Content Theft

There is absolutely nothing I can do about content theft except to remind you that no matter what monetary gain or small virtual popularity someone else's content that you've stolen may bring you, it will never change the fact that you yourself were not talented enough, or original enough to express yourself and your ideas through a medium that offers virtually limitless possibilities. ~ To believe that you have nothing to say is one thing, but to actually use someone else's creative expression to prove that fact to everyone else is something quite sadder than the theft itself.
If you actually go so far as to try and pass someone else's work off as your own by selling, to me it's like announcing to the Virtual world that you not only didn't make that object, texture, etc, but you do not have the skill to update the ripped product either. Just imagine how completely stupid you'll feel when you get caught doing it.

Second life is a small piece of my imagination, and what exists here in this sim, whatever object, texture, etc, whether it be by my hand or another's was done so through original thought and personal perspective. It is my sincere hope that it inspires you in some way to create your own content, and hopefully, come to understand and respect the real joy such projects can bring you!

~Aire Xaris
                                                      Submitted for your consideration

I don't think there is a worse disservice that you can do to yourself as an artist or even as a person purporting to be one than to plagiarize from another. It's happened to me a few times and I've never filed a DMCA notice, I instead opted to give the person a chance to take the stuff back into their inventory and apologize. I was successful on two occasions at convincing those involved that it is just not worth their account and actually felt more embarrassed by having to have to point out to them that they were missing the point of the whole amazing box of digital crayons that Philip Rosedale left for us to play with.

I wrote this notecard almost a decade ago, which to me, means that I was probably producing some pretty rudimentary or what would honestly be considered by community standards to be utter, crap, at the time. Obviously not to the people who ripped my textures, but at any rate, not worth the trouble or the embarrassment.
It goes deeper than that though, In the sense that you hurt yourself way more than you will ever hurt the person that you stole from. You have to live with yourself. I can't imagine what it feels like to be given praise for something you absolutely know you didn't create and I would imagine there's no worse feeling in the world than having to expound upon that piece or say be given an advancement only to have to go back to that client with something obviously inferior to your alleged original___

It's the very purpose of a portfolio, every artist knows that the sketch itself may be shit, but there's originality a purity to it, the very genus of technique is on that newsprint or matchbook cover/ cocktail napkin...etc.
I won't take this post down, I'll leave it here as a reminder to whoever is thinking that "sampling" is ok.
It isn't and if you're doing it, you need to reevaluate your own worth or skills. You're missing the whole point of creation and you're actually stopping yourself from possibly creating something even more beautiful.
Give yourself a chance, allow yourself to fail at something, and then fail at something and then do it again, because that's what the original artist did.
It's in the multitude of crumpled up pieces of paper that we find the purest of ideas, so don't throw yourself away yet ;) And for Fuck's sake, leave my stuff alone.