Re: The Hatto lesson
Christopher Webber
>Again it was proven that to make music tasty, there should be some
>story, some legend behind. Pure music, not supported by promotion, does
>not work for most, unfortunately for the Art.
You make the point well. But much though we may regret the fact, is not
"pure music" an impossibility?
The composers of whom we have heard today survived and (often) thrived
partly because they added to musical ability some talent for P.R. and
marketing, or at least had strong human gifts for impressing their
personalities on high-ranking Money Men and rulers, as well as their
fellow professionals. Without *some* admixture of those gifts, they
could not have made their way in the cut-throat world, no matter how
talented they were as "pure musicians".
I remember an eminent authority on early opera claiming that the main
difference between Monteverdi and his fellow academicians was not his
greater talent, but his ability to *market* those talents - thus,
marketing ability was the key that allowed him to develop his musical
talents further.
If this is true for composers, how much more so for executant
performers?
--
___________________________
Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK.
http://www.zarzuela.net
david...@aol.com
The only lesson to be drawn from l'affaire Hatto is that rmcr will
turn into a very boring place whenever such a saga is unfolding.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
wrote:
> I remember an eminent authority on early opera
Obviously an idiot, but at least a fashionable one.
> claiming that the main
> difference between Monteverdi and his fellow academicians was not his
> greater talent, but his ability to *market* those talents
This is total nonsense, although it is typical of a fashionable new
"sociological" view of the arts. Mr. Webber should read Charles
Rosen's review of Tia de Nora's book on Beethoven in which she
advances the thesis that any old contemporary of Beethoven's could
have survived and acquired a comparable prestige among composers,
performers, and audience had they only enjoyed aristocratic patronage.
-david gable
sorabji...@lineone.net
<zarzu...@zarzuela.net.invalid> wrote:
that, whilst it makes its own point, it misses the central point here,
which seems to me to be how we should best perceive the "Hatto" case
in the wider context of the "classical" music "industry".
Whatever the marketing skills or otherwise of some past composer and
performers, few of these people ever sought - especially on such a
scale - to create an image or a reputation in their profession that
was based solely upon the work of others marketed in their own names;
this is surely a different phenomenon altogether to that of the
discrepancies between the PR skills of this performer or composer over
that in promoting his/her own genuine wares.
What we should perhaps be doing instead is considering the "Hatto"
case in the wider context of fraudulent representation outside the
profession of "classical" music. For a good example, Jancis Robinson,
the distinguished British wine writer, published an article in this
weekend's edition of the UK Financial Times about wine fraud and
fakery and there are also, of course, many well documented and not so
well documented cases of fraudulent representation both in other arts
and outside the world of the arts.
The "Hatto" case, in touching not only on copyright infringement as it
applies to the rightful intellectual property of other pianists and
record companies but also on marketing fraud as perpetrated upon the
CD-buying public in terms of misdescription of goods, has highlighted
how very much easier it is today to copy, fake, misrepresent and
otherwise misappropriate all manner of things.
The very fact that the name of Joyce Hatto has been plastered upon the
covers of 119 CDs and successfully escaped fraud detection for several
years might also arguably be considered to be the "classical"
recording world's equivalent to wholesale identity theft, which is, as
well we all know, an increasingly common phenomenon nowadays in many
walks of life outside the once-hallowed territory of "classical"
music.
It is my personal belief that, if anything of any importance
whatsoever is to be gleaned from the "Hatto " experience, due
consideration of the abovementioned matters is likely to be of far
more and lasting significance than petty carpings, snivellings and
attempted self-righteous point-provings about how a handful of critics
might or might not have appropriately discharged their proper
prefessional duties at one time or another.
Best,
Alistair
Matthew B. Tepper
to be typed in news:1174252622....@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
> To my opinion, it is a big scandal and a big shame for the CM community.
Yes and no. A scandal because people were defrauded by a con man; not a
shame for the "community," but for those few blowhards who were pushing and
pushing and pushing and pushing these phonied-up recordings.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Harrington/Coy is a gay wrestler who won't come out of the closet
Christopher Webber
>This is total nonsense, although it is typical of a fashionable new
>"sociological" view of the arts. Mr. Webber should read Charles
>Rosen's review of Tia de Nora's book on Beethoven in which she advances
>the thesis that any old contemporary of Beethoven's could have survived
>and acquired a comparable prestige among composers, performers, and
>audience had they only enjoyed aristocratic patronage.
Is the nonsense so total? I wish I had your (and Charles Rosen's)
confidence!
My position is in any case more modest. Clearly there are not "hundreds
of symphonies as good as the Eroica" around, but the reason there aren't
is partially to do with the fact that Beethoven had the extra-musical
ability to impress his musical talents on others, through sheer force of
personality, and so found the opportunity to develop those talents to
the point where he (and he alone of his contemporaries) was enabled to
write such an extraordinary work, one which whatever its "pure music"
credentials also "speaks for" (and of) its epoch.
A possible alternative - namely, that there is any actual prospect, in
any human society, of realising that oh-so-highly-desirable vision of
the Perfect Artistic Meritocracy - seems to me at least as nonsensical!
And the Hatto Case, if nothing else, doth trumpet forth the persuasive
Power of Marketing.
dk
> Hi all,
>
> A lot has been already written on this topic with valuable facts
> obtained through research. Still I cannot resist from adding some
> general words.
>
> To my opinion, it is a big scandal and a big shame for the CM
> recordings from average recordings. The ears hear not what is played
> but what we expect from an artist of a particular status, like just
> discovered late titan or an amazing prodigy. Actually our ears hear
> what others say. (I am not speaking about the Hatto dissenters here,
> they can be proud now.)
>
> As it is clear that Hatto's legacy is mainly the output of many
> different artists, I wonder how people could praise Hatto so highly in
> the absence of any individual style that we require from any great
> artist? Something is very wrong here.
>
> If these recordings are indeed so good, and we must evaluate
> recordings on their own merits, why not starting now to champion all
> these pianists as Joyce Hatto was championed here before? No, of
> course not, it is only interesting to champion those who are
> championed, this is how the collective mind works. We all want to be
> closer to the fame.
>
> Again it was proven that to make music tasty, there should be some
> story, some legend behind. Pure music, not supported by promotion,
> does not work for most, unfortunately for the Art.
>
Your questions are very thoughtful and germane. Let me attempt an
answer.
The root of Hattogate, as well as the overall decline of classical
music
as a PERFORMING ART, is the relentless brainwashing of the public
that is being perpetrated for almost a century now by musicologists,
music historians and music reviewers, requiring artists to "serve the
composer", eface (if not completely erase) their personalities, and
perform the music AS WRITTEN.
In this pseudo-intellectual framework, individual performance styles
and
distinct artistic personalities are frowned upon and devalued.
Listeners
are discouraged from seeking the unique and the individual in music
performances, and they lose as a result the ability to recognize such
characteristics when actually present in a performance.
The poor souls who are deluding themselves with the notion that there
is
an objective, materializable and attainable "composer intent" in a
work of
music, all that matters is who comes closer to realizing that intent,
not
how they perform!
This is why a "trained professional listener" like Tom Deacon could go
through a pile of "Hatto performances" without noticing anything
amiss.
dk
Piltdown Man
DmitryG <dgar...@yahoo.com> wrote...
> To my opinion, it is a big scandal and a big shame for the CM
> community.
It so happens the widespread meaningless use of that word "community" is
one of my pet hates. What on earth is "the classical music community"? Does
it include everybody who's ever bought a CD with something called
"classical music" (whatever that is defined as) on it? Or only people who
buy more than, say, 10 of such CD's each year? Or only people who claim
they know more about it than the average person, such as people who write
reviews for websites or magazines for free, in return for getting to keep
the CD's they review? Or only people who are professionally involved in
playing "classical music"?
People just tack on this word "community" to whatever qualification they
like, as if everyone who shares an interest in some particular subject
automatically becomes part of some imaginary "community". This is often
accompanied by the delusion that since there is a "community", it also must
have "community leaders".
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.
> It proves that too many people cannot judge outstanding
> recordings from average recordings. The ears hear not what is played
> but what we expect from an artist of a particular status, like just
> discovered late titan or an amazing prodigy. Actually our ears hear
> what others say. (I am not speaking about the Hatto dissenters here,
> they can be proud now.)
One other pet hate of mine is the misuse of the word "we". The personal
pronoun first person plural must be the most abused word in any language.
People who publicly speak on behalf of "we" almost invariably mean "I".
In the Hatto case, the hype surrounding her was so limited that it makes it
very silly to talk about any "community" or any "we" being taken in. I
admit I don't follow the field of classical music recordings as closely as
most regular participants here, and I only looked into this newsgroup again
very recently because someone in another newsgroup mentioned the Hatto
affair. But I do try to keep up, somewhat, with the news pertaining to
classical music. Yet if it hadn't been for one post to nl.muziek.klassiek
(thanks, EM!), it's not unlikely I would have never heard of the whole
thing at all. Which would have been a shame -- it's been highly amusing.
But the whole Hatto hype was completely unknown to people worldwide who
have a keen interest in classical music unless they fell into one of three
overlapping categories:
(a) they follow r.m.c.r; or
(b) the read The Gramophone; or
(c) they read one or two English-language classical music websites.
If you didn't fall into that group, the Hatto phenomenon, such as it was,
would have passed you by completely. As it did me. I can date with absolute
accuracy the moment I first read the name "Joyce Hatto". As it happens,
it's exactly a month ago today.
