Occasionally, I'll see pose sets, loaded in the freebies section and elsewhere, that have commercial restrictions on them. I'll use a pose as a starting point for a drawing. After all, if I need a character in a crawling position, why spend a half hour getting the character there when a pose will do the same thing in a few seconds? I'll then tweak that pose, turning dozens of dials until I get the pose that I envisioned in my head. That process takes an hour or more with every figure I pose. Since I'm only using a pose as a starting point, and the final pose is essentially mine, would my final pose still have the original commercial restrictions? Would it help if I show examples of start and finish poses?

There has been discussions here about copyright of poses and that relates to your question. Can you copyright dial settings and therebye restrict the usage of them for commercial purposes? If so, I would think that you must load the pose from the copyrighted pose file and keep it as is in the render for any copyright to be applicable. If you use a pose file as a starting point and then tweak it into your own pose, I would say that it's your pose to use as you want. To claim otherwise would be entering into an impossible discussion. How many dials do you have to change to make it an original pose? Impossible to answer.

no- no pose is copy righted- use it as you like dial settings are inherent to the program- not the model.

no- no pose is copy righted- use it as you like Eh.. Depends on who you ask. While technically it has never gone to court Do not just assume that any pose is not copyrighted. Even the copyright office says they can be. Sooooo just because CL says they can't be doesn't mean that they truly can't

A pose can be copyrighted if it is part of a famous artwork. Setting a few dials in Poser is not more artwork than adjusting my satelitereceiver to the right stations.

If a pose can be copyrighted or not is probably something that lawyers can debate for years. In this case I think we just have to be practical: To use a pose commercially that is made by some creator who has explicitly forbidden commercial use is not a very nice thing to do. Regardless of the legal aspects. To use the same pose as a starting point for your own pose is no problem at all.

I have many pose sets available at DAZ and Bbay, and have put many in the R'osity Free Stuff. Whether commercial or free, I consider poses to have NO restrictions on usage in images, as is, or modified. You can use any of my poses as you wish in renders. The only restriction is the re-distribution of the PZ2 file. That is mine. One obvious type of restriction would be to DL poses, modify somewhat, and post for re-sale. That is a no-no. I think some folx forget to indicate free usage when posting poses. And I think posting poses in Free areas is pointless if they cannot be used in personal or even commercial renders. They are so easy to weak, show from another angle. That's my posture on the issue...

If you are using it for yourself if you tweaked the heck out of the pose. (and some of them you have to) then technically it would be your pose. (if you adjusted the dials a lot) if you only changed a few settings then no it would not be yours and the same restrictions apply. Kelderek Lawyers have debated it :) Like i said though the copyright office actually will copyright the poses if you register them. Even knowing cl's "opinion, decision" They are the one's who determine if it is copyrightable or not. But i agree with the rest of what you said :)

I'd love to see someone attempt to enforce a copyright on a poser pose. It wouldn't be worth it if you really think about it so putting a restriction on a pose set is pretty silly in my opinion. The only "restriction" that should be detailed is that people can't use them as a base for their own marketed poses.

You'll find - oddly - that the larger majority of "commercial restrictions" are intended to stop people selling things. That's how it started, that's why commercial restrictions first came in. It was discussed to death on this site when the store first opened. Essentially you cannot copyright a "pose". You cannot copyright "sitting with right leg crossed" or "kneeling in prayer" etc because these are common human positions that any human or human figure can attain. It'd be like copyrighting "smile"... Doesn't happen. However, you can copyright a "collection" of poses as that constitutes an art form. But not the points in space or the position used. If there is commercial restriction on a freestuff item then rather than tearing the creator apart for their wishes. Do one of two things. Contact them and ask or just delete the damn thing. Sheesh. Always there's this witch hunt for freestuff. What? You want everything in the store and freestuff empty? An email to ask. Is that really so damn difficult?

