Bullseye?

So I haven’t been blogging much, because when I have a quickie curse at the Endarkenment, it generally ends up on Facebook… which annoys my commie musician friends no end. But last week I blurted out something that seems to have made me Famous, with all the brightest lights of the wookiesphere reblogging and retweeting it. While one can always take pride in a well-turned phrase, I’m not all that thrilled…if it doesn’t get me shot some day, it will be because it got reattributed to P. J. O’Roarke or somebody.

Jake Kirner beclowns himself and the MPA

Today’s act of heavy-handed bureaucracy involves the semi-takedown of IMSLP, one of the chief sources of public-domain print music.

Dear sirs

We, the Music Publishers Association, take action to remove unlicensed
copyright material from infringing websites.

We understand that Godaddy are the sponsoring registrar for the website

http://www.IMSLP.ORG
which makes available unlicensed copyright protected sheet
music notation which is an infringement of copyright. By assisting this
website, Godaddy are liable to pay damages for secondary copyright
infringement once notice of the infringement has been given.

We therefore request that you withdraw from all associations you have
with
http://www.IMSLP.ORG
and retract their
domain name so that the website cannot be accessed.

An example of the infringing material on
http://www.IMSLP.ORG
is ‘The Bells’ by
Rachmaninov which can be reached via:

http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Bells,_Op.35_ … ff,_Sergei)
http://216.129.110.22/files/imglnks/usi … score_.pdf

This material is copyright protected in most counties including all
European countries and the USA.

Here are the registrant’s details to the best of our knowledge:

<snip>

We have good faith belief that use of the material in this manner is not
authorized by the copyright owner or the law.

The information in this notification is accurate and we confirm, under
penalty of perjury, that we are authorized to act on behalf of the
copyright owner of an exclusive right of that is infringed.

I would be grateful for your response detailing your undertakings by 3
May 2011.

Yours faithfully,

Jake Kirner
Printed Music Publishing Administrator
Music Publishers Association
6th Floor, British Music House, 26 Berners Street, London W1T 3LR
Direct Tel: +44 (0)20 7637 4052
Fax: +44 (0)20 7637 3929 (please confirm fax by sending me an email)
jkirner@mpaonline.org.uk <mailto:jkirner@mpaonline.org.uk>

http://www.mpaonline.org.uk
<http://www.mpaonline.org.uk/&gt;
the_MPA on twitter <http://twitter.com/the_MPA&gt;

So, of course GoDaddy did.
Now, here’s the problem as I see it: The IMSLP scan of the full score of the Rachmaninov is of the Boosey reprint of ca. 1947, not the original Gutheil of 1920. So, while the piece is incontrovertably PD in the US and Canada, the edition is apparently not PD. If they copied the Gutheil, or scanned the Boosey into Finale, they could tell Kirner to piss up a rope. Or rather GoDaddy could, who is the weak sister in this situation. As for as the law, it strikes me that MPA really doesn’t have standing here. They’re acting in a similar position to Righthaven here is the US, which does not own any copyrights itself.

Adding to the comedy, after IMSLP published Kirner’s letter and gave permission for others to do the same, Kirner issued a takedown notice…which is why you see it here on this blog. However, one must wonder if Boosey sent a cease-and-desist to IMSLP, and whether IMSLP published that as well.

The countersuit idea has merit. Even better would be to find some Gutheil parts, or copy parts from the Gutheil score, and offer them for download….which would hurt the B&H revenue stream a lot more.

I hate bullies.

Hey, Schmuck…

…Skank, Dingy Harry, YouDoll…

It’s not your  smart phone. I’ll load whatever effing app I want. Given your desire to know what citizens are doing, I see nothing wrong with citizens tracking where the po-po are, even for the fairly nefarious purpose of driving drunk. You want the stores to yank the apps? Fine…when the cops yank their radios. Sauce for the goose…

Working on a Net gang

My, Denninger’s on a roll today. He writes about a stupid and trivial-ass rule that his daughter’s school has in place, and invites his readers to make trouble over it.