Or more succinctly: the vast majority of the people worldwide with an
interest in classical music (and whether you like to call those people "the
classical music community" or not) never heard of Joyce Hatto (either the
real one pre-1976, or the later CD-only sockpuppet of that name, animated
by Mr. Barrington-Coupe And His Magical Hands) before February 2007.
> As it is clear that Hatto's legacy is mainly the output of many
> different artists, I wonder how people could praise Hatto so highly in
> the absence of any individual style that we require from any great
> artist? Something is very wrong here.
How many people are you talking about? Based on what I've read so far, I've
come to the same conclusion that others with a lot more expertise have also
come to: that there were probably never more than a few thousands of
"Hatto" CD's out there in the first place. Most of the people who listened
to those never made any public utterances of their opinions. Several of the
ones that did listen to them publicly expressed either scepticism about
whether these were all the product of one pianist, or said they weren't at
all impressed by the performances.
> Again it was proven that to make music tasty, there should be some
> story, some legend behind. Pure music, not supported by promotion,
> does not work for most, unfortunately for the Art.
Who are these "most" supposed to be in the Hatto affair? A handful of
British critics, and perhaps an American or so thrown in for good measure?
Again, the Hatto hype was simply non-existent outside of a tiny little
bubble of, largely online, Anglosaxon record critics, with a few outrunners
into the pages of the Gramophone. It was a good demonstration though of why
I gave up on reading that publication years ago. Unless you're terribly
interested in what has been called the Cowpat School of British
music-making, and also believe John Eliot Gardiner is the bestest of best
Bach conductors *ever*, why bother? (And I'm not even getting into the
painful nonsense that appears in their technical section, or whatever they
call it -- you know, the bit at the back with the sound equipment "tests",
at least during the time I did read it regularly.)
Rich Y
>
> This is why a "trained professional listener" like Tom Deacon could go
> through a pile of "Hatto performances" without noticing anything
> amiss.
>
This goes to the heart of the problem. We have too many self-styled
experts who, by arrogance, intimidation and insult, succeed in
silencing the questioning voices of reason (and there have been quite
a few). Others critics have been genuinely taken in by the WB-C
machinations, but it is my contention that it would not have happened
if their critical faculties had not been corrupted by flattery and the
proximity to fame. These folks seem to have disappeared from sight of
late and one can understand why. In short, the basic problem is lack
of critical discernment among those who were taken in, compounded with
a certain bully-like personality type that sometimes succeeded in
silencing the voices of reason.
There is the separate problem of some magazines (Gramophone comes to
mind) who are obviously in bed with some record producers and have
their reviewers hype their favorites fulsomely. This is what caused me
to cancel that magazine. At least I was spared the hyping of Hatto,
although I noted it in the library.
I know this sounds like 20/20 hindsight, but I am one of those who
looked askance at the very idea of a 70-something pianist who had no
successful career previously suddenly being discovered to encompass
the entire repertory with superb mastery. By the way, it is not the
supreme insult to amateur pianists who struggle for years to play the
easier Chopin Etudes, to be told that this 76 year old practically on
her deathbed can crank out the entire virtuoso repertory without
practice? This was too much for me, and I said no thanks.
Richy
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:qHWXGTBOac$FF...@zarzuela.co.uk:
> And the Hatto Case, if nothing else, doth trumpet forth the persuasive
> Power of Marketing.
As well as the ever-present potential of its misuse.
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:1174262705.809573.69570
@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
> On Mar 18, 3:16 pm, "dk" <dan.ko...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is why a "trained professional listener" like Tom Deacon could go
>> through a pile of "Hatto performances" without noticing anything amiss.
>
> This goes to the heart of the problem. We have too many self-styled
> experts who, by arrogance, intimidation and insult, succeed in silencing
> the questioning voices of reason (and there have been quite a few).
I note that you appear to be responding to a post by DK, which makes this
remark particularly amusing to me.
david...@aol.com
> Lots of truth in what you say.
There's some truth in what he says about the timidity and literalism
of the latterday performer. As history, his explanation of how the
current situation came to pass could not be more total nonsense.
> t's worth pointing out that some
> composers also had a hand in creating the "it's about the text, not the
> performance" concept of music.
Yes, but you've grabbed the wrong end of the stick. Dan's view of the
performer's responsibility to be expressive and independent and
inspired originally belonged to the Romantic composer, or, at the very
least, to an influential myth about the Romantic composer. In any
case, the Romantic composer seized control from the performer: even
Chopin, who liked his own rubato but nobody else's. And necessarily
so: the kind of very local rubato that the late eighteenth-century
musician grew up with is writ large in 19th-century music. No way in
hell you would get the kind of rubato you find in Mahler or especially
the even more radical kind of rubato characteristic of the
expressionist Schoenberg if the composer didn't write markings in bar
after bar.
> And of course, record producers, too.
> I think the relentless brainwashing, as of now, is very much part of
> the general understanding of what recordings are supposed to be.
Which has very little to do with the performer's approach . . . or did
until comparatively recently.
-david gable
dk
wrote:
> On Mar 19, 1:04 am, Wayne Reimer <wrdslremovethis¿@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > Lots of truth in what you say.
>
> There's some truth in what he says about the timidity and
> literalism of the latterday performer.
"Timidity" ?!?
Mr. Gable, your Cuisinart must be working overtime! You are
mincing your words. Sucking up to the composers and kissing
their asses are far more accurate descriptions.
> As history, his explanation of how the current situation
> came to pass could not be more total nonsense.
I am obviously paiting with a very broad brush, but do you
have a better explanation? If so, please put it on the table
and let's all review it.
If memory serves, you are one of the champions of musicology
and music theory in this forum.
dk
dk
>
> > Lots of truth in what you say.
>
> There's some truth in what he says about the timidity and literalism
> of the latterday performer. As history, his explanation of how the
> current situation came to pass could not be more total nonsense.
>
> > t's worth pointing out that some
> > composers also had a hand in creating the "it's about the text, not the
> > performance" concept of music.
>
> Yes, but you've grabbed the wrong end of the stick. Dan's view of the
> performer's responsibility to be expressive and independent and
> inspired originally belonged to the Romantic composer, or, at the very
> least, to an influential myth about the Romantic composer. In any
> case, the Romantic composer seized control from the performer: even
> Chopin, who liked his own rubato but nobody else's. And necessarily
> so: the kind of very local rubato that the late eighteenth-century
> musician grew up with is writ large in 19th-century music. No way in
> hell you would get the kind of rubato you find in Mahler or especially
> the even more radical kind of rubato characteristic of the
> expressionist Schoenberg if the composer didn't write markings in bar
> after bar.
In other words, you're proving my case!
dk
sorabji...@lineone.net
thoughts and ideas, yet it surprises me - give its title - that so
little attention has yet been given in it to the fact that it has
become so much easier to perpetrate a hoax such as this one and get
away with it for as long as WB-C has done (and, for that matter, he is
still "getting way with it" in the sense of freedom from the due
process of law and will continue to do so until and unless someone or
some organisation brings legal proceedings against him). There must be
members of the public who had bought the hype, then bought the CDs and
then discovered that they'd been duped, however fine the recorded (and
usually doctored) performances on the CDs may sound.
I, too, loathe the widespread oveuse of the term "community" that,
among other things, seeks to persuade people that "communities" exist
when they do not. That said, whilst we do not yet know (and may never
know for certain) how many of these CDs actually sold, there is surely
a fair chance that the suggestion here that it was a mere drop in the
ocean - not to mention WB-C's own claims on this - is an
underestimate; even if one believes WB-C's alleged figures to be true,
they cover, by his own admission, just the last two years, whereas the
first of the 119 items went on sale considerably earlier than that.
Never mind the mythical "community"; what about those people who at
least have in common the fact that they have purchased these CDs? Will
their confidence in the "classical" record industry have been dented
by the experience? If so, to what extent? and will there be a "lesson"
to be learnt by the industry from this?...
I am not suggesting that WB-C's sole or even principal motive was
financial, if for no better reason than that I do not claim to know
exactly what it may have been that prompted him to do what he did but,
as the production costs of each CD were far lower than is the case
with the average genuine solo piano CD, the profit-to-turnover ratio
will have been far higher than usual and, if he did indeed manage to
sell several tens of thousands of these CDs over the past six yeas or
more at a net profit of some £9 apiece, the resultant six-figure
profit will not have been insignificant.
Are not the principal "lessons" to be learnt from this case that (a)
the "classical" record industry is at least as susceptible to criminal
fakery and fraud as any other and (b) (so far, at least) that, even
when such criminal fakery and fraud is revealed to the public, that
industry shows itself to be pretty slow off the mark in trying to do
anything about it?
So much for "lessons with Joyce Hatto"!
Best,
Alistair
Matthew B. Tepper
> This thread has so far brought forward quite a few interesting thoughts and
> ideas, yet it surprises me - give its title - that so little attention has
> yet been given in it to the fact that it has become so much easier to
> perpetrate a hoax such as this one and get away with it for as long as WB-C
> has done (and, for that matter, he is still "getting way with it" in the
> sense of freedom from the due process of law and will continue to do so
> until and unless someone or some organisation brings legal proceedings
> against him). There must be members of the public who had bought the hype,
> then bought the CDs and then discovered that they'd been duped, however
> fine the recorded (and usually doctored) performances on the CDs may sound.
AHEM!!!!!
If anybody is in touch in any way with the British authorities, please convey
for me the following question: WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOUR ATTENTION???
Jeffrey Smith
>Hi all,
>
>A lot has been already written on this topic with valuable facts
>obtained through research. Still I cannot resist from adding some
>general words.
