The Harmony Parlor Photo Album

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To The Attention of All Fans of The Harmony Parlor

This is something that John wrote and sent out in an email to only a few ... he wrote it as a little "story" to get out some of his frustrations because, AGAIN, his hard work on a translation was taken by the AndreRieuFans site and posted on their site as their own work. They have been doing it for a couple of years now and we have not said anything because we didn't want to put anything negative on the Parlor. But it has reached the point where John, (and myself), just can't keep going on with our work on the Parlor without it being put out in the open ........ hoping by doing so it will stop! We enjoy what we do, as do Ineke and Ruud, but it is still a lot of hard work and a lot of hours that go into it. And over  and over again, they at the AndreRieuFans site take that hard work of John's Translations and just post them on their site claiming it as their own work. Maybe to some, that doesn't seem like a big deal ... but, to those who put in all the time and work, it is. It's not about just taking news articles, all the other sites share our articles, it's about the work and hours that John puts into these translations only to have them taken and claimed as their own work.  If we are going to continue to do what we do on the Parlor, we are going to at least now speak up and let it be known what they are doing to us over and over and over.

Below John's little story of frustration I have also put the note that Ineke wrote on the Parlor on Facebook a couple of days ago. I am adding it on here because many fans don't have Facebook, so did not see it ............... And I'd like to say, we appreciate all the support we got from so many fans on Ineke's Facebook note. But also would like to add, that we aren't doing this for a pat on the back, we're doing it because what the AndreRieuFans site is doing to us is wrong and we just aren't going to keep quiet about it anymore. It's not fair to any of us and especially to John who works so hard at these translations for us. Sorry this comes at Christmas time, but it's not something we planned.  ....................... Also below is a note from Sonja regarding "Translations". ................ Sue
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"Here is John's Little Story"

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This is just a little story which can be taken as fantasy or truth, whichever way you would like to take it and for whatever it is worth. The names of the individuals can be fictitious, and then again they might be correct, but it is my "story" as I see it and I'm writing it to get out some of my frustrations!!

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►Once upon a weekend not so long ago, as a matter of fact it was just last weekend, a lady named Josephine, who for all practical purposes can be a very nice lady, was surfing the net like she always does, looking for any information about her beloved maestro, André. She is totally smitten with this gentleman, and will try to find as much as possible she can about this heartthrob of hers. Well, as it so happens she ventured into the Harmony Parlor where, lo and behold, there was a new article all about André and his wife Marjorie, titled "André Rieu Pays Tribute to His Wife." A very nice and lovely article I might add. Well, she read this article and was ecstatic, and thought this would be very nice for all her other André fans and friends at "AndreRieuFans" to read too.

In order to provide that service to her blog friends, she GOOGLED and found the link to the newspaper of this article. Since the Harmony Parlor had posted the name of the Newspaper at the request of the author, and also posted the authors name it was a relatively easy task. So she then posted the  link on the blog of the other Andre Rieu Fan site. (Of course she did not know that the Harmony Parlor had received personal permission from the author for the translation and posting of this article) Josephine visits almost if not daily at "Andre Rieu Fans and Friends" and chats with the other fans. So on this day Josephine wrote the following:
"Hi Dear Moderator. Not sure if it will be our excellent Jeanine Ann or her sweet stand in Norma. This is absolutely Beautiful, Andres tribute to His Wife he obviously absolutely adores. They talk of a Christmas Movie with an Actor playing the part of Andre. That is going to be wonderful but I am wondering who on earth could take the part of Our Gorgeous Man !!! Lots of love Josephine xxxx"
 
But this notice was soon removed since Moderator Jeanine thought she could do one better and post the entire article, and henceforth get all the credit. And so it was that the moderator (Jeanine) clicked onto the link and lo and behold, there was that wonderful article all nicely translated by GOOGLE! But Google is not much of a translation and only gives you a jest as to what is being translated.
So Jeanine,  thinking this is not much to post on our site, then saw at the bottom of the article a note saying: click here for the entire article. Of course she immediately did that and what she found was in fact the original article, but the print was too small, and there was no way to enlarge that print, nor copy it and then run it through an online translator.
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Aha said Jeanine, no problem, I know exactly where I can go and get a proper translation. I’ll just go to the Harmony Parlor and copy theirs. They always do a superb job, and if I change a word here and there, no one will ever notice the difference. I have done it many times in the past and although they complained, I get away with it because if someone says anything at all about this, I just tell them that I use a Babelfish translation and then just put the words into proper order.(Note: kind of hard to do if you do not know the language).

