Disclaimers ("Weasel Words")

Well, it finally happened - we've received advice that we must include a disclaimer somewhere on the website.

From what you will have seen on the rest of the site, we are the kinds of people who accept responsibility for all our actions, and we loathe the need for this legalistic definition of responsibility, there's far too much of this kind of rubbish around as it is!

But unfortunately, there is a need for the legalese, as there are some people, backed by some legal firms, who wish to abnegate all responsibility for any of their actions and instead attempt to blame their lack of common sense or decency on somebody else's (anybody's) shoulders (and wallets).

In corporate cultures, this is called "Covering Your Arse", or CYA for short. Well, this is our CYA statement.

The Audiography "Cover Your Arse" Statement

As a professional business, we will always honour our debts and accept our fair burden of responsibilities, in full accordance with the Fair Trading Practices Act. Unless otherwise specified, our statements of liability and responsibility do not in any way impede or abrogate the full legal rights of customers and clients of Audiography.

Our definitions of our and our customers' responsibilities are as follows (and please note, these definitions are binding).

Damage to, and handling of, damaged recordings

If we break, damage, or destroy a recording that we're working on (an extremely unlikely event), we will replace it at no cost to you. If the recording is not commonly available, we will go to all possible lengths (including finding and importing a replacement).

We treat every recording as if it were our own. We know how to prepare, handle, and care for recordings, and we will return the recording to you in at least as good condition as we received it.

If we decide that a recording that you've sent us will not survive playing (or cleaning, or any further handling), we will advise you immediately, and we will take no further action until we've heard from you. This necessarily may involve us explaining why we feel the risks outweigh the advantages, what the risks are, what the advantages are, and what alternative options may be available to you.

If you decide, based on the information we've presented, that you wish to continue recovering a particularly fragile recording, we will of course do our very best to ensure that we get the most information possible from the recording, and that we absolutely minimise further damage or degradation. However, if the recovery is unsuccessful, and/or the recording is rendered unplayable afterwards, you must accept that risk and you must therefore accept that, if the outcome isn't favourable, you and we have done absolutely everything humanly and technically possible, and that there's nothing that can be done further. Reaching this point and throwing a tantrum or threatening to sue Audiography is neither helpful nor reasonable, and won't recover the recording. However, we stand by our commitments, and if it's humanly possible, we will try to replace the recording for you (see the notes above).

Noise reduction and recording quality

No reproduction of a worn recording will ever be perfect. The laws of physics and reality means that some degradation to recordings happens every time a record or tape is played, no matter how (theoretically) perfect the playback equipment is. That is the main reason we exist.

We go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that our equipment is as well set up for your recording as is humanly and technically possible. However, if the underlying (original) recording is badly flawed, the results may be less impressive than you expect!

In every case, if there are any underlying issues that our expertise and equipment cannot address, we will notify you and discuss what the problem is, what options there are available to you, and what your expectations need to be, before we proceed with the recovery.

To be honest, we've never failed to delight our customers. However, in one unfortunate case, we remastered the recovered recording at much too low a level, and the poor customer could barely hear the recording at all! In that case, we remastered the recording and shipped the reprinted CD to that customer free of charge.

What we're trying to say is that if there is a problem, and it's our fault, we'll rectify it at no cost to you. If we can't rectify it, we'll notify you, explain what the problem is and what your options are, and when you have all the information, you can make an informed decision. It's that simple.

Copyright laws and responsibilites

Our provision of recovery services is based on your explicit agreement to abide by all relevant Copyright laws and regulations. In Australia, the relevant legislation is the Copyright Act, 1968, and the Digital Amendments to this Act. Please bear in mind, other Copyrights may be in effect on the recording (particularly if it was produced outside Australia), so other Copyrights may apply.

It is our responsibility to make you aware of your responsibilities under the Copyright legislation. It's not our responsibility if you break the law, and we specifically disclaim any and all responsibility under the Copyrights Act if you do use our services to break the law, whether deliberately or accidentally.