>
>To my opinion, it is a big scandal and a big shame for the CM
>community. It proves that too many people cannot judge outstanding
>recordings from average recordings. The ears hear not what is played
>but what we expect from an artist of a particular status, like just
>discovered late titan or an amazing prodigy. Actually our ears hear
>what others say. (I am not speaking about the Hatto dissenters here,
>they can be proud now.)
>
>Best,
>
>Dmitry
There is a very famous story of a telephone operator who, for over 30
years, said 'rubber knees' instead of 'number please'. She was never
caught, and confessed at her retirement reception.
Jeffrey Smith.
Kirk McElhearn
<zarz...@zarzuela.net.invalid> said:
> And the Hatto Case, if nothing else, doth trumpet forth the persuasive
> Power of Marketing.
And the power of the good, old-fashioned, Barnumesque sob story.
Kirk
--
Read my blog, Kirkville
http://www.mcelhearn.com
Gerard
> Which would have been a shame -- it's been highly amusing. But the
> whole Hatto hype was completely unknown to people worldwide who have
> a keen interest in classical music unless they fell into one of three
> overlapping categories:
>
> (a) they follow r.m.c.r; or
> (b) the read The Gramophone; or
> (c) they read one or two English-language classical music websites.
>
> If you didn't fall into that group, the Hatto phenomenon, such as it
> was, would have passed you by completely.
This is not a complete overview. I've seen a lot of URL's pointing to newspaper
articles about the Hatto-case.
I've heard radio programs mentioning (and more) the Hatto-case.
sorabji...@lineone.net
> "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-arch...@lineone.net> appears to have
> caused the following letters to be typed innews:1174287911.6...@l75g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
>
> > This thread has so far brought forward quite a few interesting thoughts and
> > ideas, yet it surprises me - give its title - that so little attention has
> > yet been given in it to the fact that it has become so much easier to
> > perpetrate a hoax such as this one and get away with it for as long as WB-C
> > has done (and, for that matter, he is still "getting way with it" in the
> > sense of freedom from the due process of law and will continue to do so
> > until and unless someone or some organisation brings legal proceedings
> > against him). There must be members of the public who had bought the hype,
> > then bought the CDs and then discovered that they'd been duped, however
> > fine the recorded (and usually doctored) performances on the CDs may sound.
>
> AHEM!!!!!
>
> If anybody is in touch in any way with the British authorities, please convey
> for me the following question: WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOUR ATTENTION???
>
> --
> Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
> My main music page ---http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
> To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
> Harrington/Coy is a gay wrestler who won't come out of the closet
The answer to that question is, largely, "nothing". As I have
mentioned previously, there could be up to four possible separate sets
of proceedings brought against WB-C (and whern I write "up to four", I
mean anything from zero to four), as follows:
1. Action brought under such laws as the Sale of Goods Act and the
Trade Descriptions Act by, or as a direct result of, public complaints
about misrepresentation.
2. Action brought by record companies, artists or their
representatives or representative groups in respect of coyright
infringement.
3. Action brought by the UK tax authorities in respect of tax evasion
and/or false accounting.
4. Action brought by the UK Customs authorities in respect of export
irregularities.
A fifth possible action - that of the UK Mechanical Copyright
Protection Society (of which Con Artist is a member) - has more or
less been dismissed as a possibility, as it seems that WB-C has
discharged his responsibilities towards them properly.
3. and 4. are issues over which there has as yet been no proof,
whereas 1. and 2. are issues which are incontrovertible. There are
therefore at least two areas in which WB-C could be prosecuted for
criminal offences.
What you have to do - if you want to do anything - is limited to 1.
and it is to register your grievance with the Hertfordshire Trading
Standards Office if you have not already done so (and I believe that
you have) and, if nothing is heard from them following their
acknowledgement of your approach, reminders can be issued; unless you
are a disaffected artist or record company, you can do nothing about
2. as your copyright has not been infringed.
That said, I do agree with you barely concealed frustration that
nothing seems yet to be happening on any front. I have it on good
authority that, if BPI drag their feet much longer on the copyright
infringement issue, at least one record company is planning to contact
the police direct.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
Indeed, there has been ample international media coverage of this case
(national press, specialist journals, national public broadcasters,
etc.). One of the laws of journalism is that few stories ever stay
near the top for more than 10 days; this one may have an awful long
way to go in order to catch up with the 10 YEARS that the Diana and
Dodi case has so far been running (and who knows how much longer that
one will continue to run and run?), but it's already outpaced the
usual period by 400% and nothing's even gotten close to coming to
court yet...
Best,
Alistair
her...@yahoo.com
But that was coverage after the hoax was revealed. Piltdown is right
in that the general CM audience (say people who purchase ten cd's a
year) had never heard of Joyce Hatto. The hype was mainly confined to
people who were susceptible to two things: the British thing, and the
idea that there was some sad old neglected genius recording the entire
repertoire.
The lesson is really familiar. When someone says (or rather, writes)
he's discovered something extraordinary, an unparallelled genius, the
ultimate recording of something that's been recorded a zillion times,
but this new one is the Best Ever, you know he's trying to pull a
deacon on you. Probably he is a deacon.
Herman
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> Are not the principal "lessons" to be learnt from this case that (a)
> the "classical" record industry is at least as susceptible to criminal
> fakery and fraud as any other
Correct.
This particular fraud has proven that not only is it quite easy to
perpetrate the fraud but just as easy to put it over on the public,
which in this particular instance - the classical music lover - is a
fairly trusting group of people.
(b) (so far, at least) that, even
> when such criminal fakery and fraud is revealed to the public, that
> industry shows itself to be pretty slow off the mark in trying to do
> anything about it?
Untrue. The "industry", such as it is, and it never operates in
concert on these matters, doesn't really much care about WBC and his
petty theft. Nor does it really worry much about the consumers who
have been duped. Indeed, the argument might follow: "Buy from us,
labels you can trust!"
> So much for "lessons with Joyce Hatto"!
Indeed. So much.
TD
td
> If anybody is in touch in any way with the British authorities, please convey
> for me the following question: WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOUR ATTENTION???
Grow up.
TD
sorabji...@lineone.net
end, is unlikely to let it rest), but even the extent to which it is
true serves only to corroborate what I wrote - i.e. that the industry
has been slow to do anything about it; where its complacency in this
has so far been misplaced is in that, whilst the case of 119 CDs is
not small, were it to be replicated tens of times over by other WB-Cs,
the result of such wholesale theft would far more severely dent the
profits of those record companies whose material had been so stolen
that has been the case with just the one WB-C doing his stuff.
Copyright theft is copyright theft and, if it is going to take far
more widespread instances of it than just WB-C's efforts to incite the
record companies to sit up and act then, no doubt, so (will) be it,
since you and I and many others agree that it's been shown that what
WB-C did is relatively easy for anyone to do.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
This was actually a perfectly reasonable question, even if it had
already been answered previously; to suggest merely that the answer is
for Mr tepper to "grow up" is hardly helpful to anyone. I have
personally registered a complaint with Trading Standards, although
what if anything they eventually do in the way of action as a
consequence of the approaches of others remains open to question and,
one may reasonably suppose, will largely come to be driven by the
numbers of disaffected customers who may be adding their weight to
what is already on this file.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:03:47 +0100, sorabji-arch...@lineone.net wrote:
> > Copyright theft is copyright theft and, if it is going to take far more
> > widespread instances of it than just WB-C's efforts to incite the record
> > companies to sit up and act then, no doubt, so (will) be it, since you
> > and I and many others agree that it's been shown that what WB-C did is
> > relatively easy for anyone to do.
>
> is hardly profittable. WBC sold, on average, about 50 CD's per title. That
> won't pay for the production costs, even if you steal the recordings. If
> you look at the 10/10 reviews and the rest of the "hype" and if you see
> the actual sales figures, it is clear it is hard to earn money with
> classical CD sales.
>
> --
> Chel van Gennip
> Visit Serg van Gennip's sitehttp://www.serg.vangennip.com
Whilst I did not suggest that WB-C did this purely for profit (and I
did add that I do not know what his real motives actully were), if one
looks at the figures that have been put forward (and I don't think
that they are unreasonable) of CDs sold at around £12.50 apiece and a
net profit of £9.00 on each, even if WB-C did only sell around 50
copies of each, his net profit would be 50 × 119 × £9.00, which is a
cool £53,550. That said, where do you source your information (which
you present as though it is an indusputable fact) that "WBC sold, on
average, about 50 CDs per title"? Until and unless he is made to
produce accounts (if any still exist) in court or until and unless the
evidence of sales can be gleaned by other means, you simply do not
know how many CDs he sold. You are estimating 5,950 (i.e. 50 × 119),
which is considerably less even than the figure that WB-C himself
claimed - and bear in mind that even that figure was, by his own
admission, reckoned to cover only two years' sales.
Best,
Alistair
td
Copyright theft on this scale is very small potatoes. The majors are
really worried about copyright theft in China, and not of classical
music - a minuscule part of the market - but of pop music. That's
where the money is.
Follow the money. That is where you will find the industry.
TD
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> On Mar 19, 10:26 am, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 19, 3:08 am, "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > > If anybody is in touch in any way with the British authorities, please convey
> > > for me the following question: WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOUR ATTENTION???
>
> > Grow up.
>
> > TD
>
> This was actually a perfectly reasonable question, even if it had
> already been answered previously; to suggest merely that the answer is
> for Mr tepper to "grow up" is hardly helpful to anyone.
It would be helpful to Tepper, who, in his natural arrogance, thinks
people will pay attention to what he scribbles in this forum.
Nonsense.
People simply do not pay attention to idiots who scream about
executives taking drugs and indulge in personal vendettas against
Peter Gelb et al.