Said Jeanine, I do not care about their copy right laws, plagiarism or being ethical. Whatever is on the internet is free for the taking. If they say something I’ll just play the victim, tell all my fan friends I am being harassed and they will stand behind me and support me. They believe anything I tell them.
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But ...... by not being multi lingual, Jeanine does not know that a translation is like a fingerprint, and no two people will ever come up with an identical translation even although the story is the same. Also she does not realize that John, who happened to do this particular translation for the Harmony Parlor, places a few idiosyncrasies in all his translations so he knows immediately whether his translations are being copied or not. There were also a few other indications revealing that Jeanine did not in fact ever have the entire original article in her possession. And in this case, sure as the sun rises in the East, this article was again copied. (If you would like to compare, be my guest. Read the one on the Parlor and then read the one she posted on her Blog)
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Of course Jeanine thought that in order not to draw attention to herself for doing the translation, she acknowledged someone named Eve and also Deirdre as translators. That made me wonder a day or so later when the same Deirdre placed the following comment on their blog: "Oh what a wonderful fairy love story!! They are the perfect couple. Thank you for sharing this fairy tale with us. MAGICAL!! Xxx" ............. The question then arose, why would someone who supposedly had just translated this article, make a statement like that? My only conclusion is that she never even saw the article until she read it on the Andre Rieu Fans site and she surely didn't "Translate" it!!

And so my dear friends, that’s my "story" ......... Again we caught Jeanine with her hands in the cookie jar so to speak and again, she is up to her old tricks. And no matter what we try to say or do, she somehow manages to turn everything around. Integrity, honesty and a respect for other people’s work, is apparently not in her vocabulary.
John

I will add this photo of the article in question from the internet where they claimed they got it and translated it. As you can see, it is so small you can not read it to translate it. And this is as large as it comes up on the Newspapers website.

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Ineke's post on the Parlor on Facebook two days ago:

Since I received the Australian book "King of the waltz" with translated lyrics from the Dutch book "The man behind the phenominon", I compared the two translations: ours and ARP's. Although the meaning is the same, they use a totally different choice of words. No translation can ever be the same. That's why I wonder how it is possible that another AR fan website can post a translation of John/Sue's article two days after the Harmony Parlor, with just a few words changed to keep up appearances of a new translation. They never give credits to the person who did the job, they pretend they did it themselves. We call that stealing! To our regret we have to conclude that also not nice Andre Rieu fans exist! ... Ineke

A Note From Sonja

I started the first English Andre site "Translations" back in 2002, and this taking of articles and information without credit has been going on since the "andrerieufans" site began. I would put in all the work with

translating the articles they would take it and take credit for it on their site.

Back in 2003 there were no articles in English and everything available about Andre was in Dutch or German and had to be translated. The "Andrerieufans" site did not have Dutch or German speakers, but it was easy just to take it from my site, If they did have translators and did there own translations you would be able to tell.

Translations are personal, two translators can work on the same article and it will come out different. They would be similar, but would not be the same. Translating in not an exact science and the choice of words can be very personal but still have the same meaning. No two articles will ever come out exactly the same if translated by a human translators! It would not just be a changed word here and there, the sentence structure of the article would be different.

This taking of articles without credit by this other site has been going on since 2004 and is not new.

We share, Translations, the Parlor, the movie site, several German sites share information and articles, we also give credit to the translator, the author and or to the photographer. Andrerieufans site does not share and has never shared, they only take information, material that has taken hours to translate and claim it as their own work.
Having had to deal with this for many years, I have a much stronger word for them than not nice, but will not use it here, since I am a nice person.
But if you are interested in "proof" I can certainly send you some emails they have send me and the Parlor and to other fans who did not agree with them, emails which are far from nice. I am all for sharing I am not for stealing material that someone else worked on for hours. And it really is sad that this has been going for so long, long before any of the newer fans even heard of Andre Rieu ........................ Sonja