Yet another clothing designer gets ripped off. Grr. Ginny Talamasca is without a doubt one of the more talented designers in SL. I suppose it figures that being such is like walking around with a bullseye on your forehead -- or, in this case, on your textures. Life is full of people willing to profit from the work of others.
Unfortunately, there seems little anyone can really do to prevent texture theft in SL. It's not really the fault of Linden Lab, either. Blame the way computers work: if your computer can see (i.e., read) the textures, then it can write the textures, too. The only difference between your screen and a file is the computer's writing the texture to a different place.
According to SL's page on the DMCA, LL will remove infringing content if you file a notice. Scuttlebutt on the forums says that's not happening, though, or that enforcement is lax at best. My guess? There's probably so much infringment going on that LL couldn't keep up if they tried.
I can't help but draw parallels to the music industry here. Lots of people download music. What can the recording industry do about it? Not a whole lot. Sure, they can sic lawyers on people and the courts can prosecute the offenders, but history has shown before that criminalizing a behavior doesn't always deter that behavior. Just look at the prohibition of alcohol or the war on drugs in America for examples of that.
The comparison between the music industry and the SL content industry isn't exact, of course. The RIAA is a big corporation only concerned with money; content creators in SL are for the most part your average joe just trying to make an extra buck or two on the side and have some fun. The RIAA already has lots of money and lawyers for their "war on music"; most content creators have squat in that area, and so can't bring that kind of power to bear on LL or those who steal their textures.
Some designers watermark their textures. That protection has its limits, though, as Strife Onizuka notes in this forum post:
Textures can be easily stolen [...] As long as images can be edited watermarks can be removed; no matter how good the watermarking scheme. Any watermarking scheme that LL defined, that definition could then be used to strip the watermark.What to do? To me, the problem isn't the textures, the data, or even the computers. The problem lies with the people and their behavior. If you really want people to stop stealing textures (or downloading music, to continue the comparison), you have to change their reasons for wanting to take them in the first place. Unfortunately, I don't know how that can be done -- it's no simple problem, or I suspect we'd have solved it already, and this discussion would be moot.
Do I think it's OK to steal textures? Hell no. I'd be angry if somebody stole my work and repackaged it as their own. Do I think I could really do anything about it, though? Nope, at least not as far as removing the illicit copies go. Once they're out there, they're out there. I'd probably come up with something new that would render the old designs obsolete, but that doesn't prevent the thief from stealing those textures as well.
What's the monetary value of something which requires lots of effort to produce the first time, but no effort to produce infinite copies?
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