As I said, Tepper should "grow up".
I have
> personally registered a complaint with Trading Standards, although
> what if anything they eventually do in the way of action as a
> consequence of the approaches of others remains open to question
You may be the only person still questioning their response.
Personally I already feel that it has been filed for further
reference.
and,
> one may reasonably suppose, will largely come to be driven by the
> numbers of disaffected customers who may be adding their weight to
> what is already on this file.
Perhaps. But as you say, a few disgruntled consumers here or there,
mostly there, will hardly push them to move.
Cynicism has got the better of my attitude on this whole subject. If
Robert von Bahr, the first to be revealed as the owner of one of the
pilfered recordings - the start of it all, as it were - has "forgiven"
WBC, I doubt much is going to come of the rest. I hardly expect
Universal France, for example, to hire lawyers in the UK to pursue the
theft of Robert Muraro's Ravel CDs.
TD
td
The point being, of course, that you can't prove what he sold either
and if you were WBC you would have already destroyed the incriminating
evidence.
I have to say, Alistair, that your "punitive" approach strikes me as
futile and, I say this despite the theft of a good deal of my own
money for example, rather vindictive.
A quoi bon?
TD
Ian Pace
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1174285772....@l75g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> Yes, but you've grabbed the wrong end of the stick. Dan's view of the
performer's responsibility to be expressive and independent and
inspired originally belonged to the Romantic composer, or, at the very
least, to an influential myth about the Romantic composer. In any
case, the Romantic composer seized control from the performer: even
Chopin, who liked his own rubato but nobody else's. And necessarily
so: the kind of very local rubato that the late eighteenth-century
musician grew up with is writ large in 19th-century music. No way in
hell you would get the kind of rubato you find in Mahler or especially
the even more radical kind of rubato characteristic of the
expressionist Schoenberg if the composer didn't write markings in bar
after bar.
What about the radical types of stylistic idioms associated, say, with the
French baroque, which were written down as much in treatises as anywhere
else? Or those codified by C.P.E. Bach, Leopold Mozart, Quantz, and Türk
which were likely predominant in late-18th and some early-19th century
music? I'd be interested to see some evidence that composers of those times
were not equally concerned that their music was played according to those
approaches, rather than purely according to the performers' own preferences.
In terms of the 19th century, as I see it, we had concurrent tendencies in
terms of both expanding freedoms for performers (with the cult of the
international star performer) and at the same time some composers' attempts
attempt to curtail such freedoms. And that process continued into the 20th
century. Composers were often reacting against something that was a growing
phenomenon of the times.
Ian
sorabji...@lineone.net
>
> - Show quoted text -
True, but the size of the money is merely relative; the crime remains
the same and only the scale of its commission and the sums involved
are different. Were it to be looked at in the manner that you appear
to imply, there may as well be a threshold of, say, £250,000 under
which such criminality can go unprosecuted. I hope that you wouldn't
advocate such an idea.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mar 19, 7:54 am, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
> arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > On Mar 19, 10:26 am, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Mar 19, 3:08 am, "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > > > If anybody is in touch in any way with the British authorities, please convey
> > > > for me the following question: WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOUR ATTENTION???
>
> > > Grow up.
>
> > > TD
>
> > This was actually a perfectly reasonable question, even if it had
> > already been answered previously; to suggest merely that the answer is
> > for Mr tepper to "grow up" is hardly helpful to anyone.
>
> It would be helpful to Tepper, who, in his natural arrogance, thinks
> people will pay attention to what he scribbles in this forum.
because you have given it without being asked for it? (I hope you
won't charge for it too)...
> People simply do not pay attention to idiots who scream about
> executives taking drugs and indulge in personal vendettas against
> Peter Gelb et al.
>
> As I said, Tepper should "grow up".
>
> I have
I'm not interested in and made no reference to that; I stuck to the
subject concerned.
> > personally registered a complaint with Trading Standards, although
> > what if anything they eventually do in the way of action as a
> > consequence of the approaches of others remains open to question
>
> You may be the only person still questioning their response.
>
> Personally I already feel that it has been filed for further
> reference.
But you don't know that for certain any more than I do.
> > one may reasonably suppose, will largely come to be driven by the
> > numbers of disaffected customers who may be adding their weight to
> > what is already on this file.
>
> Perhaps. But as you say, a few disgruntled consumers here or there,
> mostly there, will hardly push them to move.
That may depend on how many such consumers there are and how motivated
they may be to work on the case.
> Cynicism has got the better of my attitude on this whole subject.
Not my fault...
> If
> Robert von Bahr, the first to be revealed as the owner of one of the
> pilfered recordings - the start of it all, as it were - has "forgiven"
> WBC, I doubt much is going to come of the rest.
I think that your inverted commas around "forgiven" may well be
apposite here; what Mr von Bahr has decided to do (or rather not to
do) here is up to him, of course.
> I hardly expect
> Universal France, for example, to hire lawyers in the UK to pursue the
> theft of Robert Muraro's Ravel CDs.
It's Roger Muraro, actually - and you may well be right, especially
given that it's always more expensive to sue anyone in a foreign
country - but then this was not the record company I was talking
about. In any case, it's up to BPI to bring action on behalf of any
disaffected UK record companies that are among its membership and it
is rather more likely that this will happen than that an individual
company will sue. If, in the meantime, a record company alerts the
police, its costs may not be quite as high as they would otherwise be
if they began by issuing proceedings in the usual way.
Best,
Alistair
Gerard
> On 19 mar, 09:33, "Gerard" <ghen_nospam_drik...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Piltdown Man wrote:
> > > Which would have been a shame -- it's been highly amusing. But the
> > > whole Hatto hype was completely unknown to people worldwide who
> > > have a keen interest in classical music unless they fell into one
> > > of three overlapping categories:
> >
> > > (a) they follow r.m.c.r; or
> > > (b) the read The Gramophone; or
> > > (c) they read one or two English-language classical music
> > > websites.
> >
> > > If you didn't fall into that group, the Hatto phenomenon, such as
> > > it was, would have passed you by completely.
> >
> > This is not a complete overview. I've seen a lot of URL's pointing
> > to newspaper articles about the Hatto-case.
> > I've heard radio programs mentioning (and more) the Hatto-case.
>
> But that was coverage after the hoax was revealed.
Nevertheless the whole Hatto hype was not "completely unknown to people
worldwide who have a keen interest in classical music unless they fell into one
of three overlapping categories: " etc.
>
> The lesson is really familiar. When someone says (or rather, writes)
> he's discovered something extraordinary, an unparallelled genius, the
> ultimate recording of something that's been recorded a zillion times,
> but this new one is the Best Ever, you know he's trying to pull a
> deacon on you. Probably he is a deacon.
>
These things happen all the time. Not only in this newsgroup.
sorabji...@lineone.net
>
> - Show quoted text -
prosecuted, will have to face the music (if you'll pardon the
expression) in court; I do not even have an "approach" of my own in
any case, since WB-C has not infringed my personal copyrights - so
you're rather off-centre there, I'm afraid...
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
little doubt that WB-C will have desptroyed the evidence that he once
had; however, that is not the only way to obtain such evidence and a
court is therefore likely to seek as much as possible of that from
dealers that Con Artist used, a long list of which was still on that
label's not recently updated website a mere few days ago. I wouldn't
be surprised if some of these dealers might be rather more willing
than usual to reveal such information in these circumstances, since
they will not have been able to obtain refunds for returns.
You seem to accuse me of vindictiveness; I bear WB-C no personal
malice whatsoever but that fact does not signify that I believe that
it's perfectly OK for someone to do what he has done and expect to get
away with it unscathed. Do you think that he should do that?
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:01:58 +0100, sorabji-arch...@lineone.net wrote:
> > if one looks at the figures that have been put forward (and I don't
> > think that they are unreasonable) of CDs sold at around £12.50 apiece
> > and a net profit of £9.00 on each, even if WB-C did only sell around 50
> > copies of each, his net profit would be 50 × 119 × £9.00, which is a
> > cool £53,550.
>
> minimum of $750 per title for pressing and artwork. If you sell on average
> 50 CD's at $12.50 and subtract $2.50 for package, mail etc. you have
> $500 income against $750 expenses. At 119 titles that is a loss of 119 *
> $250, or about $30,000 loss.I'm not suggesting that my calculation is correct, but it is not far
from that supplied some time ago by Andrew Rose. If he's watching
this, he may provide further input; if not, have a look at his figures
which are, again, not guaranteed to be accurate but are probably not
wide of the mark. I think that your pressing / artwork charge is far
higher than W-BC will have paid and he certainly won't have paid as
much as you suggest for packing and mailing; I can send a CD out in
suitable packing to anywhere in UK for about a dollar in total. WB-C
will have incurred none of the usual charges for instrument hire and
technicians' fees, venue hire, artists' fees, etc. customarily
associated with making a solo piano recording; if he were still able
only to make a loss from his enterprise, he would surely be the only
fraudster in history to have deliberately committed fraud for the
purpose of losing money!
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
changed...
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:25:35 +0100, td wrote:
> > The point being, of course, that you can't prove what he sold either and
> > if you were WBC you would have already destroyed the incriminating
> > evidence.
>
> copying is illegal. The amount of copies made is easier to determine at
> the CD production plant. A rough estimate is about a 1000 copies per
> title. A copyright infringement claim of over 1 million would need
> nothing more than the statements of the production plant.This is indeed largely true, although, of course, it would depend on
who was bringing what kind of action. In the contexgt that you mention
- that of copyright theft - you are correct in what you say. If,
however, a separate action is brought on behalf of purchasers of the
CDs, that might be a rather different matter. I cannot see one single
court action managing to embrace both simply because the same accused
is involved; they are quite different issues and the proceedings would
have been be brought by different people.
