[mb-users] "Courtesy relations": question and case

[P. HarryE. Coenen]

Hi

Well, I had to give it a subject, but I am not sure if it's the right one.

On some artists indiviuals have developed extensive websites with details
that go far beyond anything MB can incorporate for, let's say, the next 5 to
10 years.
Think about detailed discographies, sessionographies, complete listings of
all live performances, listings of TV, radio and other "non-offical"
registrations, etc..

Assuming that these people allow me to use their data to fill MB gaps, is
there a policy to give credit to and relate to these individuals' or groups'
sites?

As an example:
Klaus Werner http://www.kind-of-blue.de, Peter Losin http://www.plosin.com
or Enrico Merlin http://www.enricomerlin.net all have sites with extremely
interesting material on Miles Davis (Note that none of these individuals has
given persmission to use their material (yet)).
Apart from that there are sites in Japan (which I can judge personally due
to my lack of proficiency in Japanese) and international mailinglists.
The maintainers of these sites and mailinglists most probably cannot be
bothered with updating MB data.
Would it be OK to give them appropirate credit, if someone else (say me)
uses their data (with permission) to update MB entries?

I could imagine something along the lines of:
Type of site: e.g. expert discography covering (all/certain period)
Type of mailinglist: general fan, musicians only, etc., sharing
anecdotes/other memorablia (bootlegs?)
Main language: speaks for itself: but simply the languages used on the site
or list

Essentially I would limit this to the non-commercial and official sites
only. With official I mean, continuing the same example, the site of Miles
Davis's estate http://www.milesdavis.com/ (though that has a commerical
intent), or artists own official site. In most cases the offical site would
be the only one with blatant commercial intent (unless the artists have
sanctioned other sites), while the rest (fansites/expertsites) could be
numerous. Since there are , same example, 1000+ Miles Davis fansites, you/we
would have to agree that a new site should "add value", thus be in a
language not covered yet, add inspiring content not offered by others, etc.
or replace an existing one (that dried up, isn't maintained anymore etc.). A
bit of a dubious rule, but in principle a voting issue: just vote it out/in
(still dubious since MB is still anglo-american centred, so exisitng users
should apply leniency to contributions from other continents; or maybe users
should sometimes even be overruled (e.g. by the "internationalisation
working party", when they vote out a site, maybe for the "right parochial
reasons", but the wrong "international reasons").

And to put it bluntly, if the site has a commercial intent (next to it
general informative intent or apart from being the artist main site) they
should pay for the clicks. But that's something for the MB management to
consider.


On a tangent of this:
Who actually gets money when the linkthrough to other sites (mainly Amazon)
are clicked? I know some years ago Amzaon offered up to 5% of the sales
through these clicks to the linker (some lucky people still seem to be on
that type of scheme). Does MB get a cut, or is it simply the "smart" linker
who includes their own code in the link?
My opinion: It should be MB!

A non issue? Wait till I add the bootlegs of Miles Davis' registrations to
the site (including the links where to buy them). I would only need to make
a deal with the sellers and earn myself a yearlong holiday in a few weeks.
I don't want paranoia on this. In principle I would truast everything at
face value. But if you have a little policy, at least you (that's we
ourselves) can police  the obvious excesses.

--
Harry Coenen aka EnnioD