My System Featured in Latest HiFi+ (Issue 91)

[NorthStar]

Bob,

Although the "fair use" allows some exceptions of the copyright, we are addressing very recent material, just released and available for sale. Posting or sending it will surely have directly an Effect upon work's value - we should avoid posting pictures or direct transcriptions of it.

We should also consider that the situation is much more sensitive as the author is one of our distinct members!

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

-----I already got that. I understand very well, and was not trying to be an "outlaw".
My first post in this thread was purely 'humoristic'. :b ...And I am glad because Bill just gave us the full scoop, and which I respect 100%. :b

_________________________

P.S. Andre, I just read your post after I posted mine.
Very good question; and we can talk a lot about this...
Methinks that laws should be constantly readjusted with the new world we live in, and not based on the old world.

No one is going to suffer...

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

The sad reality IMO is that CR Law is not written with the consumers best interests at heart. It is there to protect corporate investment and to give those corporations a means to unrealistically limit access, unless you pay their price. CR Laws and Patent Laws have become a joke, and sadly our politicians don't have the backbone to stand up to the corporate world.

 

[Andre Marc]

The sad reality IMO is that CR Law is not written with the consumers best interests at heart. It is there to protect corporate investment and to give those corporations a means to unrealistically limit access, unless you pay their price. CR Laws and Patent Laws have become a joke, and sadly our politicians don't have the backbone to stand up to the corporate world.

I totally agree...don't get me started!

 

[cjfrbw]

I suppose it doesn't make sense until you become a creative person, and put blood, sweat, tears, time and a lot of money into a work product, only to have it disseminated at profit or free by somebody else without even accreditation to you and leaving you no recourse.

Maybe one those little things that distinguish critics from the creators.

Patent and copyright laws are necessary to prevent theft of invention and creative content, you have to accept that it as the lesser of evils whether you like it or not (said by one guilty repetitively and habitually of the crimes).

 

[MrAcoustat]

---John, I'm not a law expert; I'm just an audio guy. :b

Neither am i, but laws are made to be broken, lawyers do it all the time, but they have a licence to do so.

 

[Andre Marc]

I suppose it doesn't make sense until you become a creative person, and put blood, sweat, tears, time and a lot of money into a work product, only to have it disseminated at profit or free by somebody else without even accreditation to you and leaving you no recourse.

Maybe one those little things that distinguish critics from the creators.

Patent and copyright laws are necessary to prevent theft of invention and creative content, you have to accept that it as the lesser of evils whether you like it or not (said by one guilty repetitively and habitually of the crimes).

Sounds a bit pious to me....

No one has said the laws are not needed. But they are so sweeping in scope as to be absurd.

I have nothing to be ashamed of myself..I have CD collection of more than 5000 discs, hundreds of paid downloads, and prior to that a huge LP collection. I subscribe to a dozen print magazines, and I purchase books
I want to read.

Stereophile has no problem putting up every single column and review, with graphics, online (at NO charge) that has appeared in print..dating back decades.

 

[Andre Marc]

Neither am i, but laws are made to be broken, lawyers do it all the time, but they have a licence to do so.

It is not IF you break the law, but WHO breaks the law.

HP, Halliburton, and many others brazenly broke the law by doing business directly with enemies of the state. The government turned the other way.

 

[MrAcoustat]

It is not IF you break the law, but WHO breaks the law.

HP, Halliburton, and many others brazenly broke the law by doing business directly with enemies of the state. The government turned the other way.

Agree 100%, there are two kinds of justice and this will NEVER change, one for the rich and one for the REGULAR FOLKS.

 

[NorthStar]

---Anyway Bill I'm going to see that review (article) about your system because I'm a sucker for hi>fi+ :b ...And since their very first issue (Issue 1).

* Lots of music I bought (and still buy) is because of their Record Reviews (Music Review) section at the end. ...Very seldom I have been disappointed, and for me it is money well (Best) invested. :b

 

[Bill Hart]

No need to apologize..this is very helpful! I think if people KNOW the law, it kind of prevents any problems.

