Guitar Tabulatures are now illegal!

[angshuman]

Now, THIS is what I call ridiculous. It seems if you listen to a piece of music, transcribe it by ear and post your interpretation of the piece in the form of a tabulature or arrangement, you are violating a copyright. I can perhaps understand if, due to the way the copyright is defined, something like this becomes technically unavoidably illegal. I never really expected them to go after online sites and shut them down. This is really, really low.

 

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/08/13/1256224.shtml

 

Come to think of it, this is probably good for me personally. I'll now have to focus on my ear training instead of getting a free ride off of online tabulatures. "

[alanschu]

How long until covers are illegal.

[Krookie]

LOL (w00t)

 

what will the poser-punk/emo kids do now?!

[angshuman]

"I sue dead people..."

[Kor Qel Droma]

As a guitarist with no skill/talent whatsoever, I rely on tablatures to play songs. I guess I'm ****ed now.

[jaguars4ever]

Nonsense Kor! Just steal someone else's skill/talent when they're not looking. It works everytime.

[thepixiesrock]

I'm not really suprised. This kind of thing happened with fake books too. The difference is that people were paying for fake books.

 

How long until covers are illegal.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's not really the same type of situation. I do remember that there is supposed to ba some sort of law that you are supposed to pay this musical association type thing when you use a song not in the public domain whenever you have people pay to listen to you.

[Blarghagh]

I posted this around half a year ago.

 

Lyrics sites are, apparently, also illegal.

[Checkpoint]

The baffling thing is that they actually consider this harmful rather than a gift from above to help them spread their music. How the hell could guitar tabulature on the Internet hurt a record company or artist? Are they just being [pimples on the rear end of f

Edited August 15, 2006 by metadigital

[thepixiesrock]

They sell tab books, and sheet music of most of this stuff. Magazines also publish tabs. If you look it up on the interent, you aren't paying them for it.

[Checkpoint]

True enough, didn't even think of that (and to think I own a bunch of those, heh...), but it's still silly and stupid since guitar tabs made by you or me are interpretations and as such shouldn't be subject to legal action.

[Darth Drabek]

Reasons the OLGA should stay up:

 

Tab books are generally only available for the reallly big albums, at least as far as I've seen. And I don't want to subscribe to a guitar magazine to get tabs of "rock" songs I don't want to learn (I already know how to get to drop D tuning, and I'm not interested in memorizing solos).

 

The tabs on OLGA have been posted by Joe Guitarists all over the world. Consequentially, many of them are very, very wrong. Who wants to pay for an amateur's first tab that is not even in the same key as the original. That's not exactly a desirable commodity.

 

And most importantly, reading sheet music is hard. It defeats the purpose of an army of youths who picked up a $100 electric guitar to learn how to "rock out."

 

I'm not denying that it's taking money away from some people, most noticably the people who make money teaching kids how to play guitar. I just think it's a valuable resource that shouldn't get kicked off the internet.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Well, look on the positive side of things. A whole generation of would-be Blink 182's or Linkin Parks will be stopped dead in their tracks

 

 

 

An even more insane anecdote from the intrawebh: The first versions of the Swedish internet copyright law that came into effect may 2005, effectively made it illegal to browse the WWW since it banned downloading any form of copyrighted material to your computer(which is what happens when a browser loads a site). Including photos, news articles, web graphics and even java and php scripts. The browser cache of the average intenet user would contain enough proof of violating the law to get you a

[Walsingham]

The baffling thing is that they actually consider this harmful rather than a gift from above to help them spread their music. How the hell could guitar tabulature on the Internet hurt a record company or artist? Are they just being arses for the sake of being arses or what?

 

I mean, let's imagine how Joe Guitarist sits at home and learns his favourite song from an Internet site, and then proceeds to play the song at a party or other gathering of friends. His friends might not have heard the song and they go "Wow, what's that?" and Johnny tells them what song it is and what album it's on and his friends might actually buy the record as a result (unless they download it which is a completely different issue altogether). Sometimes this legal business makes my brain hurt.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Have to say, I'm with you. Damn silly.

[Arkan]

Awe man... this sucks.

[Walsingham]

The music industry is like some great flatulent wild boar. For years it has roamed around terrifying us simple peasants. But we're encroaching on its domain. Being a wild beast it reacts the only way it knows how, with unreasoning savagery.

 

But in the end I predict pork-chops.

[thepixiesrock]

The people who were being hurt here are people like the Sher Music Company, and the other companies like them that publish Real Books and have to buy the rights for these songs and put them in a book.

 

They didn't do this on account of the songs that can't be found in books easily, but because of the songs that can be. They can't monitor all of te songs, so they just shut the entire site down. It's still legal to have tabs for songs that are over 100 years old though, because they are in the public domain.

[Darth Drabek]

I remember going tape-to-tape to copy my buddies hit cassettes. It seemed like piracy wasn't as big a deal back then.

 

Although I always liked this t-shirt.

[Pidesco]

When I was around twelve, one of the things I wanted the most was a stereo with a double tape deck. I don't recall even knowing what the term piracy meant.

[Kaftan Barlast]

But one thing that has happened to me nowadays is that I cant really understand, except on a purerly theoretical level, why I should pay half the cost of a fullprice computer game for a plastic disc with some sound on it? Music has begun to feel like such a cheap thing. The last record I bought was Tools "10000 days" and I listened to it once and then put it on the shelf, hasnt touched it since. Thats definently not value for money.

[Meshugger]

DMCA have nothing to say in Finland, so i'll continue to download tabs as much as i like. Copyrighting someones impression of a song, pfeh.

[Powerslave]

I doubt this will have any real impact on guitar tab sharing on the internet.

 

It will be great fun, though. Gathering with fellow guitar players in abandoned houses or underground complexes at midnight, avoiding the law, and proceeding to do our dirty business: sharing Guitar Tabs!

[Checkpoint]

Guitar junkie 1: "Hey, Johnny, whaddaya got?"

Guitar junkie 2: "Um, let's see, 'Guinnevere' by CSN, 'Tears in Heaven' and 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right', Dylan song, really good stuff."

Guitar junkie 1: "Dude, that's awesome stuff, can I try that Dylan song."

Guitar junkie 2: "Not until I see what you got. That's the rules, homey."

Guitar junkie 1: "Oh, sure, sorry. Of course, dude. I got 'Blackbird', 'Old King' by Neil Young, 'Spanish Caravan' and, er... 'Smoke on the Water'"

Guitar junkie 2: "'Smoke on the Water'? What kinda crap are you trying to pull on me driving for two hours looking for cops in the mirror and I come down here and you bring 'Smoke on the ******* Water'??? Jesus, I thought you were pro man, **** this. I'm out.

[Blarghagh]

"Guys... a-a-a-nyone want this Nirvana song...? Anyone?"

 

"Man, you can only deal that **** to kids. Nobody here will fall for it."

[Walsingham]

I don't understand, yet I find the comedy.