I had a good friend leave SL recently over this issue. She became totally obsessed about content theft to the point that it was literally affecting her health and she had to just give up SL completely. Her prim work was simply amazing; however she was admittedly not adept at Photoshop and often relied on outside “sourced” images. Did she simply just need to STFU? No.

United we stand divided we fall on this issue people!

Linden Lab started this stealing of content by taking down GOM, and then Snapzilla left the front page, user-created code was implemented into the client with no payment for the actual creators/coders. User created content always belongs to The Lab, it’s on their servers. They are also big fans of Creative Commons.

When Open Source comes, a specific server belongs to whomever owns it, but it will have to pass through LL’s servers (will there be customs taxes, trade agreements, etc.?), until it is like the web, in which case everything will become advertising-driven (“free” sure, but it all depends on people willing to create content and send it out there, receiving nothing but admiration and sometimes a “thanks”, unless the creators strike deals with advertisers also.) Perhaps designers should stop creating, like the writers who were striking, until they get guarantees they will be fairly compensated for their creations? (and who gets to decide on “fair compensation?” Will there be a Designer’s Union to work out the details?)

I don’t know, it could become a huge discussion series, but there will always be people who take a shortcut to a profit.