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Considering the historical, social and economic impacts of having young people leave their homes and communities to attend high school, it is unfortunate that local community-based high school programs are funded at such a lower rate.

From CTV.ca online at http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060827/residential_school_060827/20060827/

Modern residential school uses native culture as a lure - Aug. 27 2006 - Canadian Press

WINNIPEG -- High school principal Don Revel is busy these days gearing up for the start of another academic year, and for the roller-coaster of challenges, struggles and excitement his students will ride in the first few weeks.

All of the 170 students who will attend Southeast Collegiate next month are preparing to leave their First Nations reserves across Manitoba for the boarding school and a chance at a high school education most can't get at home because there are no schools near their reserves.

While aboriginal students from across Canada often must travel to go to an off-reserve public school that offers classes beyond Grade 8 or 9, Southeast Collegiate offers a uniquely aboriginal experience because it is owned and operated by the Southeast Tribal Council.

Revel says the school's attention to native culture, history, language, and counselling -- as well as academics -- is keeping students from dropping out while preparing many for college or university.

At a time when native residential schools are in the headlines for past physical and sexual abuse and a proposed federal compensation agreement, Revel says Southeast Collegiate symbolizes a new, positive era in aboriginal education.

"We are a modern-day residential school, and our philosophy has always been 'doing it right,"' Revel says from behind his desk hidden under mountains of papers and files.

"I don't think there's any doubt the old residential school system was an attempt to assimilate First Nations people to white culture.

"Here, it's very much more of an honouring of culture and understanding how our students can develop the skill sets to either function within First Nations culture at home, or in society as multicultural as it is in Winnipeg."

Enrolment at the school has been expanding rapidly since its doors opened 11 years ago.

When Revel joined the staff seven years ago, the school had about 80 students and a retention rate that hovered around 50 per cent.

Now, the school turns away between 50 and 75 students a year.

Revel believes Southeast has succeeded where public schools have failed because staff directly address some of the main reasons why students return to their reserves without graduating.

"We provide a home," says Revel.

"We tell staff when they are hired they're going to be parents to kids who are 200 to 700 miles away from home and who are going to suffer loneliness and need somebody to identify with."

Pauingassi First Nation, a fly-in community about 300 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, will send its entire Grade 10 class of nine students to Southeast Collegiate.

The community has long struggled with solvent and alcohol abuse, with one in five of the 450 residents considered a chronic solvent addict.

Social worker Eric Kennedy says the students are counting the days until they leave home, while their parents are relieved they'll know where they are and who is caring for them.

Last year in Manitoba, 1,249 students left their reserves for high school -- with 740 of those coming Winnipeg, says a spokesman for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

Those who don't go to a boarding school are part of the department's private home-placement program. The students choose the public school they want to attend and find their own accommodation, which is covered by the department.

But after seeing many children drop out within weeks when left on their own to find a school in Winnipeg, Kennedy says he hopes the Grade 10 class heading to Southeast will become an example for the younger kids still at home, proving there is a way to continue their education away from solvents.

Kennedy says the emphasis on native culture is the key to keeping the kids in class.

"When I walk through the doors it brings back that I'm proud of who I am, being native, and I think that's what's so unique," says Kennedy.

"They're going to be interested in finding out about their heritage."

The school is considered a provincially funded private school, although Revel says he doesn't have any students that meet the criteria for provincial funding.

Instead, the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs pays $11,000 per student annually for tuition, as well as $13,000 in room, board and trips to and from the students' home reserves.

Revel says that while Southeast Collegiate couldn't be more different than the once-mandatory residential schools some of the students' parents and grandparents attended, their sometimes painful memories are hard to erase.

"Some families are very apprehensive and some don't want to be supportive of the system, because even though it's run by a First Nations organization, there's still a belief they're trying to change their youth to a white culture," he says.

For others, it's the chance for their kids to live and learn in an environment far better than what they have at home that allows them to embrace the school.

"Housing becomes a serious issue for a lot of people," says Chief Terry Nelson of the Roseau River First Nation, about 75 kilometres south of Winnipeg.

"So if somebody wants to concentrate on their education and really get through it, they could choose a residential system where they don't have to live with five or six siblings in a crowded house."

