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Comment by mrandish | Hacker News Reader

It's cool to hear how that came together as an improvisation. It recalls a simpler time when a major album (or movie, TV show, etc) could just feature your neighbor and a random telephone operator without signing releases and clearing rights.

It also gave Chris Fitzmorris (the neighbor) one of the greatest "random cool thing that happened to me" stories ever.

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Musicians still release samples without clearing them

Yes, I'm aware. Although a major mega band doing so on a wide release album these days would be taking a significant legal risk - which is why it's now fairly rare. But back in 1979 it wasn't uncommon, to the extent that one of the then-biggest bands in the world could do so on their biggest album project yet.

It might be a notorious example but artists do take those risks https://www.billboard.com/lists/kanye-west-ye-sampling-lawsu... (not to mention the many artists that release music without licensing from the beat producers, which still happens regularly)

Confidently incorrect.

“Grant Upright Music vs. Warner Bros” almost completely killed any creative use of sampling on official releases, which is why the only place you still see it consistently is mixtapes. Think 50 Cent’s “The Undertaker”.

Alternatively, treating the “random telephone operator” as a prop and forcing them to be part of your project without consent is troubling.

I do not believe that you are genuinely troubled by this.

I mean... I'm not troubled by it, but as a person who has worked in a job where I received direct calls from the public that I had no choice but to deal with it, I am definitely annoyed on behalf of the operator. It's not the worst thing in the world, but... wow, what an annoying day. Can you imagine six months later, you hear your most annoying day at work played on an album?!

As a former telephone operator from this era who spent most shifts frantically bubbling scantrons as business men rattled off their calling card numbers and call numbers at lighting speed, I would have been delighted by this break in routine.

> frantically bubbling scantrons

I want to know more!

I assumed numbers were entered directly on a 10-key. Were they scantrons as a paper record, as an asynchronous way to enter the data, or?

It was a paper record of every (paid) phone call. This was in the 80s before the switch to digital. The front side had the origin and destination numbers, the back side had the calling card number.

Also--we didn't use a 10-key! Our keypad was 2x5 rather than 3x3, and inverted (low numbers at the top).

"one ringy dingy... two ringy dingies" - Zanni probably

for the uninitiated https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT4__Nz5HWY

It’s their job. I “forced” them to be part of my project of making collect calls hundreds of times.

In the time, and given the nature, it is harmless. Certainly compared to modern attempts at pranks, advertised to the world instantly on SocMed.

Excessive empathy is not a virtue.

It's not actually empathy when the motivation is just to criticize someone else.

Agreed. Not monstrous, but troubling.

It is bizarre that people are smugly dogpiling on you for showing a shred of empathy.

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