George Brock-Nannestad <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>> Anybody who really needed the access and who was not diligent enough
>> to take what they needed while it was there, has shown too much trust.
>> Those who skipped their bound paper volumes of the Gramophone showed too much trust.

From: Clark Johnsen <[log in to unmask]>
> George, your note sent shivvers down my spine.
> So now... we're back to books!  clark

I think Sir Compton is rolling around in frustration at what seems to be
a thoroughly inept management at his beloved institution.  Is there
something about British Management Techniques that reminded me of BP
Oil's Tony Hayward while reading the inept and mystifying postings of
The Gramophone's Online Editor Martin Cullingford and Tech Dept Head
John Duncan who do not seem to have a clue as to how to handle public
comments.  Grant it, eleven people didn't die when Haymarket Consumer
Media seemingly blew up, and although the results have been annoying to
us, our way of life has not been destroyed like has happened to tens of
thousands of people and wildlife in the Gulf.  I was able to live
without access to the archive of The Gramophone before, and although the
loss of it has dashed the hopes of my writing a couple of specific
articles that might have entertained ARSC Journal readers or even
readers of The Gramophone (if the editors have ANY sense of history), I
can live without it and go on ignoring that journal like most of us
always have.      

> There does not seem to be a very good reason, but try to see
> http://www.gramophone.co.uk/forum/about-the-site/view-as-pdf-not-working

Reading this is chilling.  Again copyright holders are the villains.  As
one who was not much interested in the issues newer than 1960 and really
was interested mainly in the 1920s thru the war years, what in blazes
IMAGE rights problems do they have in these older issues?????  There are
practically no images here.  Trademarks???  Is THAT it?  I would think
that with the CD industry almost dead (and I find it hard to figure out
how it can continue to support The Gramophone with advertising now) that
the trademark holders would LOVE to have their trademarks paraded in
front of the public in any way possible!  And that really should hold
true for even the current advertisers.  They should love CIRCULATION
INCREASE.  After all, it is FREE!!!!!!  If they pay maybe 5000 Euros for
an ad and this enables MORE people to see it, WOW!!!  WHOOPIE!!  

So what is it?  Photographers?   If the photos are publicity photos for
the labels or artists, they usually are printed for publicity and
increased publicity is a gain.  If they were purchased photos, when do
the copyrights run out on the old stuff so we can get those issues back?
 Could it be their writers?  If so, a correctable OCR screws the writers
even more than does the .pdf.  

This makes no sense, and Cullingford and Duncan are making themselves
look silly.  They keep changing the reasons why it was done, and go for
long times without addressing the issues.  This has been going on since
May and still in November their instructions still say: "Go to My
Archive -- View the items you've bookmarked, download PDF version of
pages and view the latest issue online if you're a subscriber." There's
no PDF downloads, and they were disabled in May.


> ----- there is no way. It was too good to be true. 
> From this and other experiences I have learnt to grab what there is
> while it is there. Do you really think that Billboard will stay up?
> Do your research on it as a first priority.  Kind regards, George

I have been mystified as to why Billboard is on-line.  I assumed that
The Gramophone wanted people to know they were out there, and that is
why they did it themselves, but Google is doing Billboard.  What's in it
for Billboard?  

Mike Biel  [log in to unmask]