well i encountered that thread, downloaded a program.
Is it that easy? - you run the program, it gives you a great abstract image with no real effort on your part - and you upload it and watch as money run to your account.
where is the catch? 
I've just made this and i think it's cool, i like it. Is it legal to put in on sale in microstocks?
Do i actually have a copyright for that image?
Or many other people who run this program can render the same image using this script and it will become a scandal - like one we've seen on Shutterstock when one guy used another guy's vector?
OK, let me answer the questions one by one:
"Is it that easy? - you run the program, it gives you a great abstract image with no real effort on your part - and you upload it and watch as money run to your account. where is the catch?
"
Also if you can be lucky and get a nice fractal by just playing around it normally takes a bit more effort to create a good selling fractal. And the catch is the render time, to get a good quality fractal with Apophysis my render time averages 24h per fractal. That means after having "played" with the flame, changed it with some scripts, colored and adjusted it - one of my computers will be occupied to render the final jpg at a high resolution for a whole day. That is for me the biggest catch and the reason why I am looking to move my fractal portfolio more towards better paying sites/ midstock/ alamy.
"I've just made this and i think it's cool, i like it. Is it legal to put in on sale in microstocks?
Do i actually have a copyright for that image?"
You are right it is a cool fractal but:
a) even at this size I can see "fractal noise" = stray pixel from a hasty render and most sites would reject it because of this.
b) I really think it would be worth to do a high res render with this and perhaps play a bit with the coloring, but yes, I think it could sell well!
c)It is absolutely legal to sell images created with apophysis as Microstock or elsewhere, whilst the software itself is copyrighted, it states somewhere in the tos that you hold the copyright for your flames/ images and can do as you please with them.
"Or many other people who run this program can render the same image using this script and it will become a scandal - like one we've seen on Shutterstock when one guy used another guy's vector?"
They are not so easy to copy! That you will notice when you have forgotten to save your flame and then try to re-create it, very, very difficult! And no, there will be no scandal as the flame from where you render the final jpg is like a raw file that proves your ownership. I did two flame exchanges so far with on line friends, but I would do them only with people I "know" and trust, in one case I could find the flame my exchange partner wanted and we completed the exchange, in the second case I couldn't find the flame (it was an older fractal of mine, before I had a system to save the flames correctly) and I deleted the flame I was send ;-) General tip: As I am working mostly commercial I only have programs, scripts, brushes etc that I can use commercially (including microstock) on my computer. If I find something cool on the internet I check the TOS, if it is kosher to use for commercial purposes I keep it if not it gets deleted asap. That way I avoid to make a mistake in the future when I don't know anymore where this brush/ script etc came from and how I can use it. So, yes, go ahead with fractals but be careful they can get very addictive, but if you have a spare computer, no reason why not - Welcome to the fractoholics! SY
