Re: License Islamic Holy material

["Meor Ridzuan Meor Yahaya" <meor dot ridzuan at gmail dot com>]

Salam to all,

Disclaimer : I'm neither a laywer nor an expert in this subject. It is
just my view on the subject matter.

When it comes to intellectual properties, not many people really
understand the issues. There are several things we need to consider
before we make our decision. Further, laws and regulation pretty much
depending on individual country.

Before I state my opinion on the subject, lets take an anology. Let's
take the Great Wall of China. In nature, it is a physical structure
contructed long time ago. Now, Mr A went to China, take a picture of
the Great Wall. Mr B went with him, but he made a drawing of it.

Now, Mr A and Mr B effort, as far as I know, is be protected under
most copyright law. Probably you already know, you cannot simply take
someone else picture from their website and  put it at your site,
simply because you say that it is common (like the Great Wall of
China). The law does not protect "The Great Wall of China", but their
works on it.

So, by taking that analogy, I think we can apply the same concept. We
all know, no one person (not a person, so to say) is the author of The
Quran. However, we need to respect the effort of others on it. As
someone already mention, The Quran is that, recitation. What we have,
the mushaf, or the written representation of it, is the result of an
effort by someone, and their work deserved to be protected by most
countries law. Similarly, the electronic text is also a result from
someone's effort, thus, it can be protected under the laws. It is not
"The Quran" so to say, it is the representation of it.

There can be many types/medium of representation. The problem we have
is to maintain it's integrity, and to have a correct license is a
start (it won't solve all of the problem) And when it comes to
electronic medium, we have big problem if we want to talk about
certification/verification. It is not easy.As far as I know, the very
few Islamic bodies who does the certification, only do for Visual
certification. To maintain visually equivalant for electronic medium,
especially for arabic, is not easy at all.

That's all I want to say for now. I'm sure other's have different
views, so let's share.

Regards.