All commercial recordings are covered by a Copyright agreement, whether you're aware of it or not. The services we provide are designed to allow you to continue to use a recording that is covered by such an agreement, and the recording we produce is also fully compliant with the original Copyright agreement. So you cannot use the recording we produce for you, under that agreement, to make copies to send to family or friends, or to broadcast at a Bingo night, or share on the internet, or any other contravention of the Copyright agreement. What this means is that it is your responsibility to abide by the Copyright agreement, and it is your responsibility if you don't. By accepting the recordings we provide to you, you explicitly and implicitly agree to be bound by the Copyright agreement. If you break the law, you pay.

All personal recordings (not copies of commercial recordings you may have made) are owned by you. You are the Copyright holder on all the audio material in that recording. This applies to memoirs, recordings of parties, gatherings, family get-togethers, dictation tapes, patient notes (if you're a doctor), and so on. This means that if you find that we (or anyone else) has used any part of your recording, without your permission, for any purpose whatsoever, you are entitled to take action under the Copyright legislation. It's your stuff, so you say what goes!

Every recording we provide for you has an explicit written Copyright notice (in great big red letters on the CD label!). By accepting the recording we make for you, you explicitly and implicitly agree that the Copyright Notice is to be taken in lieu of the relevant Copyright Act and all agreements pertaining to the original recording, and that you agree to be bound to all relevant Copyright Acts and agreements. This means that the Copyright notice on the label stands for, and in no way limits your responsibilities, under the Copyright Act(s) and the original copyright agreement.

Specifically, by accepting and using any recovered recording we provide for you, you explicitly and implicitly indemnify Audiography against any action taken against you by the Copyright holder of that recording.

In other words, you can't take the recovered recording we make for you, then (without the original Copyright holder's permission), play it at a footy match or Gay Pride march, or sell copies of it on eBay, or any other contravention of the Copyright agreement on the original recording. If you then get caught by the authorities, you can't blame Audiography for making the material available to you. (In fact, we do make the material available to you, but only under the terms of the original Copyright agreement on the original recording).

So if you take a copy we make for you, get caught breaking the law with it, and claim that it's our fault, it won't stand up in court, because you agreed to abide by the original Copyright agreement, and we agreed to provide you a copy only on the understanding that you would comply with the agreement. If you failed to comply with the original Copyright agreement, then you failed to comply with our agreement with you, and we are therefore no longer responsible for providing you with the recovered recording. Q. E. D. In any case, you agree to protect Audiography against any such legal action, and you're still responsible for your actions.

This sounds so weaselly, and in a way it is, but we must protect our responsibility to the Copyright Act, and to the original Copyright holders.

Think of it like this: if you're driving a car, and you're speeding, or overtaking on double lines, or if you lose concentration and crash into a pillow factory, you can't sue the car company for selling you a vehicle that allows you to do those things! It's not the car manufacturer's responsibility for ensuring that you're fit to drive! It's your responsibility to make sure that you know how to operate the car, what road laws are in effect, and that you comply with those rules and laws.

Well, it's exactly the same with us: we provide you with a playable copy of an otherwise unplayable recording. If you choose to play the recording in a public place, or share it on the internet, then it's not someone else's fault - it's your responsibility that you understand what the Copyright Act(s) allows you do legally do with the recording!

We apologise for going on and on about this issue, but it's the single biggest problem we run up against, time after time. There are so many analogies to choose from, from the car manufacturer, to taking a camera to the cinema, to cutting your foot off with a chainsaw, to the McDonald's "Hot Coffee" lawsuit; and it's unfortunate that some people choose to take advantage of a service like ours to break the law and try and benefit, monetarily or otherwise, then when they're caught they try and shift the blame on someone else.

So we must clearly define what our role is in this Copyright area, and what we expect your role to be. For 999 customers out of a thousand, it's not an issue; but there's always some moron who's takes the risk, gets caught breaking the law, then tries to avoid responsibility, blames someone else, and stuffs it up for all the other decent users.

