Several people have written recently to enquire about the Classical Net
site.  Normally, this is off-topic for the list, but it's just eassier
to distribute this to everyone, as it potentially affects everyone.

so, what the heck is going on? You've probably noticed the barrage of
Advertising on the site, as well as probably being frustrated that updates
have been so slow in coming.  This wasn't my idea, but rather was the
result of a bad decision I made about the future of Classical Net.  The
following discussion refers only to the web site, MCML is a completely
different entity.

For some time now, the growth in site traffic has driven costs for web
hosting (I have to pay for disc space and bandwidth used - now typically
about 30 gigabytes of traffic a month) through the roof.  As of Spring
2000 I was shelling out the equivalent of a luxury car payment each month,
and my traffic forecasts indicated that would go to the level of a small
mortgage payment by the end of 2000.  These costs have been offset somewhat
by the limited advertising I've tracked down on my own, and via affiliate
programs with sites such as Amazon, CDNow!, and SheetMusicPlus, but to date
the costs have overwhelmed the revenues.

In May of 2000 I was contacted by a media company interested in acquiring
the site.  Due to non-disclosure agreements, I can't go into details of
the agreement, but in return for my continued participation as editor of
the site, I would receive monthly compensation based on site traffic.  In
addition, I would no longer have to pay web hosting fees.  My plan was that
this arrangement would finally allow me to begin compensating the many
contributors to the site in some small way.  In addition, they promised
techincal help with maintaining the site, and active promotion of the site
on their network.

This arrangement has not proved viable.  Not a single promise taht was
made, either contractual or spoken, has been kept.  I'm in the process
of extricating myself and the site, unfortunately, things are somewhat
in limbo, and have been since November.  I'm working hard to resolve the
situation, and hope to have good news very soon.  Until I get control of
the site back, I have established a new, temporary address for the site
(see below).

I do have some hope for freedom, but I'd be foolish to try and put a date
on it yet.  Rather than go into the details myself, it's been well-covered
on the web.  This is a good, accurate description of what's been happening:

    http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/efront/

CNet also had a couple of articles.

    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5148422.html
    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5149126.html

I really have no idea what's going to happen next.  I've been lied to and
ignored with amazing consistency.  I already have another web service
provider, and the site is almost ready at:

    http://www226.pair.com/lampson

I'll be installing the much awaited update this week at this location.
Eventually, and with any kind of luck, the address above will be replaced
by the familiar http://www.classical.net/, so don't change links or
bookmarks yet.  In the meantime, the classical.net address may also work,
or it might point to a generic page on this media company's broken-down
web server.

I should point out that though this company has control of the
classical.net domain name, they don't have any control over me or
the content of the web site.  The full site will be installed on the
new server, which I have control over, by this time next week (in the
meantime, it does work now, though the search engines are not yet installed
correctly).  I will be taking down the "other" site as soon as I have a
chance.  My main concern is that people won't be able to find us, so I want
to do this in as orderly a fashion a possible.

Sorry for all the difficult access, and the lack of updates these past few
months.  I made a huge mistake getting involved with these people, and we
all paid for it.  Rest assured, I won't be traveling that road again.  I
will never again give up control of my web site, and encourage anyone who
might be thinking of doing something similar to think twice, perhaps three
times.

Once again, thanks for your patience.

Dave
[log in to unmask]
http://www.classical.net/