Guitarists have been exchanging tips on how to play songs on a number of online guitar tablature sites. These are sites where amateur musicians trade “tabs” — music notation especially for guitar — for songs they have figured out or have copied from music books. The sites include Olga.net, GuitarTabs.com and MyGuitarTabs.com as well as discussion boards on the Google Groups service like alt.guitar.tab and rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature. Music publishers like Sony/ATV and EMI lose money if people obtain the music from such sites rather than purchasing commercially produced sheet music or books of guitar tablature, as do the artists who hold copyrights to their music. "Music Publishers’ Association and the National Music Publishers’ Association have shut down several Web sites, or have pressured them to remove all of their tabs, but users have quickly migrated to other sites. According to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet statistics service, Ultimate-Guitar.com had 1.4 million visitors in July, twice the number from a year earlier." BOB TEDESCHI, The New York Times, August 21, 2006, (free registration required). The article illustrates the potential of the World Wide Web and Internet to promote cultural exchages, and the power of the medium and some implications for its impact on commerce in cultural materials.  

From New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/21/technology/21ecom.html?ex=1156392000&en=619d14efa02e7c66&ei=5087%0A

Now the Music Industry Wants Guitarists to Stop Sharing

By BOB TEDESCHI, August 21, 2006

The Internet put the music industry and many of its listeners at odds thanks to the popularity of services like Napster and Grokster. Now the industry is squaring off against a surprising new opponent: musicians.

Lauren Keiser, president of the Music Publishers' Association, says guitar tablature Web sites reduce the earnings of songwriters.

In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," "Highway to Hell" and thousands of others.

The battle shares many similarities with the war between Napster and the music recording industry, but this time it involves free sites like Olga.net, GuitarTabs.com and MyGuitarTabs.com and even discussion boards on the Google Groups service like alt.guitar.tab and rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature, where amateur musicians trade "tabs" music notation especially for guitar for songs they have figured out or have copied from music books.

On the other side are music publishers like Sony/ATV, which holds the rights to the songs of John Mayer, and EMI, which publishes Christina Aguilera's music.

"People can get it for free on the Internet, and it's hurting the songwriters," said Lauren Keiser, who is president of the Music Publishers' Association and chief executive of Carl Fischer, a music publisher in New York.

So far, the Music Publishers' Association and the National Music Publishers' Association have shut down several Web sites, or have pressured them to remove all of their tabs, but users have quickly migrated to other sites. According to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet statistics service, Ultimate-Guitar.com had 1.4 million visitors in July, twice the number from a year earlier.

The publishers, who share royalties with composers each time customers buy sheet music or books of guitar tablature, maintain that tablature postings, even inaccurate ones, are protected by copyright laws because the postings represent "derivative works" related to the original compositions, to use the industry jargon.

The publishers told the sites that if they did not remove the tablatures, they could face legal action or their Internet service providers would be pressured to shut down their sites. All of the sites have taken down their tabs voluntarily, but grudgingly.

The tablature sites argue that they are merely conduits for an online discussion about guitar techniques, and that their services help the industry.

"The publishers can't dispute the fact that the popularity of playing guitar has exploded because of sites like mine," said Robert Balch, the publisher of Guitar Tab Universe (guitartabs.cc), in Los Angeles. "And any person that buys a guitar book during their lifetime, that money goes to the publishers."

Mr. Balch, who took down guitar tabs from his site in late July at the behest of the music publishers, added that, "I'd think the music publishers would be happy to have sites that get people interested in becoming one of their customers."

Cathal Woods, who manages Olga.net, one of the pioneer free tablature sites, said he had run the site for 14 years with the help of a systems administrator, "and we've never taken a penny." Mr. Woods, who teaches philosophy at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, said Olga.net had earned an undisclosed amount of money by posting ads on Google's behalf, but he said that money had paid for bandwidth and a legal defense fund.

Anthony DeGidio, a lawyer for Olga.net, said he was still formulating a legal strategy, while also helping decide whether the site could pay licensing fees "in the event that that's required." For now, though, the site remains unavailable to users.

Because the music tablature sites are privately held, they do not disclose sales figures, and because industry analysts generally do not closely follow tablature sites, it is unclear how much revenue they generate. But with the Internet advertising market surging, almost any Web site with significant traffic can generate revenue.

