Tuesday's Musings - Cheap Copies

I see yet another well known creator is having problems recently with someone ripping off her ideas..not using copybot or any cheat script, simply taking an idea that someone else has thought of - and remaking it. Having been through this myself many times now (and still suffering it, all mainly due to one sad person who appears incapable of having any ideas of her own), I wonder what people's thoughts are on this. It's a controversial topic with varying opinions and many fine lines that can be crossed. I think there should be a clear difference for example, between someone making a tree (not easy to claim that idea as your own!), and someone making a tree that looks pretty damn identical to yours - or maybe using unique shapes or ideas that you have spent a good deal of time working on...it's not easy.Some people will simply claim (some with a good amount of viciousness that surprises me), its a free market and it's really no different than the cheap foreign goods that find their way into stores in bulk. Other's would say sure..but does that make it right? I think the sad thing about this situation is that SL has/had such great potential for design and creativity for anyone with any imagination at all - and this is slowly draining away as people simply lose the will to spend their time and effort making designs that they know will be copied almost as soon as they are on sale..and they can't do a thing about it. The streets of SL are not paved with gold as the media has allowed people to believe and I do blame this thoughtless press game for a lot of the rip-off merchants that have come here, realised you actually have to work bloody hard to make money here - and so decided to just take ideas and designs from other people, make some money and then vanish...only to start up under a new alt a couple of weeks later. I wonder....should these people be named and shamed? Should I, for example, start a section showing everyone just what people have copied from me? Then again maybe that will just give these people publicity...ah well, guess its never a subject that will have a happy ending - thoughts welcome if you feel like adding your own thoughts to this subject.