Texture War in SL and TRU...

Hi all,
in the last months there has been a lot of discussions in SL about Textures R' Us and their owners. TRU is one of the largest texture outlets in SL and people always thought it would be a good resource when shopping fo rtextures. I must admit until about 6 months ago I bought a lot of their packs as well. Why not, since TRU has "copyright by TRU" and all sorts of disclaimers all over the place, they must be legit or not?

Basically... they are not.
Established in 2004 LillyBeth Filth, one of the TRU owners, has been selling copyrighted material or google images slapping her copyright on them. A good sample would be the windows aquarium screensaver available at TRU with their (c) on it.

Earyl this year it was discovered that TRU was also selling textures from GFX CD's, from companies like ambient light, Marlin Studios ect. Since LillyBeth Filth is a small little woman she was quick to deal with the original copyright holder, now being somewhat licensed to sell their textures in SL. Though Marlin Studios has opened their own presence in SL a while ago.

Here is a link to a forum post on Xstreet SL to a ongoing discussion. I think it is a shame, once again, to see how people get away with content theft, IP violations and fraud in SL and Linden Lab's inability to act on such things. Reminds me of the Wolrd Stock Exchange in SL and Luke Connell making 10's of thousands of $ from it and still operating.

There is many great texture designers in SL, some of them selling their work at TRU, not knowing about the backround stories. One reason I post this, don't support this people. If you can, make your own textures. If you can't than take your time looking for the smaller stores around the grid. You be amazed by the quality of textures you can find from smaller designers... but at least it is their own work in many cases.

-Wise Capra