I have felt for some time that both Jim and others use the "Artist" label to gloss over Jim's somewhat contradictory attitudes toward the Aquarium. Namely, that he has stressed a number of times that the purpose of the program is to make money, yet even when MANY of his customers express intrest in certain features, he avoids them as not corresponding with his vision of what the Aquarium should be.
I'm glad you are not involved in the decision-making process for the Lord of the Rings films. Otherwise they would have erased all the orcs from the story and put in the latest boy band song and a love story and turned Gollum into Frodo's pet.
Second, I don't see that Jim even has the right to keep people from altering their programs. People have referred to this as "keeping others away from his canvas" and "protecting the Mona Lisa from the spraypaint." Thing is, it stopped being HIS canvas as soon as he accepted my $19.99 for it. If I bought the Mona Lisa, or a copy of it, I could draw a mustache on it if that's what I wanted to do.
Legally, you are licensing the Aquarium from Jim. You do not own it. But, under fair use laws you could modify it for yourself. There are a lot of laws here, too much to explain in a single paragraph.
Morally, you're on your own.
Which is why I think we will see non-Jim-approved fish and features being circulated underground regardless. If the people want it badly enough, and Jim doesn't give it to them, someone else will. Happens to video games all the time.
So far, the only modifications to the Aquarium I have seen in public have been the Russian jacked versions which have translated dialog boxes and hideous fish, many of which are native Russian freshwater fish or monstrosities in the mind of the hacker. Who knows how much non-public underground stuff is going around.
More and more games are providing an opening where people can create their own characters, worlds, etc. Jim's reason for not opening up the Aquarium has been the integrity of the artwork, namely that in any open-ended situation, there is always 80-90% noise and 10% signal.
For every 1 character or world that is interesting and attractive, there are 10 created by someone who is just goofing around. And of those 10%, only 1-2% are in the same class as those created by the original developer. id Software is proof of that. They have been so impressed with some of the third-party worlds and characters that they have licensed them from fans and sold them in retail packages. The question is, is it worth opening the door for that 2%? I think so.
Also, there are websites that weed through the countless modifications and single out the best. I know if there WERE "legal" modifications, I would only list the very best of them (in my opinion) on my website.
As much as I talk about hoping the Aquarium will open up to outside development, I am not against the idea of only certain people having access to these tools. I don't think I say that out of selfishness. I think I say it because I fear what some people would add.