Art for art's sake

....Money for God's sake. I've long encouraged people to tip a couple of bob here and there for sims they believe in, recently Linden Lab blogged enthusiastically about the arts and I don't mind admitting that this has me concerned. I am really in a dilemna here because I completely and utterly believe in the arts, who doesn't want Grace McDunnough, Paisley Beebe, Tauri Tigerpaw and many others whom I've missed singing for them?

Grace sang at Robin Linden's leaving party, it was a superb performance, Grace has a fantastic voice and live events like this make Second Life a vibrant community. Crap Mariner, may be a rather outspoken proponent of the arts but Crap has long been beating the drum for better support of the arts and music in particular.

So this all seems positive, but, and it's a big but (and as I said earlier I don't like big buts) what about those of us already supporting the arts? On one sim I have two art galleries and a small live music venue. On another sim my residents do readings, they attract people to hear them talk, we're already supporting the arts.

My concern is that those of us who already support the arts will be trampled upon when Linden Lab roll their new Arts program out and that will be grossly unfair, we're already promoting these causes, we don't deserve to be swept aside, we don't deserve to be Gom'd.

We are already promoting the arts and I hope Linden Lab appreciate that and provide space for us in their new drive to promote the arts. We pay for this out of blood, sweat and tears, we pay full sim rates, I hope Linden Lab realise that many of us are already supporting the arts and don't try and sweep us aside, we have spent a lot of time and a lot of effort to help make Second Life a compelling experience, we deserve a little bit of respect an we most certainly don't deserve to be trampled upon.