Best,
Alistair
Matthew B. Tepper
Thank you very much for the recap.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
Matthew B. Tepper
caused the following letters to be typed in
> This was actually a perfectly reasonable question, even if it had already
> been answered previously; to suggest merely that the answer is for Mr
> tepper to "grow up" is hardly helpful to anyone. I have personally
> registered a complaint with Trading Standards, although what if anything
> they eventually do in the way of action as a consequence of the approaches
> of others remains open to question and, one may reasonably suppose, will
> largely come to be driven by the numbers of disaffected customers who may
> be adding their weight to what is already on this file.
And I owe you my thanks once again for carefully outlining the situation.
Matthew B. Tepper
in news:1174295126....@e1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:
> The lesson is really familiar. When someone says (or rather, writes)
> he's discovered something extraordinary, an unparallelled genius, the
> ultimate recording of something that's been recorded a zillion times,
> but this new one is the Best Ever, you know he's trying to pull a
> deacon on you. Probably he is a deacon.
Indeed. And the specific lesson to be learned from that is:
Never trust a deacon.
Matthew B. Tepper
> On Mar 19, 12:16 pm, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> Follow the money. That is where you will find the industry.
>>
>> TD
>
> True, but the size of the money is merely relative; the crime remains the
> same and only the scale of its commission and the sums involved are
> different. Were it to be looked at in the manner that you appear to imply,
> there may as well be a threshold of, say, £250,000 under which such
> criminality can go unprosecuted. I hope that you wouldn't advocate such an
> idea.
I wonder how much of that £250,000 TD may have seen?
Matthew B. Tepper
have caused the following letters to be typed in
> Indeed, there has been ample international media coverage of this case
> (national press, specialist journals, national public broadcasters, etc.).
> One of the laws of journalism is that few stories ever stay near the top
> for more than 10 days; this one may have an awful long way to go in order
> to catch up with the 10 YEARS that the Diana and Dodi case has so far been
> running (and who knows how much longer that one will continue to run and
> run?), but it's already outpaced the usual period by 400% and nothing's
> even gotten close to coming to court yet...
Not to mention Ms. Overhyped What's-her-name, who shaved her head and got her
new tattoos within a two-mile radius of my residence. And then there's the
curious case of Billboard, which has ignored this matter entirely but which
typically devotes three news articles to a popular music celebrity's death,
going absolutely bonkers over that recently-deceased R&B guy. I gave up
counting their articles about him at ten....
MrT
evaluators and even experienced record producers are not trustworthy.
While there was a small group involved here (Distler, Orga, Morrison,
Deacon, etc.), the sample could be representative of the species. That
species is the big loser, in fact the only real loser. Financially,
the fraud was minor, and for most collectors the price paid for Hattos
was amply compensated by owning collectibles and exercising their
detective skills.
So, a total loss of credibility for a small group of people that
extends necessarily to the profession (so to speak). Which is why
Hurwitz was so active trying to put out the fires. Without any
success.
Best,
MrT
pgre...@comcast.net
And now disgruntled customers can make a profit on Ebay with their
Hatto CD's.
peter
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:24:58 +0100, sorabji-arch...@lineone.net wrote:
> >> In court it doesn't matter at all if he sold the copies or not. The
> >> copying is illegal. The amount of copies made is easier to determine at
> >> the CD production plant. A rough estimate is about a 1000 copies per
> >> title. A copyright infringement claim of over 1 million would need
> >> nothing more than the statements of the production plant.
>
> > was bringing what kind of action. In the contexgt that you mention -
> > that of copyright theft - you are correct in what you say. If, however,
> > a separate action is brought on behalf of purchasers of the CDs, that
> > might be a rather different matter. I cannot see one single court action
> > managing to embrace both simply because the same accused is involved;
> > they are quite different issues and the proceedings would have been be
> > brought by different people.
>
> the CD was different from the artist on the label. A civil and a criminal
> copyright case would come first. What is there to get after the copyright
> cases have ended? Besides that, a CD purchasers action would be difficult.
> Is it really uncommon that the content on the label differs from the
> content on the CD or that the content on the CD is manipulated? WBC could
> easily survive such a case, just because of his age.
>
> I think CD purchasers should be happy with their collectors items.
Purchasers would only be likely to act via Trading Standards rather
than as individuals bringing their own cases; this may happen - we
just don;t know yet. There is no guarantee which would come first -
this kind of case or a copyright infringement one; there is not even
any guarantee that one of each kind of case may run concurrently. It
is almost certainly uncommon that 119 CDs on one record label all show
a different artist than those who are actually performing on the CDs.
Manupulation is more common because that is all part of the editing
process even in a genuine product. Why would WB-C survive such a case
because of his age? He's only 76 in any case (as far as we know) and
criminal prosecutions have been brought against people of considerably
greater age than his. In any case, are you suggesting that people over
a certain age could expect to have their criminality overlooked by the
courts on age grounds alone?
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
credible for that. Whilst I am not exonerating the critics entirely, a
CD reviewer's job is, first and foremost, to review what they see and,
more importantly, hear rather than start off by trying to disprove
that anything and everything that claims to be on each CD for review
is factual. The reviewers haven't stopped reviewing, nor will they,
for the most part.
I don't know how many disaffected customers may refer the matter to
Trading Standards - nor, more importantly, do I know what the
copyright theft value may be in total, so it is not known how large or
small the fraud may have been in financial terms. Obviously, it's not
on the scale of other financial frauds but, as I have observed already
in another post, there is no lower threshold beneath which the fraud
becomes excusable under the law. We'll just have to see what happens.
I do believe that, whilst you are right to imply that some people will
be happy with what they bought even now they know their purchases to
have been based upon deliberate false information, the public's trust
in what is advertised will have taken abit of denting by this affair -
and that will not be the fault of the record companies as a whole but
of one only.
Best,
Alistair
MrT
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > > This is indeed largely true, although, of course, it would depend on who
> > > was bringing what kind of action. In the contexgt that you mention -
> > > that of copyright theft - you are correct in what you say. If, however,
> > > a separate action is brought on behalf of purchasers of the CDs, that
> > > might be a rather different matter. I cannot see one single court action
> > > managing to embrace both simply because the same accused is involved;
> > > they are quite different issues and the proceedings would have been be
> > > brought by different people.
Proceedings, nothing. Sir Alan M. Watkins-Barrington-Coupe deserves
our eternal gratitude for sending the profession (so to speak) of
classial record reviewer to the flames. It is in fact exculpatory. Sir
Alan M. Watkins-Barrington-Coupe is practically a benefactor.
Best,
MrT
td
Sense should always prevail in such matters.
My "sense" of this case is that it is quite unimportant to the major
players in the music business.
Perhaps the minor players will do something, but they are least able
to bring suit against WBC because of the sheer costs involved. To
expect that the "government" will take up the case is, I think, naive.
They, too, have bigger fish to fry.
TD
MrT
<< do believe that, whilst you are right to imply that some people
will
be happy with what they bought even now they know their purchases to
have been based upon deliberate false information, the public's trust
in what is advertised will have taken abit of denting by this affair
-
and that will not be the fault of the record companies as a whole but
of one only. >>
HI, Alistair. Have you ever been negatively surprised on hearing a
pianist in concert after being used to his studio recordings? I have
heard some concerts where it was obvious that the pianist could not
play a piece accurately and up to speed, yet the recordings received
glowing reviews and "sound really good", no mistakes, etc.. Is that
not fakery? Sure, the Hatto affair was crude, even crazy (we still
don't know the motive), but those recordings that "sound really good"
are fakes, undetectable fakes for the listener.
Best,
MrT
td
I can only judge by my perception of your advocacy for legal action
here. You seem bent on "punishing the law-breaker".
I wonder if you have such a meticulous attitude towards other law-
breakers you stumble across in life. People who pass you on the
highway at illegal speeds. People who cross against the light. Just a
few examples, of course. Many others could be cited.
The point is one of proportion. You feel WBC's actions constitute a
kind of high crime or misdimeanour. I consider it petty larceny. You
want to pursue the matter. I have no interest whatsoever. And I say
that as someone who has purchased many of JH's CDs. By rights I should
be outraged. As it is, I am simply disappointed. The money is
unimportant. The prinicple of being so betrayed causes one to rethink
the well-springs of humanity. Man, if tempted, will do wrong some of
the time. A sad fact of life.
TD
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:15:14 +0100, sorabji-arch...@lineone.net wrote:
> > I'm not suggesting that my calculation is correct, but it is not far
> > from that supplied some time ago by Andrew Rose. If he's watching this,
> > he may provide further input; if not, have a look at his figures which
> > are, again, not guaranteed to be accurate but are probably not wide of
> > the mark. I think that your pressing / artwork charge is far higher than
> > W-BC will have paid
>
> that the process starts at 500-1000, so you spend a minimum of $750 per
> title.I take your point, but I think that you're forgetting that these
products have - as I understand it - been identified as CDRs so have
almost certainly been produced in-house; if - or at least to the
extent that - this is the case, WB-C will not have had to make any
more than he needed at any one time so he will not have had to outlay
capital sums for runs of 500 or more per title.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
the fact that Gramophone, IRR, BBC Music Magazine and all the other
record review journals in the world have not suddenly packed up as a
direct consequence of this case.