Honestly, I learned the specifics of the how the law is applied.

Another issue, which has nothing to do with legality...is who is really harmed?
(This is a philosophical question, with no real answer..but what the hell!)

I gave up on on HiFi+ a few years ago. At over 10 bucks an issue it just not worth it to me.

I guess what I am saying is that if you indeed hypothetically wanted to break the law and post a scan of any article contained in a recent issue,
you would not technically be causing HiFi+ to lose income..since I ain't paying for a PDF or an hard copy issue under any circumstances anyway.

The last issue I bought was at an airport in Beijing...bored and needed something to read.

On the issue of potential harm, Andre, let's say someone wanted to read the review of a particular new piece of gear contained in a magazine. Posting that review on the Net without authority could well deprive the publisher of the revenue from the sale of an authorized copy. You can get into issues about whether the individual reviews should be made available separately for purchase (same argument that used to be made about why file sharing of individual songs seemed 'OK' to a lot of consumers because they didn't want to pay for the whole album), but that doesn't change the analysis. Or whether, after a certain period of time, reviews should be made available without charge on the Net. But, ultimately, it really is up to each copyright owner as to when, where and how they make their content available, coupled in many cases with advertising from which the rights owner, not third parties, derive the revenue.
I don't really want to engage in a debate about the copyright law here. There are a lot of places to do that. Nor do I want to pretend I'm the last word on the subject. But, once I'm in Austin, if anybody here wants to audit my class (or participate in some of the initiatives I hope to get going for the creative community there), I'll be happy to try and arrange that. And we can discuss 'til the steers come home.

 

[audioguy]

* Lots of music I bought (and still buy) is because of their Record Reviews (Music Review) section at the end. ...Very seldom I have been disappointed, and for me it is money well (Best) invested. :b

Agreed.

I was an early subscriber to that magazine but they did/(do?) a poor job of reminding you when your subscription is running out, so mine did and I re-subscribed and the same thing happened. So I gave up. An iPad app might work for me though - or not !!

 

[Andre Marc]

On the issue of potential harm, Andre, let's say someone wanted to read the review of a particular new piece of gear contained in a magazine. Posting that review on the Net without authority could well deprive the publisher of the revenue from the sale of an authorized copy. You can get into issues about whether the individual reviews should be made available separately for purchase (same argument that used to be made about why file sharing of individual songs seemed 'OK' to a lot of consumers because they didn't want to pay for the whole album), but that doesn't change the analysis. Or whether, after a certain period of time, reviews should be made available without charge on the Net. But, ultimately, it really is up to each copyright owner as to when, where and how they make their content available, coupled in many cases with advertising from which the rights owner, not third parties, derive the revenue.
I don't really want to engage in a debate about the copyright law here. There are a lot of places to do that. Nor do I want to pretend I'm the last word on the subject. But, once I'm in Austin, if anybody here wants to audit my class (or participate in some of the initiatives I hope to get going for the creative community there), I'll be happy to try and arrange that. And we can discuss 'til the steers come home.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating any sort of piracy and I respect the laws that govern intellectual property.

And yep, it will certainly grow tedious debating CR law here, even with an expert such as your self..you are too modest.

One final morsel for thought. Stereophile has their entire published history online for free, and TAS has small bits and pieces. HiFi+, none.

Stereophile has triple the subs of TAS, and quadruple that of HiFi+. Who has the better business plan?

 

[NorthStar]

---One thing I do know: In the UK they are "tres protective" of some of their 'stuff'.

And they have different set of rules, from the way their societies function.

I know so because I am a member of few of their top rated Audio forums.

________________

Don't give links over there; you risk to get banned! It's a no-no.
...Like a very useful link (or even a single post) from another Audio site.

Here, in America, I know the audio/video sites that have rules that totally suck!
And I ain't there (as a member).

_________________

* Hope you forgive me Bill, as the discussion was on that topic now.
And besides, I feel that we are advancing in the right direction as we are learning on that mag in which your system is 'displayed', and the editorial office of that mag is from Poole, Dorset, in the United Kingdom.

