Scoiltrad

[David Levine]

I doubt very much that "Peggy" has lived in or spent much time in Ireland. Federal employees in Ireland, as in the US, are a mixed bag. Some are good and caring and some are not.
But no federal employee from Ireland, not a single one, drops bombs on foreign countries to protect the assets of the rich people of their country. They don't make war on other countries. The Irish don't kill so that they can have cheap oil and gasoline. They haven't the history of racial discrimination that still exists in this country.
In Ireland there isn't the manic Christian right-wing that exists in this country. They don't have disproportionatly huge numbers of minorities on death rows. They don't kill people in the name of the state.
In the absence of our revered AndrewK I feel compelled to point out that American Peggy brags a bit too much and to naively of her own altruism and those of her fellow workers.

[bradhurley]

But no federal employee from Ireland, not a single one, drops bombs on foreign countries to protect the assets of the rich people of their country. They don't make war on other countries. The Irish don't kill so that they can have cheap oil and gasoline. They haven't the history of racial discrimination that still exists in this country.

Well now, hold on there David: there's a big difference between elected/appointed political officials and civil servants.

I know lots of federal employees who are ashamed of America's political/public face, and who couldn't agree more with your political view. These are public servants who have worked for the government for years, through changes in administrations and regimes. Just because someone works for the federal government doesn't mean they agree with the current administration's policies. I know you know that, but I think the issue at hand is more specifically the level of "helpfulness" that Peggy encountered in dealing with a few civil servants in Ireland versus her standard of "helpfulness" as a civil servant in the United States.

The few civil servants I've dealt with in Ireland have been for the most part helpful and courteous, so I can only assume Peggy just had bad luck and happened to end up dealing with people who didn't care enough to do a good job. We get plenty of those in America too.

[David Levine]

Well Brad,
It would of course be as wrong to brand all US feds as the dupes of the current right-wing administration as it is for Peggy to criticize all Irish civil servants as uncaring and unhelpful.
The real issue is Peggy's personalization of individual helpfulness as opposed to government mandated murder. The personal vs the political if you will. Peggy's self-professed benevolence, coupled with her critique of Irish beaurocracy, smacks of flag-waving.
Peggy's view is too personal to be very relevant in the larger context, which is the point that poor Andrew continually made. Here we have kind, good Peggy, helping people in Walmart, and on the one hand, Lynndie England doing mischief in Abu Ghraib. Peggy helps on a personal level; Lynndie is the representative of Fortress Amerika. Americans tend to overlook the larger political context and, in their focus on the intensely personal, lose sight of the global picture.

[ChrisA]

Yes, that's what I was talking about, of course.

I don't know what status they would have. If the authors cannot be located, then are they orphans?

Copyright is still in effect, and will be for at least the next 90 years. Even if nobody is
producing the work, supporting the work, or seeming to even acknowledge that they
own the work, the copyrightholder can still enforce its rights whenever they so choose.
If you exchange the files privately, I believe your liability is limited to a few hundred dollars
in fines. If you post them on a public server (such as a web page), your liability is in the
tens of thousands of dollars or more plus jail time. Search the news for 'RIAA lawsuit' to
see how this works.

There is currently no legal provision for orphaned works. They must be treated as fully
protected, or risk the consequences if someone later makes a claim to own the works.
This is why many movies and audio recordings are simply decaying - nobody can restore
them without risking a lawsuit.

Chances are that someone will end up technically holding the copyright, though they may
not even be aware of it, but I expect the 'remaining assets' of a company in liquidation
will be given to one or another of the company's creditors, or perhaps merely be held
in escrow by the government. Under what conditions that 'intellectual property' could
be reclaimed and enforced at a later date, I don't know. There is, however, no legal provision
for copyright to vanish, no matter how absurd or tragic or unfair the consequences.

IANALATINLAIYRLAYSCWAA.

--Chris

[dlambert]

My God you're an arrogant asshole David. Did anyone ask for your heaping helping of BS this morning?

[ChrisA]

Geez, David, lay off already. Peggy criticisms were specific to particular employees of
two agencies in County Cork being unhelpful and discourteous, not of the Irish people
or the Irish government in their whole, and her boasting was about her self and the
co-workers in her office, not about the United States as a whole. At most, her words
can be taken to be a criticism of the government of County Cork as whole.

America's foreign policy has -nothing- to do with this exchange, unless, like you, the
county employees were blaming Peggy for all the evils that America has to offer.
I really don't see that the decisions of Mr. Bush and the Pentagon should have anything
whatsoever to do with Peggy's exchange. Certainly there are greater evils in the world
than a discourteous civil servant, but in that sense, the war in Iraq has exactly as much
to do with this exchange as the murder rate in New York City.