If you nevertheless believe that WB-C has been an artistic benefactor
of considerable importance, then why not make a charitable donation to
support further fraudulent activity from him; or, even better still,
if you can afford to do that, why not put up some money to cover
people's losses? Not that I'm expecting or really even seriously
seeking a credible answer to that...
Best,
Alistair
MrT
Alistair, I was writing ironically. Don't get indignant over a joke.
If you want to help put the old coot in jail, I am not going to defend
him. However, you should listen to the BBC program on cheap records
that someone posted last week. A lot of these British types were doing
fake names and such way back when. They mention Barrington-Coupe
fondly... He is the author of Paul Procopolis, among other classic
names. Hey, maybe there was _never_ a Joyce Hatto.
Best,
MrT
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mar 19, 9:31 am, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
>
>
>
>
> arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > On Mar 19, 12:16 pm, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
> > > Copyright theft on this scale is very small potatoes. The majors are
> > > really worried about copyright theft in China, and not of classical
> > > music - a minuscule part of the market - but of pop music. That's
> > > where the money is.
>
> > > Follow the money. That is where you will find the industry.
>
> > > TD- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > True, but the size of the money is merely relative; the crime remains
> > the same and only the scale of its commission and the sums involved
> > are different. Were it to be looked at in the manner that you appear
> > to imply, there may as well be a threshold of, say, £250,000 under
> > which such criminality can go unprosecuted. I hope that you wouldn't
> > advocate such an idea.
>
> Sense should always prevail in such matters.
>
> My "sense" of this case is that it is quite unimportant to the major
> players in the music business.
correct in your ststement her as far as it goes but, since it is
mostly smaller independent labels that have been affected and the few
major-league ones have been affected only to a very small extent, that
is hardly the point.
> Perhaps the minor players will do something, but they are least able
> to bring suit against WBC because of the sheer costs involved.
independent labels are far less likely to bring proceedings than
organisations such as BPI, for the very reason that you rightly
mention.
> To
> expect that the "government" will take up the case is, I think, naive.
> They, too, have bigger fish to fry.
government"; Trading Standards is, on the other hand, an official
organisation but, again, they fry small fish quite often and there is
in any case such a thing in UK as the Small Claims Court (not that the
claims here would likely be small anought for that).
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
studio recordings is par for the course up to a point (and sometimes a
large point than others), but this is usually done for artistic
reasons or, on occasion, to deceive the listener into believing that
an artist is capable of things of which he/she is not actually capable
live (and the latter is indeed fakery to some degree); this is hardly
a fair comparison to the doctoring of many of the "Hatto" CDs, since
the motive for that has, at least in part, been to ensure that the
original artists' recordings are not reproduced verbatim so that their
true identity would hopefully be less easy to unmask. The difference
here, then, is in the extent of the fakery and the intended purpose
behind it.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mar 19, 9:56 am, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
>
>
>
>
> arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > On Mar 19, 12:25 pm, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
> > > I have to say, Alistair, that your "punitive" approach strikes me as
> > > futile and, I say this despite the theft of a good deal of my own
> > > money for example, rather vindictive.
>
> > > A quoi bon?
>
> > > TD- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > It's not "my" punitive approach; the man has committed crimes and, if
> > prosecuted, will have to face the music (if you'll pardon the
> > expression) in court; I do not even have an "approach" of my own in
> > any case, since WB-C has not infringed my personal copyrights - so
> > you're rather off-centre there, I'm afraid...
>
> I can only judge by my perception of your advocacy for legal action
> here. You seem bent on "punishing the law-breaker".
have, nor seek to have, control or influence. I am not advocating
legal action for any reason other than that, wehn a crime has been
committed and detected, legal action is what the law is supposed to be
there to address, otherwise the relevant pages of the statute books
may as well be torn up and burnt. For the record - yet again - I am
not seeking persoally to bring any action whatsoever against WB-C or
his label; it is therefore not for me to "punish the law-breaker" but
for the due process of law (if and when it is invoked) to consider all
the available evidence and do that it it is deemed appropriate.
> I wonder if you have such a meticulous attitude towards other law-
> breakers you stumble across in life. People who pass you on the
> highway at illegal speeds. People who cross against the light. Just a
> few examples, of course. Many others could be cited.
if none of them is adversely affecting me, but then i have never
claimed otherwise.
> The point is one of proportion. You feel WBC's actions constitute a
> kind of high crime or misdimeanour.
> I consider it petty larceny. You
> want to pursue the matter.
Not only do I not "want to pursue the matter", I cannot pursue it,
since, as I have stated more times than I care to remember, I am not
one of the victims; I do, however, understand why those who are may
want to pursue it and it will be up to them, not me, to do so. All
that I have done - apart from giving some views and facts - has been
to report the matter to the local Trading Standards Office which, as a
taxpaying citizen, I have a right to do; that is a far cry from
issuing proceedings, which I am not doing and have no cause to do. I
really do hope that you understand this now, for I don't think that I
could put it any more clearly than this.
> I have no interest whatsoever. And I say
> that as someone who has purchased many of JH's CDs. By rights I should
> be outraged. As it is, I am simply disappointed. The money is
> unimportant. The prinicple of being so betrayed causes one to rethink
> the well-springs of humanity. Man, if tempted, will do wrong some of
> the time. A sad fact of life.
I am not suggesting that you should be "outraged" - or even
disappointed; what you feel is your own business and your own
prerogative, just as is the case with every other purchaser of "Hatto"
CDs. All that one may reasonably ask is that you bear in mind that you
are not the only person who has bought some of these CDs and you are
not an organisation whose copyright has been infringed. So why don't
you just run along and accept your own views and let other potential
or actual affected parties do the same.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
alert eBay to the misrepresented goods, then they'll give them a wide
berth.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:59:30 +0100, sorabji-arch...@lineone.net wrote:
> > Why would WB-C survive such a case because of his age? He's only 76 in
> > any case (as far as we know) and criminal prosecutions have been brought
> > against people of considerably greater age than his. In any case, are
> > you suggesting that people over a certain age could expect to have their
> > criminality overlooked by the courts on age grounds alone?
>
> many years to get to a final conclusion.OK - understood - but this case - whether the misdescription aspect or
the copyright infringement aspect thereof - involves not civil
offences but criminal ones; it is unlikely that any hearings in this
matter would last very long. Weeks - a few months at most.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
convict WB-C. It is well known that this is hardly the first such fake
case, but the very fact that it is on the scale it is will likely make
quite a difference. I know about "Paul Procopolis"; he didn't "make"
119 CDs, however. Of course there was a Joyce Hatto; her identity has
indeed been called into question but swiftly established beyond doubt
as having been one of the few genuine aspects of this whole sorry
affair.
Best,
Alistair
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> On Mar 19, 3:09 pm, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 19, 9:31 am, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
> > arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > > On Mar 19, 12:16 pm, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
> > > > Copyright theft on this scale is very small potatoes. The majors are
> > > > really worried about copyright theft in China, and not of classical
> > > > music - a minuscule part of the market - but of pop music. That's
> > > > where the money is.
>
> > > > Follow the money. That is where you will find the industry.
>
> > > > TD- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > > True, but the size of the money is merely relative; the crime remains
> > > the same and only the scale of its commission and the sums involved
> > > are different. Were it to be looked at in the manner that you appear
> > > to imply, there may as well be a threshold of, say, £250,000 under
> > > which such criminality can go unprosecuted. I hope that you wouldn't
> > > advocate such an idea.
>
> > Sense should always prevail in such matters.
>
> > My "sense" of this case is that it is quite unimportant to the major
> > players in the music business.
>
> And "sense" is always only ever "your" sense?
You expect it to be somebody else's? I can only speak for myself. Do
you feel you speak for others as well as yourself?
Of course you are
> correct in your ststement her as far as it goes but, since it is
> mostly smaller independent labels that have been affected and the few
> major-league ones have been affected only to a very small extent, that
> is hardly the point.> Perhaps the minor players will do something, but they are least able
> > to bring suit against WBC because of the sheer costs involved.
They can do what they like.
But the costs will always have to be measured against the possible
gain. I doubt they will want to merely "punish" WBC. They will be
after compensation, retribution, an example. What are they likely to
get, I wonder, of all of those?
> True as far as it goes but, as I have already said, individual
> independent labels are far less likely to bring proceedings than
> organisations such as BPI, for the very reason that you rightly
> mention.> To
> > expect that the "government" will take up the case is, I think, naive.
> > They, too, have bigger fish to fry.
>
> Indeed it would be - but then BPI and such like are not "the
> government"; Trading Standards is, on the other hand, an official
> organisation but, again, they fry small fish quite often and there is
> in any case such a thing in UK as the Small Claims Court (not that the
> claims here would likely be small anought for that).
It comes down to a question of proportion.
I see it as too small for anyone to fret about. You see it as a high
crime and misdemeanour.
Vive la difference!
TD
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> Again, as I have already pointed out, pre-release manipulation of
> studio recordings is par for the course up to a point (and sometimes a
> large point than others), but this is usually done for artistic
> reasons or, on occasion, to deceive the listener into believing that
> an artist is capable of things of which he/she is not actually capable
> live (and the latter is indeed fakery to some degree); this is hardly
> a fair comparison to the doctoring of many of the "Hatto" CDs, since
> the motive for that has, at least in part, been to ensure that the
> original artists' recordings are not reproduced verbatim so that their
> true identity would hopefully be less easy to unmask.
What proof do you have of that assertion?
TD
td
> > I can only judge by my perception of your advocacy for legal action
> > here. You seem bent on "punishing the law-breaker".
>
> Yoiur judgements and perceptions are something over which I neither
> have, nor seek to have, control or influence.
Actually you do, as it is you who cause the perception.