OK. Enough already with the Copyright stuff! Here are some other responsibilities you need to be aware of:

Shipping Issues and responsibilities

Shipping albums and other recordings is extremely safe, if some precautions are taken. We will always advise you specifically about these precautions, and what will happen if you don't take those precautions. If you choose not to follow the precautions when shipping recordings, it's up to you to accept responsibility for not taking those precautions. We have successfully received and recovered all types of recordings from all over the world, without a single instance of damage occurring. If you do protect the recording the way we advise you to, it's actually safer than personally picking up or delivering the recording in a car!

Unfortunately, we've had one instance of a customer sending a recording that was in terrible condition, then telling us it was in fair to good condition when he sent it, so we (or the Postal service) must have damaged it. He then went on to try and obtain compensation for the recording. Unfortunately for people like this, we know more than a bit about forensic examination, and we were able to prove beyond doubt that the recording was damaged before it was even packed and shipped. (No, we're not going to explain our forensic procedures!). So please don't try this at home - trying to obtain goods or services by deception is fraud, and we will pursue such fraudulent activity to the full extent permitted by law. We returned this gentleman's recording to him, COD. We were in a charitable mood that day - we sent it back in one delivery.

If you give us the wrong shipping address, then we will most likely send the recovered recording to that same wrong shipping address. So, if you're sending us your recording by post, please double-check the shipping details. In many cases, vinyl albums cannot be shipped to a post office box. In most cases, we'll confirm the address with you if it looks unusual.

The same goes for email addresses and phone numbers. So far, we've managed to find folks again by using the Whitepages or Google, but international details can be impossible to verify. So the more contact methods we have available, the less likely it is that anything will go missing in action!

Payment issues and responsibilities

We will always provide you with an estimate of the costs before we agree to accept work from you. If the estimate is wrong (in either direction!) we will notify you first before continuing.

If we overestimate the costs involved for a recovery, and you have paid in advance, we are more than happy to refund the difference. However, many customers prefer to have us "credit" them for the next conversion job. It's entirely up to you. This is not an issue if you choose to pay on receipt of the completed work, and that's perfectly acceptable to us too.

If we underestimate the costs of a conversion, you will always be given all options, and it is entirely up to you to choose your course of action. If a recording that is not affected by the change has already been recovered and mastered onto CD, it's entirely up to you whether or not you wish to pay for that part of the recording. If you choose not to pay or continue, we'll ship the original recordings back to you at our own cost.

If you're not entirely happy with the resulting recording, we will work with you to provide you with an acceptable recording, and we will send you the replacement recording at no cost.

If we are unable to comply with your expectations, we will always clearly explain why it is not possible, and wherever we can, we'll provide you with alternative options. We will always find a way to assist you to get what you need, even if we are unable to help directly.

International customers, please note, your payment must be drawn and transferred in Australian currency. It will cost you around 1 percent of the amount to do a conversion with your bank; it costs us more than 80% of the amount to convert it at this end. Unless we charge you 80% more, it makes more sense for all concerned if the currency conversion takes place at your end.

Currently, we accept cheques (in Australian dollars, but drawn on any reputable bank anywhere in the world), Credit Cards, EFTPOS, BPAY, and direct bank deposit of funds. If credit payments are available, we will only accept credit payment in advance of a job's acceptance. Unfortunately, we've seen enormous security and transfer problems with credit payments in the past, and we want to ensure that this doesn't affect our customers or us.

The End.

This has turned into a very long reading nightmare, and we apologise for the nature of, and the need for, this page. We hope that these discussion points help to clarify what we do, and more importantly, why we do it.

If you have any further queries, or you'd like to comment on any points, please feel free to contact us, and we'll be happy to discuss and listen to any points of interest!

Send mail to Webmaster@audiography.com.au with questions or comments about this web site, or use our Contact form to report any issues.

Our street (postal) address is:

20 Churinga Avenue,

Mitcham.

Victoria.         3132

Phone Details:

Copyright © 2005-2008 Audiography
Last modified: 01-Nov-2008

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