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I missed Sarah Nerd's party due to people forcing me to drink a strange potion, this potion largely erased parts of my memory of last night's debauchery although I do recall turning the microwave on three times and three times witnessing the circuit box turning off my electric downstairs, this is when I realised it might be the microwave causing the problem.

What has this got to do with transferring assets I hear you cry, and the answer is nothing but I wanted to explain my absence was due to circumstances beyond my control!

Right, transferring assets, there's a bit of a hulabaloo about whether residents should be able to take their items to other grids, especially if the other grid doesn't respect permissions.

The crux of the matter seems to be based around perceptions of what an item is. Consumers (that's me) seem to think an item is something they themselves own. Content creators (that's the clever people) seem to think an item is licensed and that they themselves retain ownership.

I can foresee much gnashing of teeth over this issue if it ever becomes an issue. Consumers in most cases haven't ticked boxes on Eula agreements when purchasing items in Second Life and this is a very important issue in terms of ownership.

Linden Lab of course would appear to own everything, and we do click a tick box there to agree to terms of use, so in all reality the power is in their hands.

So where do we all stand? Do consumers believe or even realise that they only have a license to use a product? Do content creators make this abundantly clear? Are we all going to have to start ticking boxes everytime we buy an item, especially if the content creator wants to restrict use of that item on other grids and more to the point, are content creators offering refunds if consumers don't agree to such terms and conditions?

This issue has implications not just for inter-grid issues but for inworld issues too. Content creators need to ensure that their license to use it clearly understood by consumers, there's no point moaning about it after the event if creators find that they haven't done all they can to respect the usage of their items. These issues are developing now, people need to take note of what's happening.

On a side point, transfer permissions in Second Life, why are content creators so anti transfer? I can understand that they don't want to combine copy and transfer but so many items can't be transferred. When my inventory is getting full I have the delete option, but I'd prefer to be able to give the item to someone else. This does of course depend upon what the item is but in terms of most items, transfer should be an option.