R and D
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| screenshot Goggle |
I can't speak to the other platforms in the LL fold but let's look at Second Life. Like many grids following in its likeness it started out as a grid for creators. After eleven years there are plenty of consumers, and now after the advent of templates in all their various forms, workshop creators -- ones that take parts and pieces of readymade items and add their own textures and touches.
In many R and D real world companies employees are bound by a contract giving all their work to the company -- even work done at home on their own time having nothing to do with the company. I have never been part of that scene. In real life I was always an independent contractor and either did work for hire or had my own company. So for me, it was "contract or agreement, money down, work completed and delivered, it was all theirs". Honestly I would never work for a company who had a stringent "everything you think about is ours" work contract.
I had never thought about Second Life in this context before. There is still the possibility that part of The Lab's end game is to sell our items on the open market to other game developers. In my personal "it might work" scenario this would involve OPTING IN by the creators, much like our choice to opt into the Marketplace. The TOS that we already signed let's The Lab sell our products. While they might legally (still up to testing) be able to do it without recompense to the creators, I don't think they are willing to try that. Some recent unfair but signed TOS fiascoes have shown that isn't a smart move.
While the " you are not our employees" text was added to the TOS last summer (seemingly for tax purposes but who knows) we DO use their platform with little overhead to make money -- some of us anyway. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Time will tell the tale. Until then we can only wonder.
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