Granted, it’s a stupid and trivial-ass rule. And calling in a gang of strangers for support is pretty much what they did when they called HIM to back up their silly rule with his daughter. But really, this is the sort of thing that cannot end well, for him and more particularly his daughter. And it avoids the main question: Karl, WTF do you still have a kid in public screwal?

Call me Spartacus

If you don’t know what that’s about, you haven’t been reading the Internet.

The wonders of technology

Now that we have broadband, I decided to take the plunge and get a Grace Solo wi-fi radio. No, I didn’t need it. But there’s no real estate on my desk for decent computer speakers, loading web pages is a PITA, and we wanted something that Rusty could also use.  So we went out last night, to Aldi and then to Sears, where the unit was unexpectedly $10 off, and then out to eat.

We were up until nearly midnight playing.  Once the unit is set up, it’s actually very easy to use. Finding all the best stations can be difficult, as they’re dependent on Grace’s Reciva technology. I did get WFMT set up as a feed, but not yet WCLV. A few of the stations on the Grace website turned out to be live365 stations, which apparently require a subscription rather than the free sign-up. Oh well…it’s not like there’s a dearth of things to listen to. Last night, after the Polish folk, Rusty suggested we check out Africa. Uganda was OK, but of the 5 channels in Zimbabwe, the only one we could get was playing American country music.  On Polka Legacy, we stumbled upon some New Years festivities from 1955/56, when Rusty was 6 weeks old and I was in utero. We had the Beck show on WTAM, and R. became terminally annoyed with Mike Trivisonno (not a hard thing I’ll admit). So I fixed it by getting a Columbus station instead. Right now she’s listening to a Native American station…which is starting to make me glad I’ll be leaving for Mass soon.

Anyway, there’ll be lots of good listening for 2011; I hope you have a good one!

I’m unimpressed

MerchantCircle, who took Bloglines over, has finally migrated the server. Unfortunately.

First they’ve given us a clunky clone of the Google newsreader, instead of the superior Bloglines system, which let you set preferences for each blog as you subscribed. You have to mark blogs as read or unread, rather than there being a default. And about half my blogs didn’t come over. Most were trapped and allowed to be added manually, but a few went missing entirely (Fr. Zuhlsdorf, where are you?) I lost all my pervious saved blog entries, except that we got the number of “new” entries you’ expect from a new subscription. In short, what I got was exactly what I got when I opened a Google Reader account (in preparation for Bloglines dying entirely)… so why should I use Bloglines rather than Google, except that Google is Evil and it’s bad enough that they know my work mail, let alone which blogs I read?

UPDATE 12/17: And this morning their server seems to be totally down. Heck of a job, MC!

WikiLeaks odds n ends

If Bradley Manning is found guilty, I think he should hang. That said, if these reports are correct, he is being treated in a way that would constitute abuse if done to an animal.

Meanwhile, Assange attempts massive principle FAIL, but the judge decides that the virtues of openness extend to his home address.

SuddenLink, my hero

For most of the past year, we’ve used Sprint 3G wireless. We’ve not been entirely happy with it. It’s not much faster than dialup, for 3x more. We were told that the fact that cell phone service sucks at our house had no relationship to 3G. That’s not true. And we were limited to 5G of download, with overages charged at a fairly stiff rate. One month we went over by about 3 G, and instead of being charged 60% more, we were charged over 3x as much. Why did we get it? Because nobody would sell us DSL or cable Internet. It was that or satellite, which had some of the same problems. We had all kinds of companies who claimed that they serviced our area, but when you got to the address, it was, “No, we can’t do you.” When pressed, they would give some technical answer about distances from boxes, which begged the question: why not our street? We could see cable stakes on the side roads of our block. And as the township goes, this is a fairly urban little patch, with minimal frontage.

