This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Terry - apologies for ruffling feathers. Actually, I am a member of the PTG, and also an artist who is very sensitive about copyright infringement. The part on the page to which I am referring that lead me to go ahead with this was " The preceding article is a reprint of Technical Bulletin #1 published by the Piano Technicians Guild, Inc. It is provided on the Internet as a service to piano owners. " Of course, since you've done a lot further picking and referring from their website, I now see that that was probably really wrong and stupid. Believe me, it is in my plans to purchase actual brochures. Even when I don't have a printout on my person, I still refer customers to the website. However, thank you for clarification, education, and encouragement on this matter. Once my wallet recovers from my dues I've already planned on investing in several things through the ptg, not the least of which is a set of brochures on pitch raising and regulation. SORRY! -ilex -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org]On Behalf Of Terry Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2005 5:57 AM To: Pianotech Subject: Re: The day's frustration What I find even more frustrating than Dave's day (as frustrating as it obviously was) is folks who would pilfer from the PTG rather than support an organization whose sole purpose is to foster the availability of state-of-the-art technical information on piano technology. "If I hand my customer a printout from the PTG website" ........... you will be guilty of copyright infringement. Don't do it. These materials are available for sale at http://ptg.org/merchandise/PTGStore05.pdf . "If I hand my customer a printout from the PTG website, it not only credits the PTG for all of the information given, it also gives the url for the PTG's website..." It not only gives the URL, but also indicates that it is copyrighted - "© 1992 & 1994 The Piano Technicians Guild, Inc." And if you look just a little further, on the home page you will see: "©2000 This site is subject to copyrights owned by the Piano Technicians Guild. All materials posted to this site are subject to copyrights owned by the Piano Technicians Guild (PTG) and other individuals or entities. Any reproduction, retransmission, or republication of all or part of any document found on this site is expressly prohibited, unless the PTG or the copyright owner of the material has expressly granted prior written consent to so reproduce, retransmit, or republish the material. All other rights reserved." You might want to consider joining the PTG and supporting the organization that makes available technical information that is "EXTREMELY useful in circumstances like these." "Printing off a copy of the PTG explanation of a Pitch Raise..." or anything else is illegal and IMHO, downright dishonest. Please consider supporting the PTG rather than pilfering from the PTG. Terry Farrell I have actually found the PTG's website to be EXTREMELY useful in circumstances like these. Printing off a copy of the PTG explanation of a Pitch Raise (along with the faq of "why does my piano go out of tune" yadda yadda), not only gives the customer concise information on piano care and behaviour, but also gives them a legitimate reference point outside of the word of one new tuner. They obviously don't know that your work and intentions are honest, so for all they know, you could just not be a very good tuner, and/or you could be trying to take them for a ride, billing them for a bunch of bogus work. To their credit, they're right to be skeptical - there ARE unfortunately a lot of tooners (and other service people) who make their livings off of dishonest upsales/scams. *WE* know you're not one of those, but your new and uneducated customer doesn't. Think about it - it's kind of like when you go in for a simple oil change and JoeBob at the quicklube tells you that you need about $200 worth of additional work done on your car (even if it's a tuneup, transmission flush, new air filter...). But last time, you had your oil changed by Tommy up the street, and he didn't mention any of that. Tommy's been changing your oil for years and has never had to do anything more to it - tuneup? What's that? If I hand my customer a printout from the PTG website, it not only credits the PTG for all of the information given, it also gives the url for the PTG's website - aha! Another valuable resource for piano owners who just don't know any better. It also earns me brownie points for going out of my way to show that *I* care about their piano, and that I want to bother explaining these things to them. Lastly, it leaves them with written information in a clear format (not handwritten. And do you really want to take the time to write the whole pitch raise and false beats shpiel out?) - 90 percent of what you verbally tell a customer goes in one ear, gets jumbled up and confused, and leaks out the other ear. Not because customers are stupid, but because most people simply don't have the time or attention span - they have kids, which means they have scouts, soccer practices, piano lessons, sunday school, pta meetings, karate, ballet, etc. That simple piece of paper is something they can refer to. Maybe they'll read it and respond positively, maybe not. But you're at least covering your butt, doing all you can do, and giving a chance for it. ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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