Owner rights
Experimenter
Posts: 164
If I creat something new (an object or a morph)
How could I prove that the object is made by me?
I fear someone will say I stole it from his product.
Thank you for your help
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
The obvious solution is to keep stages - periodically change the name of th save file as you model, and keep the whole set. Do the same with textures. It's a good idea anyway, in case you want to back-track when something goes wrong.
You'll have backups of your source material and work in progress versions (you *do* make backups, don't you?), incomplete versions, source files from whatever modeller you used, source photos/images for the textures, test renders etc, none of which you'd have if you stole someone's finished product. And even if you produce something that looks similar to another item (there are only so many shapes for a sword, right?), it's very unlikely that your mesh will be the same, or the UVs ...
I'm not sure where the line of ownership is drawn. The mesh could be tricky. For example, I export genesis / clothing to sculptris and make morphs for them all the time. Those are, without a doubt, my creations. Where does the line become drawn?
Another example is that I have an anime shape that I've made that was modeled directly from an unmorphed g2f, but it looks a lot like a combination of Aiko and Hitomi. I could try to market this figure as my own character morph using the standard G2F UVs because I created this morph over hours by hand, but how would I prove this was my creation and not an exported morphed Aiko / Hitomi?
There aren't many "steps" in altering an OBJ. I keep 2-3 versions max saved as I work, overwriting in stages as I progress. And even then, someone could fabricate them on the spot.
A refresh on derivative works could help with the discussion
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-are-derivative-works-under-copyright-law
That kind of flies in the face of morphs. How can one create morphs without it being a derivative of the model? The only method of morphing I've ever heard of requires the base geometry to be exact. A single difference throws an error. I know what from painful experience.
That's why morphs have to be distributed as deltas from the original geometry, so that they can only be used if you have the original model.
To give an example:
Michael 6 is a character morph for the G2M base figure. To use Michael 6, you need to have G2M.
If you make a morph for Michael 6, you would export M6 as an obj with base resolution, create your morph in whatever software you're using, export that morphed object and take it to DAZ Studio.
In DAZ Studio, you need to have M6 loaded when you use Morph Loader Pro to load your morph. On Morph Loader Pro, under Reverse Deformation, you change no to yes. This will ensure that your morph will apply to M6 and that if you redistribute the morph, the person using it must have M6 in order to use your morph.
Depending on your morph, there may be more you need to do; that is just the basics.
I will tell you the story of this question: I am creating a figur for sell. Throu the fear of law problems with the copyrights I creat morphs on my own. One day I creat a jawline morph (with D-Former and Hexagon) a few hours later I saw a bought morph which look like the one which I created earlier.
I have another question: Merchant Resource by Morphs:
By this topic I have follow thougt:
If I creat a figure I would sell it as single morphs with textures. A few tutorials say if I use MR morphs I have to sell it as shape preset and the buyer have to have the MR's. For me it is a No Go. I would limit my sellings thru this restriction. Now the questions:
What can I / is allowed to do with Merchant Resource Morphs?
Do I have to note the Morph Pack in my readme? If yes How?
Is there anything that I have to know about MR's, morph creating and ownerrights?
Thank you for your help
"Merchant Resource" products are something specific to our market. Invariably, they are bundled with a EULA that explains your rights to use them.
I strongly recommend though not using any third party resource that you cannot track down yourself - that is, contact the owner, find the original owner online, etc.
The reason why is that there are a lot of models out there on the 'net that are redistributed illegally. Its usually intentional. But then there are also folks who download a model from a site, where the site says it is legal to use however you want. However those sites do not check ownership at all.
Ive had my models redistributed by pirates through two of the largest content sites out there. Those sites do not do any due diligence on the models. So there are people who bought those models and are likely using them against our license, because they expect to be able to use them under the license supplied at the time of sale.
Another example - we have a very popular trailer model that I found being given away at a popular free model site. Some guy has downloaded it from another site, re-textured it, and was giving it away. He claimed that he got it "for free" from another site (he was known for doing this, and was drummed off the site). But can you imagine someone using that model, in a game or elsewhere, and having me ask them about their usage of our model?
Rights are a kind of paper trail. If you cannot trace its lineage back to its owner, then its not safe to use.