The day's frustration

[ilex cameron ross]

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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.

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