Why can't you embed materials to objects

[ajenery]

As I understand it materials can be removed from an object on the basis that materials are not premanently attached to it but are referenced.  
So if someone buys a scene/model from someone, what's to stop that person from removing the materials and replacing them with other bitmaps in 3Ds Max?  The point being, how could the seller prove that the scene was his or hers?  
If there was some code or command, etc, that allowed you to embed materials/bitmaps to objects, then they couldn't be changed.  If the seller included some small identifying mark as one of the materials, then this would prove ownership which would be a good thing, right?

[lightcube]

Essentially, here is what it comes down to, FOR ALL THINGS DISTRIBUTED DIGITALLY (photos, models, web pages, pdf files, applications, etc). There is no, nor probably ever will be, a way to limit anything. You can make it inconvenient, but doing so is almost always at the expense of those who are legitimate customers... and the bad boys will still ALWAYS circumvent your attempts at limiting.

Inside 3ds Max, it is insanely trivial to make a copy of any mesh and put any material you want on it. And it would be annoying for all artists if it wasn't trivial to do this.

And trying to stop it is like trying to stop somoene from stealing an image from a web page by disabling JavaScript right-clicking. It's just a pointless waste of time...

You cannot stop it.

So move onto something else to worry about! Like getting people to buy your stuff in the first place 🙂

[ajenery]

I understand and accept what you're saying; I realized this is the situation, but it's hardly ideal. Why should I go through the whole process of applying materials, etc, just so that the buyer can change the materials at will? All I'm saying is, that if 3Ds Max (or any 3D CG drawing/design prog) allowed you to permanently embed materials to objects, this would be an extra layer of protection for the artist or designer. I'd be btter off just making models without materials and giving the buyer the option of doing whatever... 😉

[lightcube]

I'm not sure what to say to this, really. I'd personally never buy a model if I couldn't change the materials on it. Imagine this problem... you buy a model of a car that has one material and texture set... but I want to make 4 or five extra custom textures for the model to be able to reuse the model in the scene but add variation with new textures (or I need to add a company logo to the door, etc). If the model's materials were somehow locked, it would be completely useless to the customer.

Or imagine I buy an asset to use in a game... but ten others buy the same asset. Suddenly it is guaranteed that all of our assets look exactly the same if we cannot change the materials.

Even if 3ds Max itself offered some method to lock the asset, then you still have no protection because the same asset could be imported into other 3d applications. You would have to convince every 3d application developer to instigate this function.

I personally cannot wrap my head around the idea of why anyone would insist on limiting the customer from doing whatever they want with the model provided they paid you for it and don't resell your asset directly. This is really business and legal logic, not a 3ds Max issue. If someone really does abuse your rights, just sue them.