I have really been wanting to purchase Poser 5, but I have hesitated due to some questions I have about its EULA. If someone could please provide further clarification on this, I would sincerely appreciate it.

I am not an intellectual property attorney, but I have compared the Poser 4 EULA and the Poser 5 EULA, and there are significant differences. There is no mention of proprietary file formats in the Poser 4 EULA, but much of the Poser 5 EULA is devoted to protecting what are now being claimed, in this latter day, to be proprietary file formats.

From my reading of the new Poser 5 EULA, it seems that any content vendor, any software vendor, and any store should seek some form of legal advice prior to opening or using Poser 5. I hope this is not the case, but it does appear this way to me.

From what I can tell, any software vendor reading and writing these file formats, after agreeing to the new EULA, could be sued by Curious Labs for violating that EULA. So, the many cr2 modification and creation programs out here could fall victim to such violation if the program author does not enter into a licensing agreement with Curious Labs after agreeing to the new EULA. Curious Labs has made it clear that it wishes to deter competitors, and the EULA states that the decision as to whether something is in violation of the EULA is at the sole discretion of Curious Labs. Are these cr2 programs now competitors to Poser 5?

Also, any store selling Poser 5-specific content or software could possibly be sued for illegally reselling materials that are copyrighted by Curious Labs. I am sure Curious Labs will not prosecute the individual vendor, but if the store is not a member of Content Paradise, I would think their distribution of Poser 5-specific content without paying some sort of fee would not be looked upon favorably by Curious Labs.

Finally, as a content vendor, I would be concerned that the EULA states I have no copyright on my own creations. Why would I wish to give away my rights by agreeing to the new EULA when the previous EULA does not claim the content of those file formats to be proprietary? And why would I want to restrict my sales only to stores that were Content Paradise participants?

I hope that someone can give more clarification to this issue, but from what I am reading, content vendors, software vendors and stores are all possible losers if they break the seal on Poser 5. It seems the only way to provide even limited protection for yourself is to pay Curious Labs its "licensing fee" through Content Paradise.

Will someone please provide further clarification? Am I reading this right? I certainly hope not.