> An email to ask. Is that really so damn difficult? No, not to ask, but sometimes email addresses change. I emailed one person, for a prop I used, and it came back undeliverable. It wasn't used in a commercial image, but I wanted to let the creator know that somebody was using what they so generously provided to the community. I still need to extend that courtesy for a few more props in my gallery's images. As Poser directories grow in size, it becomes harder and harder to keep track of what came from where. I have a hard enough time trying to properly sort installed things into directories that make it easy to find props and accessories. In cases where zipped names aren't the same as the files, it's all the harder to go back and find out where an item came from and what kind of image restrictions it has. If I want to use something to create a commercial image, it's really up to me to find out what, if any, restrictions exist and honor those restrictions. It would be nice if everybody used the same language for the same intent (I've yet to figure out how a few agreements say the item is in public domain, but cannot be used for commercial images), but nobody said life was easy. To provide an example of how far I can change a pose, my Ogre drawing started with a stock Freak pose, Smash01, and ended in something completely different. Using the Freak's starting pose was somewhat of a false start. With the two arms overhead, I thought that I could IK both hands and parent them to the axe and swing it from there. Big mistake. I'm still learning, so I've at least learned not to waste time doing that again. In this instance, there are no commercial restrictions on using DAZ poses in an image. I wasn't trying to start an argument on this issue as much as find out if there was some general community acceptance on what is okay or not okay. It doesn't sound as if there is a set standard on this issue. I use poses as timesavers. It would take longer to find a pose that's exactly what I want than to get close and tweak it from there. I have a set idea of what I want a Poser drawing to look like and the end result is mine. Anything that helps me get there faster is a good thing.

It would seem that if the maker of the software says you can't copyright dial settings... you can't... Technically, everything created in Poser is a derivitive work and is subject to the original copyright holder's wishes. "But dammit, I'm a artist, not a lawyer Jim!"

"Technically, everything created in Poser is a derivitive work" It seems to me that, by that logic, everything created in MS Word is a derivative work and subject to Microsoft's wishes. That's just not so. I see little difference. What you can do in Poser can be done in other programs, albiet differently. Poser is a tool.

You've asked an nearly impossible to answer type of question :) But I'll try to answer. There are no cases that have gone to court over dial settings (whether it be poses, cameras or lights) that I know of. I tend to believe that if two people were to start at the default poser pose and tried to create the same pose that the numeric values would still vary some when opening the pz2 file in a text reader (to view ALL the digits after the decimal). I also think it's fairly easy to create poses that look very similar, yet they'll usually have different numerical values. This issue is debated often in the copyright forum, and the best response I've seen is from cooler (a member I highly respect and always has good info): "The best legal opinions I've been able to garner agree that poses can be unique datasets, & are afforded copyright protection, but only to the specific character they are designed for. However, until there is an actual test case, there is no way to say for certain whose interpretation is correct"

FyreSpiryt, You comparison isn't really applicable. A letter or book you write in Word may be copyrightable... but you couldn't copyright a series of page settings in Microsoft word - it's part of the program. For instance, you couldn't copyright the right margin set at .5" and the bottom margin set at .72" and the paper orientation set at landscape. Just like a photographer can copyright a picture he takes with his camera, but can't copyright the focus setting and F-Stop setting he used to take that picture.

Maybe we're on different wavelengths. I took "everything created in Poser" to include the final render. That would be like a letter/book to Word.

I think ookami's example of page settings for MS word is a good way to illustrate dial settings in poser. That's the reason for the uncertainity of copyrighting dial settings. If anyone can create the same exact settings, it seems impossible for those to be copyrightable. However, if it's extremely difficult to get the same exact values (down to the third digit after the decimal), then it's easier to see how dial settings can be copyrighted.

Jeny- I think the arguement to that is that the dials, all of them are just a numerical matrix- an example would be the z y and z trans dials- a matrix that can then be copyrighted that is all inclusive to the operation of the software itself. Just because it would be possible but improbable just means there is a vary large range of possibilities. It's like someone having a copyright on ALL living creatures DNA, on the chemicals themselfs.