 

[NorthStar]

---And by the way, this mag is one of the very Best! ...In it's presentation, the quality of the paper, picture's quality, and all that jazz.

I used to be a subscriber, but not anymore. Now I buy each copy individually!
Do you know, here in Canada, how much is that per year! ...Yes that's right; a lot!

 

[JackD201]

The sad reality IMO is that CR Law is not written with the consumers best interests at heart. It is there to protect corporate investment and to give those corporations a means to unrealistically limit access, unless you pay their price. CR Laws and Patent Laws have become a joke, and sadly our politicians don't have the backbone to stand up to the corporate world.

I humbly disagree John. Fair use rights are quite broad as far as ownership goes. As far as procurement, getting stuff for free is cool but it doesn't make it the consumer's best interest all the time. Lastly, it protects individuals and not just juridical entities. This is especially important for countries where there are systems in place for royalties/ residual income as opposed to others where usually only moral rights (can't change your name as the author) remain as works are sold. Creatives gotta eat too.

 

[NorthStar]

Agreed, and those things actually are important to me in a printed document.

-----Same here; those mags are always the most pleasant to grab from my vast library of audio mags, they stand the best. They even smell good, almost like vinyl.
They don't go all flaky and mushy and smelly; they always look brand new, and they are my favorites. ...Simply the Best! :b

* Do you ever write notes in them? It is "orgasmically" pleasurable; the ink just slides so softly it is extremely addictive. :b ...And it looks just 'professional'! :b
...And also when using a highlighting pen; it is pure delight! :b

Like I said before, the paper quality is simply ultra high-end!
And I know a thing or two about paper, let me tell ya! :b

 

[Alan Sircom]

Hi there,

Thanks for all the kind comments. We're mid way through a spot of migration at the moment, as The Absolute Sound's website recently broke free from the AVGuide site, which is why the Hi-Fi+ page has not been updated and why our online reviews are currently MIA. Hopefully, both of these things will be fixed soon.

The latest issue is available on our tablet app, however. It is available on iPad, Android and Kindle Fire, I believe (which is perhaps the lamest excuse I can give to my wife for becoming a three tablet home).

While we usually publish most of our reviews online, we are protective of our IP. It's hard enough to get a editor to eat his words, but if you give those words away for free, the editor doesn't get to eat at all. Even though they are my words and my pictures, it's not my page layout and all the IP rights belong to the company anyway, so I couldn't even post a sly editor's proof copy.

Regardless, Bill's got a great system and I was so wowed by it, I ended up making rookie errors in the photography.

 

[microstrip]

(...) Regardless, Bill's got a great system and I was so wowed by it, I ended up making rookie errors in the photography.

Alan,
The supreme subjective test to the performance of a system - should we consider that when the pictures are too good it means you did not enjoy or were using ear protection?

Do you consider having a PDF based subscription system, as TAS currently has?

 

[Alan Sircom]

Alan,
The supreme subjective test to the performance of a system - should we consider that when the pictures are too good it means you did not enjoy or were using ear protection?

Do you consider having a PDF based subscription system, as TAS currently has?

Others generally take the pictures. Most of my photographic input is show reports and reader visits. It's also been some time since I regularly performed reader system reviews and it's easy to get out of the habit of photographing people when you spend most of your life photographing inanimate objects. Of course, sometimes you get people who are almost inanimate objects, which makes life easier. But not here.

And yes, we have a PDF subscription, as well as the app-based ones. But the link at AVGuide has gone wrong in the ensuing chaos of TAS-migration. Try http://www.nextnewsstand.com/products/hi-fi-plus/ instead. That's one more thing to shout about!

 

[NorthStar]

---Hi Alan, very nice of you to drop by and share your input.

* I know you for years from reading your articles and reviews.
But I never met you in person; that's Ok, your words on paper are a very good reflection anyway.

Have a great week, :b
Bob