Klarinet Archive - Posting 000003.txt from 2007/02

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Sibelius v. Finale (was: [kl] For Lelia Loban)
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:28:35 -0500


Nancy Buckman wrote,
>Have you ever used Finale? If so, why do you
>prefer Sibelius?

Unfortunately, my information is obsolete, since I bought the Sibelius
version I use now in 2002 and haven't looked at the current versions of
either Sibelius or Finale. I've never used Finale. In 2001, when I first
looked at both programs in friends' houses, I decided to buy Sibelius
because I found the Sibelius manual easier to understand, written for
musicians who don't necessarily know much about computer programming.
Sorry I can't give a meaningful comparison of current versions of the
programs, but I'll be interested in what other people say.

I never upgraded after Sibelius 2.1 (they're up to at least 4.1 now)
because the company re-wrote its mandatory Terms of Agreement into one of
the worst contracts of adhesion I've ever seen. I think it's just sloppy
wording, a misguided excursion into jargon, the kind of thing that can
happen when well-intentioned proprietors let their lawyers go feral.
However, Sibelius ignored or trivialized my attempts to discuss the
problem; that contract has not been re-written (I check the site
periodically); and I've made the common sense decision that I can't afford
the risks to which those terms would expose me. Therefore, I removed all of
my music from the Sibelius users' site, stopped participating in the online
forum and have not taken advantage of upgrades.

In the meantime, the contract question became moot as my 2001 Windows XP
computer aged. In human years, a six-year-old computer is probably about
96. It doesn't have the capacity to load and run the much-expanded
programming to burn CDs and so forth. Maybe someday when I buy a new
machine, I'll investigate Finale again. However, given the apparent
determination of the Finn brothers to continue with the present Terms of
Agreement, I probably won't be doing business with Sibelius again,
alas--although the version of the program I still use is excellent and I'd
buy the upgrade in a heartbeat if I thought my computer could run it and if
the company would revise that damned contract. By the way, I don't answer
private e-mails about the contract for two reasons: (1) I'm not a lawyer
and I can't give legal advice (although I did show the contract to an
attorney, who told me he wouldn't sign it himself). (2) I wouldn't mail
out information on how to make a bomb, either.

Lelia Loban

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