I am not advocating
> legal action for any reason other than that, wehn a crime has been
> committed and detected, legal action is what the law is supposed to be
> there to address, otherwise the relevant pages of the statute books
> may as well be torn up and burnt. For the record - yet again - I am
> not seeking persoally to bring any action whatsoever against WB-C or
> his label; it is therefore not for me to "punish the law-breaker" but
> for the due process of law (if and when it is invoked) to consider all
> the available evidence and do that it it is deemed appropriate.> I wonder if you have such a meticulous attitude towards other law-
> > breakers you stumble across in life. People who pass you on the
> > highway at illegal speeds. People who cross against the light. Just a
> > few examples, of course. Many others could be cited.
>
> I don;t have any more meticulous attitude towards the oneor the other
> if none of them is adversely affecting me, but then i have never
> claimed otherwise.
This is really not an answer.
Do you, or don't you, favour the pursuit by the law of ALL
lawbreakers?
> The point is one of proportion. You feel WBC's actions constitute a
> > kind of high crime or misdimeanour.
>
> No, the various laws involved do that - not me.
Which are variously ignored or overlooked or swept aside in the
pursuit of "bigger fish", as I have said.
In other words, if you don't like my attitude towards your treatment
of this matter, I should just leave you to your own devices.
Did you, by any chance, ever as a child have a set of marbles?
TD
td
Clearly your experience of the law and its ability to expedite matters
runs contrary to the experience of others.
Chel is correct. It would take years.
TD
sorabji...@lineone.net
at the same time you don;t expect that "sense" to be understaood as
anyone else's but your own, it is clear that your idea of what should
prevail in such mattes os personal to you rather than something which
should "prevail" for us all; thatnk for clearing that up in your own
words.
> Of course you are
>
> > correct in your ststement her as far as it goes but, since it is
> > mostly smaller independent labels that have been affected and the few
> > major-league ones have been affected only to a very small extent, that
> > is hardly the point.> Perhaps the minor players will do something, but they are least able
> > > to bring suit against WBC because of the sheer costs involved.
>
> They can do what they like.
>
> But the costs will always have to be measured against the possible
> gain. I doubt they will want to merely "punish" WBC. They will be
> after compensation, retribution, an example. What are they likely to
> get, I wonder, of all of those?
Indeed - but it rather depends on who expends what proportion of those
costs; personally, I'd not be especuially happy to own a record
company that belings to BPI and pays it heavy subscriptions if that
organisation did not back me up with its financial and legal resources
if I'd become a victim of this kind of thing which is very much its
area of operation. WHat the outcome may be I have no idea; having no
clear idea as to an outcome of a criminal case is hardly justification
for abandoning it in principle before it gets going, is it?
> > as I have already said, individual
> > independent labels are far less likely to bring proceedings than
> > organisations such as BPI, for the very reason that you rightly
> > mention.> To
> > > expect that the "government" will take up the case is, I think, naive.
> > > They, too, have bigger fish to fry.
>
> > Indeed it would be - but then BPI and such like are not "the
> > government"; Trading Standards is, on the other hand, an official
> > organisation but, again, they fry small fish quite often and there is
> > in any case such a thing in UK as the Small Claims Court (not that the
> > claims here would likely be small anought for that).
>
> It comes down to a question of proportion.
>
> I see it as too small for anyone to fret about. You see it as a high
> crime and misdemeanour.
You see it as what you choose, but you might see it differently if you
ran an affected record company. I see it as a crime beause that's what
it is - not an especially large-scale one other than in its own
context, to be sure, but a crime nonetheless but, as I have already
said, that is not my opinion but a fact.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
something needed to be done in an attempt to conceal the evidence of
whose they actually were; why else go to the trouble of doctoring
them? Yes, I cannot "prove" it, but no one - not even you - has yet
come forward with an alternative explanation for that doctoring; do
you have a different idea as to why WB-C did that (or had it done for
him on his instructions)? - if so, why not let us all know what you
think it is.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mar 19, 12:07 pm, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
> arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > On Mar 19, 3:18 pm, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
> > > I can only judge by my perception of your advocacy for legal action
> > > here. You seem bent on "punishing the law-breaker".
>
> > Yoiur judgements and perceptions are something over which I neither
> > have, nor seek to have, control or influence.
>
> Actually you do, as it is you who cause the perception.
you could not and did not judge and perceive for yourself.
> > I am not advocating
> > legal action for any reason other than that, when a crime has been
> > committed and detected, legal action is what the law is supposed to be
> > there to address, otherwise the relevant pages of the statute books
> > may as well be torn up and burnt. For the record - yet again - I am
> > not seeking personally to bring any action whatsoever against WB-C or
> > his label; it is therefore not for me to "punish the law-breaker" but
> > for the due process of law (if and when it is invoked) to consider all
> > the available evidence and do that it it is deemed appropriate.
> > >I wonder if you have such a meticulous attitude towards other law-
> > > breakers you stumble across in life. People who pass you on the
> > > highway at illegal speeds. People who cross against the light. Just a
> > > few examples, of course. Many others could be cited.
>
> > I don't have any more meticulous attitude towards the one or the other
> > if none of them is adversely affecting me, but then I have never
> > claimed otherwise.
>
> This is really not an answer.
>
> Do you, or don't you, favour the pursuit by the law of ALL
> lawbreakers?
Yes, although, as you say (and I agree with you at least to the extent
that it is not used as an excuse to overlook certain breaches
altogether)
> > The point is one of proportion. You feel WBC's actions constitute a
> > > kind of high crime or misdimeanour.
>
> > No, the various laws involved do that - not me.
>
> Which are variously ignored or overlooked or swept aside in the
> pursuit of "bigger fish", as I have said.
You don't know what's going to happen in this case yet, any more than
I do, so you are premature to suggest that anything involved in it is
necessarily going to be "ignored", "overlooked" or "swept aside" in
the pursuit of anything or anyone else; whoever brings whatever
action, they are unlikely to abandon it midsteam or be discouraged
from further involvement by the thought that there are those "bigger
fish".
I neither like nor dislike it, since I am not "treating" it at all but
merely stating facts; you needn't worry about "leaving me to my own
devices", since i am not about to prosecute WB-C (although you already
knew that).
> Did you, by any chance, ever as a child have a set of marbles?
Are you losing yours?
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
on for long periods of time and, whilst it is not entirely impossible
that this one could do so, I believe it to be highly unlikely. Much
(though not quite all) will depend on the strength or otherwise of the
defence which WB-C's lawyers offer up in court.
> Chel is correct. It would take years.
Chel was referring to civil matters when he made his statement. I
pointed out that these are criminal, not civil, issues. Andrew Rose
and others have observed that the time taken in the evidence gathering
side of all of this could easily be shortened considerably were WB-C
to provide the full details of whose material he has stolen as well as
other pertinent information; it seems unlikely that he will want to do
that, but then he may change his mind once in court. Who knows? It
would indeed be a nuisance if the case/s did drag on remorselessly,
but I think it perfectly possible that, if brought, they could be
wrapped up without that. We'll just have to see.
Just for the record, do you believe that WB-C should be allowed to get
off Scot free? If so, why? - and above what sum of money do you
believe someone should no longer be treated as though above the law in
such cases?
Best,
Alistair
johnlew...@sympatico.ca
couldn't agree more with his assessment. These are some of the
smartest words I've read in a long time about the nature of any kind
of musical "recording" and, more to the point, about the nature of the
composer's so-called "intent":
> The poor souls who are deluding themselves with the notion that there
> is
> an objective, materializable and attainable "composer intent" in a
> work of
> music, all that matters is who comes closer to realizing that intent,
> not
> how they perform!
>
> This is why a "trained professional listener" like Tom Deacon could go
> through a pile of "Hatto performances" without noticing anything
> amiss.
>
> dk
Monroe Beardsley would agree. This really is the essence of the
problem.
A propos a different kind of performance: I've just come back from
March break at "Big White": the skiing was fantastic.
JG
Ralph
> On Mar 18, 11:29 pm, "david7ga...@aol.com" <david7ga...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>> On Mar 19, 1:04 am, Wayne Reimer <wrdslremovethis濃pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Lots of truth in what you say.
>> There's some truth in what he says about the timidity and literalism
>> of the latterday performer. As history, his explanation of how the
>> current situation came to pass could not be more total nonsense.
>>
>>> t's worth pointing out that some
>>> composers also had a hand in creating the "it's about the text, not the
>>> performance" concept of music.
>> Yes, but you've grabbed the wrong end of the stick. Dan's view of the
>> performer's responsibility to be expressive and independent and
>> inspired originally belonged to the Romantic composer, or, at the very
>> least, to an influential myth about the Romantic composer. In any
>> case, the Romantic composer seized control from the performer: even
>> Chopin, who liked his own rubato but nobody else's. And necessarily
>> so: the kind of very local rubato that the late eighteenth-century
>> musician grew up with is writ large in 19th-century music. No way in
>> hell you would get the kind of rubato you find in Mahler or especially
>> the even more radical kind of rubato characteristic of the
>> expressionist Schoenberg if the composer didn't write markings in bar
>> after bar.
>
> In other words, you're proving my case!
>
>
I heard that Bartok didn't always follow the score in performing his own
works. Would that prove or disprove your case?
Ralph
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:57:08 +0100, sorabji-arch...@lineone.net wrote:
> >> Chel is correct. It would take years.
> > Chel was referring to civil matters when he made his statement. I
> > pointed out that these are criminal, not civil, issues.
