, many Dongles were stolen right off the backs of computers, rendering usable copies of MAX 2.5 unsable. Some pro users we've surveyed even find they are working with three, four or more Dongles.

Martin, We going a little longer than 30 seconds, actually 90 8-) And in my pre-coffee blur this morning I misspoke. Once you have registered and unlocked on a specifc machine, you never again need to re-register and re-unlock on that machine, even if you re-install again and again. Actually, even if you reformat the drive, the code generated the first time you registered is preserved on your hard drive. Maybe if we didn't supply you with software, you'd be more of an ally ;-)

BAM, Yes you can intall the app on three different machines right away if that's what you want to do, but for a potential fourth install you'll need to explain why to us before a fourth unlock code will be issued. MartinC, The grace period is less than 30 days, i cannot disclose the exact time here, and once it has expired on a specific machine, even if a pirate attempts to re-install that same app, the app will not run without registration and an unlock code. If you have regsitered your first install, you get a new grace period for each subsequent install, covering you for the weekend, should you not be abl;e to unlock via our server. For reference, professional 3d tools such as Max 4, Lightwave, etc, have equally deep security measures, and all are moving to the system we use. I understand your apprehension, but we cannot go forward, with any new software releases, without protection. This system is the best we've found, and we've looked long and hard. Dogface, Do another install on the new hardrive, and just re-register under the grace period.

BAM, JKeller is accurate. But here's a little more detail from our end. There is a grace period during which our protected/locked applications can run without registration. So if you do not have an internet connection for the machine you've installed the application on, you can still run that application for a limited period of time. During the grace period you will need to send us an email, snail mail or phone call to get the unlock code and enter it the next time you start up the app. Then you are unlocked and registered, and don't ever need to connect with us again, unless you want to do another install on another machine. After the grace period has expired, if you haven't registered before that time, you will need the unlock code to use the application again. The simplest registration/unlocking process will be for those who install the application on a internet connected machine. The access to our server to unlock the app will occur instantly. And the unlocking code only gets generated that first time you register, hence you only need to connect to us once to unlock the app. The unlock code is then securely stored on your hard drive and it is referenced when you run the app the second, third, fourth time you run the registered app. Steve Cooper

Pro Pack does not currently access the net for security purposes. The registration process for the "soon to be released" updater to Pro Pack will use the net for registration after installation only. Steve Cooper

You would simply contact us via email or regular mail, or phone call within the grace period, with the challenge code generated by the Pro Pack installer, and we would furnish an unlock code. After the grace period has expired, we can unlock the application as well via the same processes. Steve Cooper

Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/labReport/index.html

Attached Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/atmosphere/avatars.html

CharlieBrown, I'm with you on this one. In regards to simplicity of creation and final quality, the VET is a tough competitor