Question about copyrights, etc.

Excellent point, well stated.

I own a Martin in RL. Buying a "Martin" in SL tells me nothing about the quality of the SL instrument. Contrariwise, if I see a "Cubey Terra" logo on an SL object, I know that it will be extremely well crafted as all his products were (are?).

I just picked Cubey as an example of a fine craftsman, many others exist.

The image is tiny texture mapped suit. The avatar and clothing is entirely under 0.060m in textured prims of under 13 prims or so each. The suit in middle I borrowed peices and painted over.
The tree in distance I created. I have have it in magnolia blooms I may have totally redo it because the alpha part I notice has specks in it. That was traced image.
The orginal was from googled site it doesn't look the orgnial
could find orginal site image but it orginally looked similar to the ones here
http://www.hickeyfreeman.com/website/dept.asp?s_id=1&dept_id=4130
This another collaged image it suppose to be of underground world that has island in catacomb cavern like enviroment.

I couldn't find the orginal site though
The orginal was tropically grassy look scene like a island looking over water and distant mountains.
Ideally I would prefer to create everything I make without violating any copyright law but it does make it very challenging when so many things seem to be borrowed be it music or digital art, even most of fashions here in SL seem to be borrowed from someone else.
I don't sell my work I do it for fun but it does help to know that creating ethically but its hard sometimes to do.
Thanks Lear for asking your Father. I sure in heck can't afford at this point to talk to a patent attorney.