The musical score analogy is interesting, but that's already the way
it *could* work (and sometimes does): using a diagram one has
purchased to make money could, as many advocate here, be subject to
payment for those "performance" rights as one does with musical
scores.
That is: if one accepts that premise. Maybe origami is more akin to
recipes, though.
I think that one big difference here is that it is a lot easier to
improvise (some
fairly serious changes to) recipes than it is to improvise sufficient
changes to
origami diagrams. I've done this lots and lots of times with recipes: I
read a recipe
and take inspiration. I very rarely construct a recipe as written
(unless it is for a
cake or something like that).
I've done it twice or more, but not much more, with origami "recipes".
And the
results are far more different than my tweaks of recipes, even though my
tweaks
to recipes may include switching out ingredients, changing relative
quantities,
cooking temperatures, techniques.
Anyway, I'm not sure that I think that a parallel to recipes will work.
Best,
Neil