Google also dabbles in tablature through its Google Groups discussion board service, in which guitar players trade tabs they have figured out by listening to the songs, or by copying tabs found elsewhere. A Google spokesman, Steve Langdon, said Google would take down music tablature from its Groups service if publishers claimed the materials violated copyright agreements and if Google determined that infringement was likely. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Web hosts may review, case by case, a publisher's claims regarding instances of copyright infringement.

To hear music publishers tell it, though, the tablature sites are getting away with mass theft. Mr. Keiser, of the Music Publishers' Association, said that before these sites started operating in the early '90s, the most popular printed tablatures typically sold 25,000 copies in a year. Now the most popular sell 5,000 copies at most.

But Mike Happoldt, who was a member of the '90's band Sublime and whose music is sold in sheet music books, said he sympathized with the tablature sites.

"I think this is greed on the publishers' parts," said Mr. Happoldt, who played guitar on Sublime's hit "What I Got."

"I guess in a way I might be losing money from these sites, but as a musician I look at it more as a service," said Mr. Happoldt, who now owns an independent record company, Skunk Records.

"And really, those books just don't sell that much for most people." 

Assuming a tablature site musters the legal resources to challenge the publishers in court, some legal scholars say they believe publishers may have difficulty arguing their complaints successfully. Jonathan Zittrain, the professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said "it isn't at all clear" that the publishers' claim would succeed because no court doctrine has been written on guitar tablature.

Mr. Zittrain said the tablature sites could well have a free speech defense. But because the Supreme Court, in a 2003 case involving the extension of copyright terms, declined to determine when overenforcement or interpretation of copyright might raise a free speech problem, the success of that argument was questionable. "It's possible, though, that this is one reason why guitar tabs generated by people would be found to fit fair use," Mr. Zittrain said, "or would be found not to be a derivative work to begin with."

Doug Osborn, an executive vice president with Ultimate-Guitar.com said his site violated no laws because its headquarters were in Russia, and the site's practices complied with Russian laws.

Jacqueline C. Charlesworth, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Music Publishers' Association, would not comment on the legality of specific sites, including Ultimate- Guitar, but she said she had seen no international licensing agreements that might make free United States distribution of guitar tablature legal.

Online discussion boards have been thick with comments from guitar tablature fans, looking for sites that are still operating and lamenting the fate of sites they frequented. One user of the guitarnoise.com forums, who calls himself "the dali lima," said he had no doubt that the music publishers would win the battle.

"Hopefully we will get to a place where the sheet music/tab will be available online just like music $0.99 a song. The ironic thing might be that a service like that with fully licensed music/tab offered at a low per song rate might actually benefit guitar players by providing the correct music/tab and not the garbage that we currently sift through."

A small handful of sheet music sites now sell guitar tablature. Mr. Keiser, of the Music Publishers' Association, estimated that, including overhead costs, tablature could cost about $800 per song to produce, license and format for downloading.

Musicnotes, an online sheet music business based in Madison, Wis., is considering a deeper push into guitar tablature, said Tim Reiland, the company's chairman and chief financial officer. The site has a limited array of tablature available now for about $5 a song, and it also offers tablature as part of $10 downloadable guitar lessons.

But Mr. Reiland said that with the music publishers "dealing with the free sites," and a stronger ad market, his business might be able to lower the cost of its guitar tabs.

"Maybe we could sell some of the riffs to Jimmy Page's solo in 'Stairway to Heaven' for a buck, since that's really what the kids want to learn anyway," Mr. Reiland said.

Low prices are only part of the battle, though, Mr. Reiland said. The free tablature sites often host vibrant communities of musicians, who rate each other's tablature and trade ideas and commentary, and Musicnotes would have to find a way to replicate that environment on its site. Furthermore, these communities often create tablature for songs that have little or no commercial value, he said.

"Less than 25 percent of the music out there ends up in sheet music because sometimes it just doesn't pay to do it," Mr. Reiland said. "So the fact that someone comes up with a transcription themselves just because they love that song and want to share it with people, there's some value to that."

"I don't have an answer for that," Mr. Reiland added. "But I think the industry needs to play around with it, because it could be a nice source of revenue for songwriters, and for the community it could be a really good thing.

Deer Lake Sports & Recreation Presents Mixed Baseball Tournament

August 31- Sept 3, 2006

5 Men 4 Ladies