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as brian mentioned, this hasn't been slated to be in any book, this is a user submitted "hack". we are working on a second life hacks book, but i don't think this would make it in there, more so after some very important issues have been raised.
first, a few examples of the tool being used for non-infringing mentioned here:
1. getting textures you've uploaded and lost the source for.
2. adding lighting to public domain textures.
3. learning how other textures are made.
4. grabbing data from other games and applications (game levels/mods you've designed yourself, public domain 3d games, games produced under applicable creative commons licenses, screensavers, and so forth.
i think it's an interesting application, that being said - i'm in the same boat as everyone else. we have a virtual edition of MAKE magazine (published by oreilly) in world, someone could use this tool to grab the pages and make their own, sell it, or just give it away. the second life hacks book will also be in world.
what i'm interested in (now) is figuring out as a community what we can do. are there changes to the client linden can make? can we develop a list of people/places that steal textures? there really isn't a way to stop the capture of data to video cards, so this is something all content makers and applications developers will need to be aware of.
i don't think -because- a tool -could- be used to do something illegal we should ignore it and hope it goes away. i need to see if there are ways to protect our content. watermarks aren't exactly a solution, but for some things i might consider that.
screenshots, viewing source, grabbing 3d data from games to make real world sculptures, grabbing textures - some of these are old issues we've all had to deal with, some new.
i'm torrone trumbo in world / phillip torrone associate editor of make and an editor on second life hacks (pt@makezine.com) feel free to email or chat any time.
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