Aberree and sharee
Reviewing Alphia Hart's view of copyright, which was unique in 1954:

Copyrighting everything you write is a confession that you have little faith in your ability to continue producing salable stuff--and that there may come a time when you'll have to fall back on your own, protected material to make a living. When we can't produce new copy for The ABERREE, The ABERREE ceases to exist, because we're certain no one wants to read what we said yesterday and today tomorrow.

I reached a similar conclusion a long time ago in making courseware. The restrictions of 'digital rights' get stricter and more tangled every year, but they don't bother me because I have CONFIDENCE in my own ability to produce new images and animations.

Good example today. Part of the text needed an illustration but the appropriate figure isn't there in the materials that come with the text. Using someone else's illustration is theft, and under the newer stringency even copying my own previous finished product is "theft".

One alternative is to buy a commercially produced model which comes with all the required regulations and licensing. I checked Zygote.com, the default provider of anatomical models. They have the item I want, priced at

SIXTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS.

JESUS! Instant decision. I rolled my own. Just about done, and it turned out better than I expected; looks better than most of the illustrations, and it can be wiggled and adjusted, which the rigid $1600 model** can't do.

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Hart is speaking in terms of capital. You shouldn't steal someone else's work, and you shouldn't have to fall back on your own saved work either. The PURPOSE of having a talent and skills and tools is to MAKE.

Sharia is transcendently clear on this point. We are agents of God, here for the sole purpose of turning death to life, which means transforming chaos into order and beauty. The same rule applies to all forms of capital. Money, property, intellectual, and human. Don't hoard. Keep enough to get through droughts and bad times, but beyond that you must USE the capital to MAKE MORE LIFE.

Money should be used to employ workers. Property should be used to grow crops or build factories. Intellect should be used to invent. Human capital (families, employees, servants) shouldn't be kept around as ornaments to increase your status, but must be put to constructive use making more people and households and services and stuff.

This is the basis of the rule against interest. Paying interest on savings discourages creative use of capital, and charging interest on loans creates false "value" without creating any new order or life.

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** This is parallel to GenRad's pricing of acoustic measuring equipment. A simple sound level meter that would normally bring about $300 is priced at $3500. Medical graphics and sound meters are sometimes used by expert witnesses in a trial. When you buy them at these prices you're mainly paying a retainer to the company's lawyers to help you defend the accuracy of the product. And that's also why the $1600 model is rigid. Verifiable calibration.

Labels: Aberree, Metrology, Natural law = Sharia law, skill-estate

  ¶ 4:23 PM