your premise is an utterly baffling surprise.

because it kind of suggests that digital data is not owned by its owners if it's stored in someone else's facility. That runs counter to pretty near everyone's commonsense understanding of

bank accounts, file storage, ebooks, etc. etc. so I think you do need to back up and explain that position thoroughly.

I think a book is the perfect example. I own a book, it is in my possession, I can destroy, sell, gift, or modify it, but I do not own its contents, which are the IP of the author.

I'd dispute the contents part but that's not the question so much as: don't you still own the book if you place it in a rented storage locker?

the sticky point I see here with the assumption that LL can just arrogate ownership of everything is that transactions for goods in SL happen between users, not with LL.

I just read your additional comment, could you point to this "necessary legal standard" that gives them ownership of assets they never purchased?

it would seem to upend the whole basis for just about every form of internet commerce if people relinquish all their personal property rights simply by uploading data to servers handling the transactions.

re-reading the ToS was fun, realizing I'm now knowingly participating in falsehoods. (i.e. that sales in SL are not sales, that the currency is not currency).

I know, right? That's why the concept of users "owning" stuff got progressively excised from the ToS and Web-site and public statements.

The Lab got taken to court (more than once) on the basis that claims that Linden Lab didn't own it all was misrepresentation. They got screwed badly on that.

AnandaS: Also, sorry for the long delay there.

Remember that when you upload content to SL you are not (say) "placing a book in a storage locker", you're requesting that the Lab's servers publish a book, with your words in it.

The "asset" (ie: the book) is theirs, and they've been clear on that for some time now. But in order to display the asset, make copies for the inventory of others, etc - requires copyrights.

And that's the annoying rub.

ah, I see someone posted a lawsuit about what you're referring to... I must say, the ToS is still not clear about this. I may not know enough legalese to recognize "we own all your stuffs" though.

that they could change the grounds for this after-the-fact sounds like a good basis for a much larger class-action suit, frankly. In one swoop capturing $100s of millions of other people's things? yeah.