Most OAR makers do not use their own creations. "Most" use some of their own creations and then they add things they have found free and full perms around the open grids like OSGrid. They figure because it's free and full perms that it's OK to re-distribute. It is not.
The ONLY way for someone to insure that everything they put on a sim is OK to re-distribute is to do as I do and make every single texture, sculptmap, prim, terrain themselves from start to finish.
Many people use my creations on their OAR's and they can always point back to my website licensing and say "this is where I got it and I have permission to use it" And they can be safe that way.
But there is no way at all for a grid owner to know what is legit and what is not. Any closed-commercial grid that brings in an OAR for someone is insane. It is the job of the closed-commercial grid owner to make things as secure as possible and do everything in their power to not tarnish the name of their grid/business.
Apparently this is a topic that just never changes. This article was written in aug. 2010 and we are still debating this.
Han Held, I am so upset to see you post this:
"I see two problems here. One is that you're spreading FUD that damages
opensim far more by painting all oar makers as thieves. That's
offensive, and it would be better *for opensim* if you were more careful
and more accurate in your allegations."
I think it's offensive for people to be upset that a closed-commercial grid wants to stay closed and protect their content creators.
I can go to "almost" any region on an Open grid (meaning open to hypergrid) and find at least one thing that is stolen. But that doesn't mean that the region owner stole it.
So unless you can say that the OARs that you make are made with your own textures that you made with your own hands from scratch or you can point to the licensing for every texture that says you are allowed to re-distribute then you just don't know. You can't say for sure that you aren't putting something on your OAR's that are stolen unless you can account for "everything".
I have a wonderful friend that had OARs out. I found out that one one of them she had some plants that were some of the Heart Garden Center plants. She had no idea. She found them on OSGrid free to copy and full perms and assumed that since they were given away free and full perms all over the open metaverse that it was OK for her to give out with her OARs. When I told her about it she took her OARs down and intends on redoing them and excluding anything that she is not sure of. This person is a honest person and had no intention of distributing stolen merchandise.
I just don't get why people want to jump on anyone that wants to have things legal. That is not taking away your freedom. Nobody has the freedom to steal or use stolen items.