Thank you I have received various emails. I had hoped to wait until the fervour had dissipated a little, because feelings have obviously been high. So here is the post you want, but maybe not with what you want to hear.

I suppose I risk getting flamed for what is to follow, because the flavour will not be to everyone’s liking. However I hope it is a more balanced view, and is read carefully before jumping to conclusions and sending a flame.

I have been told that I was accused of being some kind of company stooge on the Technote forum recently. Since I did not see the post before it was deleted by Technote, I had no chance to reply – a problem with the new system, if posts are deleted before you have seen them, yet others may have read them in the meantime.

Technote asked me to write the occasional article for their magazine, this is my only contact with them; I am not privy to their commercial and confidential matters since I am not an employee, only someone who occasionally writes an article about keyboards and computers – and makes the odd disk. If you want to supply an article or disk, you are all free to do so.
Similarly I was asked to write books by an American Dealer about the keyboards and hard drives, if this gives me a hidden agenda, it has not been hidden very well.

I had spoken to technote after several of my posts, asking what is happening on the forum, were deleted. They replied only in very general terms at that time, with no details given, again I assume for commercial and legal reasons.

The main reason, as I see it, is that the forum was being used to collect addresses for the swapping of retail copyright disks. I am not being judgmental here, it is possible that this was entirely accidental, without realising this was copyright material or just not thinking about it. Yet one particular package offered contained an entire Technote retail disk.

Put yourself in their position: it should be pretty obvious that an organisation where jobs, income and future depend on selling disks is not going to pay for a forum where people flagrantly swap their retail disks without paying for them. Everyone has to make a living and no-one does it by cutting their own throats. It is now apparent why the forum was down for a week, and all references to disks were deleted, and no links or advertisements or email addresses are now allowed.

Where I do agree with you is the changeover to a new regime at the forum could have been handled a little more diplomatically. It is possible that Technote’s hands have been tied legally. Nevertheless it may be that if the reasons for the necessary changes had been explained, forum contributors would have understood better, and the new regime introduced with less of an upturn, and consequent confusion. Reading the terms and conditions you have to agree to enter the new technote forum, I would propose that this fits the facts.

I had hoped up till now that a meeting of minds might be arranged, but unfortunately this seems less likely as time goes on. They seem to have made their decision, and turning the clock back looks less likely as the days pass.

I am not being biased against this forum, Nigel does an incredible job with the synthzone, (with no pop-ups!) and I read it with amusement and entertainment. However if the same thing happened here, I am sure Nigel would be forced to react in some similar way too. Maybe an answer would be to insist on a declaration from the person offering a package that they guarantee no retail material is being distributed.

To try and clarify the situation:
I was careful to declare the source of my conversions, on both web sites and also in an enclosed readme. Since preset styles are not sold by themselves but supplied inside a keyboard into the public domain, and since conversion methods are available as features, the manufacturers tend not to be strict in this area. As noted by the many sites around the web offering internal styles (Hi Gunnar ). However recently it was reported that Yamaha insisted on the removal of the internal styles of new keyboards from a Yamaha user site, since obviously they thought that distributing the styles of products just out on the market, may hinder sales. For this reason I chose models that have been out for a while.
This is not the same as distributing a retail disk, where clear copyright and hard financial loss is involved. We all know disk swapping goes on… they are just not prepared to pay for a forum to help it along!

We are all human, and I understand the jubilation of finding a site after the disappointment of losing one. However the old site served well for a long time. I believe you are here by a route that is perhaps not as one-sided as everyone had assumed up until this time. Sorry to burst the bubble, but I write not with euphoria and the current sense of self-congratulation, but only with sadness that it came to this.
Alec




[This message has been edited by technicsplayer (edited 01-18-2002).]