>
> civil matter, just like the Milli Vanilli case.I have no idea what mind of action that would be, for what I was
talking abougt was an action brought by a customer or customers, or by
an organisation representing customers, in respect of misdescribed
goods; that, according to UK Trading Standards, is a criminal, not a
civil, matter and, again, I am not giving my personal opinion of this
but merely citing Trading Standards' stance.
Best,
Alistair
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:567ljaF...@mid.individual.net:
> WBC could easily survive such a case, just because of his age.
Unfortunate if so. You do the crime, you do the time.
> I think CD purchasers should be happy with their collectors items.
I am not.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Harrington/Coy is a gay wrestler who won't come out of the closet
Matthew B. Tepper
have caused the following letters to be typed in
> OK - understood - but this case - whether the misdescription aspect or
> the copyright infringement aspect thereof - involves not civil offences
> but criminal ones; it is unlikely that any hearings in this matter would
> last very long. Weeks - a few months at most.
A shorter period of time if he makes a full and detailed confession. What
he has said so far has been so obviously tripe as not to be satisfactory.
Oh yes, and if he had accomplices -- either at home in the UK, or on the
continent, or even (dare I say) here in North America, he should name them.
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:1174316318.324314.87580
@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
> And now disgruntled customers can make a profit on Ebay with their
> Hatto CD's.
As long as they are clearly labelled "hoax" in the subject line. That guy
who sneered at what he called "web rumors" after the matter had already
been thoroughly aired in the New York Times and elsewhere deserved to have
his listings removed.
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> On Mar 19, 4:35 pm, "td" <tomdedea...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 19, 11:56 am, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
> > arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > > Again, as I have already pointed out, pre-release manipulation of
> > > studio recordings is par for the course up to a point (and sometimes a
> > > large point than others), but this is usually done for artistic
> > > reasons or, on occasion, to deceive the listener into believing that
> > > an artist is capable of things of which he/she is not actually capable
> > > live (and the latter is indeed fakery to some degree); this is hardly
> > > a fair comparison to the doctoring of many of the "Hatto" CDs, since
> > > the motive for that has, at least in part, been to ensure that the
> > > original artists' recordings are not reproduced verbatim so that their
> > > true identity would hopefully be less easy to unmask.
>
> > What proof do you have of that assertion?
>
> > TD
> Yes, I cannot "prove" it
Thank you. Nice to clear that up.
TD
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > Did you, by any chance, ever as a child have a set of marbles?
>
> Are you losing yours?
No answer, of course.
Clearly you did, and when peeved, you took your marbles and went off
by yourself.
Perhaps my comment to Tepper should have rather been addressed to you?
TD
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> Just for the record, do you believe that WB-C should be allowed to get
> off Scot free?
Frankly I don't really care what happens to him. My only reason for
commenting here is to bring a bit of realism to what I see as a lot of
expostulating and supposition.
Laws are never pursued with equal vigour.
How does the song go: "Que sera, sera."
>If so, why? - and above what sum of money do you believe someone should no longer be treated as though above the law in such cases?
I leave that to the interested parties and to Scotland Yard. Neither
has asked my opinion on the matter.
TD
Ralph
> Indeed, there has been ample international media coverage of this case
> (national press, specialist journals, national public broadcasters,
> etc.). One of the laws of journalism is that few stories ever stay
> near the top for more than 10 days; this one may have an awful long
> way to go in order to catch up with the 10 YEARS that the Diana and
> Dodi case has so far been running (and who knows how much longer that
> one will continue to run and run?), but it's already outpaced the
> usual period by 400% and nothing's even gotten close to coming to
> court yet...
>
Oh dear. This surely raises the stakes for Anna Nicole Smith.
Ralph
Frank Berger
"Chel van Gennip" <chel...@vangennip.nl> wrote in message
news:56886oF...@mid.individual.net...
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:38:12 +0100, sorabji...@lineone.net wrote:
>
>> in respect of misdescribed goods; that, according to UK Trading
>> Standards, is a criminal, not a civil, matter and, again, I am not
>> giving my personal opinion of this but merely citing Trading Standards'
>> stance.
>
> sales value. There are numerous CD's with fake performer names, making a
> criminal case of that would create a precedent. A criminal "misdescribed
> goods" case is not likely.
>
Why would that be? Seems like an open and shut case to me. I understand
that civil suits for damages won't be brought by individuals. Even if there
were losses suffered, it wouldn't be worth it. But isn't consumer fraud
illegal in the UK?
Frank Berger
"Matthew B. Tepper" <oy兀earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Xns98F87EFBBD0...@207.217.125.201...
> "pgre...@comcast.net" <pgre...@comcast.net> appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in news:1174316318.324314.87580
> @n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
>
>> And now disgruntled customers can make a profit on Ebay with their
>> Hatto CD's.
>
> As long as they are clearly labelled "hoax" in the subject line. That guy
> who sneered at what he called "web rumors" after the matter had already
> been thoroughly aired in the New York Times and elsewhere deserved to have
> his listings removed.
Not just his "listings."
sorabji...@lineone.net
>
> - Show quoted text -
Can't even find your own words, apparently, let alone thing and judge
for yourself (by your own admission). No, indeed, I make no bones
about the fact that I cannot prove this, yet you have neither
disproved it nor offered a possible alternative explanation. You're
still welcome to do that, of course (not that I seek to confer upon
you any obligation to do this or anything else, of course).
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mar 19, 1:50 pm, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
> arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > > Did you, by any chance, ever as a child have a set of marbles?
>
> > Are you losing yours?
>
> No answer, of course.
first place.
> Clearly you did, and when peeved, you took your marbles and went off
> by yourself.
at least form some kind of opinion, howeverr wrong-headed or
irrelevant, about this without any help or influence from anyone else.
Well - Alleluia! Sorry to disappoint you, by the way, but the only
marble that I've ever had anything to do with has been a kitchen
worktop - and that was most certainly not when I was a child, nor was
I ever peeved about this when I was a child because I didn't know
anything much about any of the uses of marble in those days.
> Perhaps my comment to Tepper should have rather been addressed to you?
comments - it is not up to Mr Tepper or to me or to anyone else how,
to whom or even whether you address anything.
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mar 19, 1:57 pm, "sorabji-arch...@lineone.net" <sorabji-
>
> arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> > Just for the record, do you believe that WB-C should be allowed to get
> > off Scot free?
>
> Frankly I don't really care what happens to him. My only reason for
> commenting here is to bring a bit of realism to what I see as a lot of
> expostulating and supposition.
matter. I don;t care what happens to him personally either. So we
agree on something. Good! But let me ask the same question in a
different way; do you believe that there is no case to answer
(irrespective of who was involved)? and, if so, why and on what
grounds? - and under what similar circumstances might you think that
there would be a case to answer?
> Laws are never pursued with equal vigour.
>
> How does the song go: "Que sera, sera."
No - nor should they be, if taken to the letter; with this much I also
agree with you. A friend of mine recently refused to pay an on-the-
spot fine for driving at 31.2 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour
limit zone for what was photographed for 8.2 seconds; he let himself
be taken to court and got off - total cost, probably serveral
thousands of pounds to the same long-suffering taxpayers that paid for
the speed camera in the first place. This is not the worst case of
this kind that I have recently encountered. Don't even ask me about
the other one where the driver was prosecuted for entering a dedicated
bus lane and done for speeding while (on both counts) trying to get
out of the way of an emergency ambulance with its blue lights
flashing; this person was prosecuted not only by the traffic cops but
by the ambulance service for two different angles on the same
"offence". His fortune was to have - by accident rather than by design
- the two cases held in the same court on the same day one ofter the
other (apparently no one noticed the significance). He got off both
and sued for compensation, which he got. Total cost to the taxpayer,
£15,000+. No, I do not believe that the letter of the law should be
adhered to without questions in every case without exception, as I
hope you now accept. The fact that the WB-C case does not fit into any
such scenario surely llustrates that it needs to be treated quite
differently.
> >If so, why? - and above what sum of money do you believe someone should no longer be treated as though above the law in such cases?
>
> I leave that to the interested parties and to Scotland Yard. Neither
> has asked my opinion on the matter.
Ah - so you have no opinion on this, yet you still express grave
reservations about the "Hatto" case along the lines that the financial
figures were just too insignificant, the age of the perpetrator was
just too great, etc. - and, on top of all that, not only do you
persist in referring to "Scotland Yard" when it's been "New Scotland
Yard for years", you purport to defer to the police despite all your
protestations that the entire case against WB-C is untenable for a
variety of non-reasons of your own making! How very convenient! The
fact that the UK police have not, by your own implied admission,
actually asked you to "help them with their enquiries" fails to
surprise me...
Best,
Alistair
sorabji...@lineone.net
Best,
Alistair
td
arch...@lineone.net> wrote:
> No, indeed, I make no bones
> about the fact that I cannot prove this, yet you have neither
> disproved it nor offered a possible alternative explanation.
That's fine.
My point is simply that you're indulging in idle speculation.
It's a waste of time, I think.
TD
sorabji...@lineone.net
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:38:12 +0100, sorabji-arch...@lineone.net wrote:
> > in respect of misdescribed goods; that, according to UK Trading
> > Standards, is a criminal, not a civil, matter and, again, I am not
> > giving my personal opinion of this but merely citing Trading Standards'
> > stance.
>
> sales value. There are numerous CD's with fake performer names, making a
> criminal case of that would create a precedent. A criminal "misdescribed
> goods" case is not likely.
>
Wait and see. It may be. It may not be. If it does happen, it is
unlikely, as I have already stated, to be brought by individuals and
more likely to be brought by an organisation representing some of
them, if at all.
Best,
Alistair