Well, I’ve been the one to do the harassment, but since Rusty is unemployed, a Farmville addict, and thus has time and motivation, she decided to contact more people in the neighborhood. And she got to Jeff Wells, 2 doors down, who said, “I have Internet”. “Duh, with who?” Suddenlink, our cable TV provider. So she called them, and asked about service, and got the same runaround. “Uh, but you’ve got a customer 150 feet away from us.”  ”Er, um, we’ll send a tech out tomorrow.”

Which is how we find ourselves with 6 mps unlimited Internet. It’s faster than work… tested at 6.43 mps this morning as opposed to 4.74 on the work machine (same kind of imac). I haven’t had the time to test it much…I did system updating last night and played with Internet radio this AM, both things I could never do before. And I had to go out and buy a wireless router so Rusty could play (the cable modem comes in at my desk), and we wanted fast, so it wasn’t cheap…even though Micro Center was having a sale. And I’ll probably have to pay through the nose to get out of my Sprint contract.

Here are the villians:

Sprint: for selling a lousy product

Verizon, and their successor Frontier, our local phone co., for not selling anything at all.

ATT, ditto

CenturyTel I can’t really diss, because they never pretended to sell to us. But they serve a guy a mile down our road, across the county line, so they could have served us.

And last but not least: SuddenLink. Yes, they just gave us this beautiful connection, which I am duly grateful for. But they wouldn’t until I had spent big money on a Sprint wireless modem. They haven’t given us any paperwork about our account…all we know is what it will cost us. No instructions, features, etc. I suppose that’s all online.  But what kind of an industry is it where you have to beg and grovel to be their customer? We’ve been trying to get broadband for 4 years. Where were they?

WJB III wins friends and influences people, chapter 97403

Facebook is a wonderful thing; it causes friends of a mutual friend to meet each other, sometimes at high velocity without seatbelts.

Sorry, [redacted], you can’t do that [because I unfriended him first -JAQ]

Hey, if it had been me on your thread beating on your friends, you’d be within your rights. But you came onto my thread, looking for a challenge, and a challenge found you. You might turn a search engine to “Billy Beck” some day; you’ve encountered an Internet legend. I’m not inclined toward censorship, or flushing things down the memory hole. And you’ve shown yourself to be allied to those who are so inclined.  It’s probably best that we don’t interact politically.

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 5:17 PM, [redacted] wrote:

Jeff:
I don’t need insults from some two-bit whack-job on Face-Book. You will delete the string that he and I have gotten into or you will be “de-friended”.

I respect you as a fellow musician in this town, and although I might disagree with your political views, I have until now, understood these views, as mistakened as they may be. You have been at least civil, but to endorse your buddy today negates that perception.

I will not tolerate being called a “commie” by some punk who doesn’t even know who I am.  I’m fucking serious.

Thanking you in advance for your time and consideration, I remain-

Very Truly Yours,

A damned shame… a decent chap overall, and an excellent tenor. But really, what did he expect, and what did he think I was made of? He’s not the first person I’ve blown off when they commanded me to change a Net post.

And remember, those “commies” own us already, as China holds most of our debt.

Billy Beck: Hokay, then. You’re all set. Good luck.

That was the place where a wise man would have stopped.

UPDATE:  [redacted] wanted to make nice, asked me to lunch to talk. And hey, I was cool with that; I was really not upset with the guy at all. But then he called me back, saying “I’ve got a lot of musical contacts in this town; I’ve gotten a program or two cancelled.” and talking all worried that “that nutjob” was going to show up to lunch. I’m seeing a guy go into full meltdown over a stranger on the Internet calling him a “Commie”….act as if he were being bullied, and respond by bullying himself. I’m sorry, but that’s not psychological health. And I’ve really got to worry about this guy…for his sake and for mine.

I’m putting this out there so that, if I end up dead in an alley somewhere, y’all can have the cops subpoena my Facebook account.