[HANASHIR:13773] RE: New tech for songleaders?

[Daniel Hoffer <dmh...>]

I agree with everybody that what we have through songleaders.org is, 
as Judy G said, "fine, friendly, useful, educational, and sometimes 
entertaining." No disagreement there!

Of course what we have is great. Can we do anything else to make it better?

To respond to Joy's question, it wouldn't be hard to get music 
online. If it can be recorded on to a CD or a hard drive, it can be 
uploaded to the web as an electronic file. If it can be recorded on 
to a tape, I could volunteer my time to record that into an 
electronic file and then upload it. It's not hard to do. All you need 
is a computer with a microphone and the necessary software, which is 
available for free.

And as Beth pointed out, and a fellow songleader from Texas, a 
database of music as well as of songleaders is a great way to allow 
people in more "rural" areas (Jews-wise) to stay connected with the 
larger national community of songleaders. It's a great way for people 
who can't travel or who don't have a lot of exposure to other 
songleaders or songleading events to keep in touch with what's going 
on.

Do you agree?

As for the copyright issues, how about an option to "flag" a song 
that may violate copyright laws, and then an administrator (myself, 
or Adrian if he has time) can remove it? It could be an electronic 
process and should be quite automatable. Of course there would be 
warnings on the site to never knowingly post anything that would 
violate copyright law, and guidelines for what constitutes fair and 
legal use.

Josh, as for the master list of songleaders, I had in mind more of a 
database where people could sign themselves up - not a situation 
where an administrator or staffperson would go and solicit 
information from everyone. Songleaders would only sign up if they 
wanted to. But of course they might want to because it would enable 
temples to find them more easily. That part shouldn't require any 
maintenance on the part of an administrator. Then, during High 
Holidays or right before the summer or any other time of the year, 
when temples are having trouble finding people, they can find 
songleaders easily just by searching the database.

What do you think?

-DMH
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