If you want to personally insult and attack Peggy, just bite your tongue and let it go.
If you want to lambast American Foreign Policy, take it to the pub.

--Chris

[I.D.10-t]

There is, however, no legal provision for copyright to vanish, no matter how absurd or tragic or unfair the consequences.

That is why I like certain contracts like GNU Free Documentation License that Wikipedia* use and or even works that put themselves into the Public domain after distribution stops (Some artists like to have this written into a contract to make sure that their work is not killed by the publisher). It is , after all, a contract.

* this which would also be a great place to start an online flute tutorial if you felt like it if you have your OWN experiences to contribute.

[Cynth]

I think Peggy happens to work in an office of people who are probably a bit more helpful than the average---from what she says. And she contacted an office of people who were probably a bit less helpful than average---from what she says. It is true, in my experience, that different offices do have different collective attitudes.

Peggy stated her opinion about the people who had not been helpful to her and contrasted their behavior to her office. I didn't feel that she was generalizing to all Irish offices or to all American offices. We often express personal opinions on this forum.

None of the workers in any of the offices, other than voting, has anything to do with the actions of their government and many of them are, no doubt, horrified by these actions.

It is interesting to watch these arguments develop as I believe they show how wars do come about. Someone says something, it is interpreted in a number of ways, people attach events and beliefs and angers from their own lives to the comments as they are passed along, others feel called upon to mount a defense, and soon it is one country against another.

[Dale]

America's foreign policy has -nothing- to do with this exchange, unless, like you, the
county employees were blaming Peggy for all the evils that America has to offer.

I must say I agree wholeheartedly. The injection of a foreign policy discussion into this thread is unfair.

[Mr.Nate]

Ok, so let's trade a few tunes!!

[Whistlin'Dixie]

Does anyone have Maid in the Cherry Tree?

[greenspiderweb]

DaleWisely wrote:
ChrisA wrote:


America's foreign policy has -nothing- to do with this exchange, unless, like you, the
county employees were blaming Peggy for all the evils that America has to offer.


I must say I agree wholeheartedly. The injection of a foreign policy discussion into this thread is unfair.

I think this line from David Levine's post explains why he surmounted his attack:
Quote:
In the absence of our revered AndrewK I feel compelled to point out...


Too bad our music forum has to be dragged into the political agenda of a couple of people who don't know where to post thier largely negative political attitudes except here. Run for office, for crying out loud, or write a book. Or post in the right forum.

[MarcusR]

Based on this and the previous scoiltrad discussions and the sparse replies by Conal, my understanding is that he had the ambition to set things straight so that people at least would get what they paid for. Not having the legal rights to the material made that impossible. So the way I see it, we are actually doing Conal a favor by sharing the scoiltrad tunes.

First, it is illegal to share copyrighted materials no matter in what way it is being done. Everyone participating in a tune swap should know that. However, there exist tools so that files can be shared without the need for anyone to host the complete content and thereby reducing the risk of any legal action. I also believe that a handful of session tunes would get very little attention from anti-piracy agencies like BSA.

I think it is important that any discussion about sharing copyrighted materials or offers of tune swapping should be moved out of C&F.
It’s is much better to set up an e-mail list where all of us that are willing to share (or just leech) can join. Those who oppose file sharing or tune swapping can just stay out.

Cheers!

/MarcusR

[I.D.10-t]

First, it is illegal to share copyrighted materials no matter in what way it is being done. I also believe that a handful of session tunes would get very little attention from anti-piracy agencies like BSA.

I think it is important that any discussion about sharing copyrighted materials or offers of tune swapping should be moved out of C&F.
It’s is much better to set up an e-mail list where all of us that are willing to share (or just leech) can join. Those who oppose file sharing or tune swapping can just stay out.

This is really OT and I should not reply.

It was legal to share “mixed tapes” of music you owned if it was not for profit. It is only because “digital copies” make copies too good, that they became illegal.

The BSA (I assume you do not mean the merit badge that the Boy Scouts of America offer in intellectual property rights) is mostly concerned about “software piracy” and therefore not as concerned as the RIAA/MIAA.

[sturob]

With all due respect to all involved (including David, with whom I have sort of refrained from talking politics) . . .

It's all well and good to imply that the Irish are on some kind of moral high ground because Amerika (sic) is busy bullying other nations, blowing up innocents, yada yada.

American interests own, what is it, 70% of the privately-held businesses in Ireland? I've heard stats from a low of 60% to a high of 80%. But it's a lot.

Where's that moral high ground? It's OK to benefit from our money?

Stuart