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Still missing OLGA.

I think the fine people at http://www.olga.net/ would be happy (or not so happy) to disagree with you.

That site may very well be a commercial enterprise. Other sites were communities of music lovers, who learned from and shared with each other. I have no doubt we are depriving some deserving collection of investors and speculators of their income by giving away our derivative works for free, just as I am no doubt stealing from someone by simply teaching my neice how to play the intro to Purple Haze.

So to expand on my last post, be careful what you whistle. Some day soon, someone may come along and tell you that you that you owe them a royalty for that performance of their intellectual property.

Unfortuantely, they've already taken out the Online Guitar Archive, and more sites will go down now because of this.

If you enjoy downloading tabs off the net to learn new songs, this is not good news.

Great post!

Because of the openness of the GPL, I was able to get a career in IT through reading code, learning how to code, and how computers work by example.

I'm a firm believer in open source, which is very similar to guitar tablature. Oh, and BTW, http://www.olga.net/ has received a takedown message. (Not sure if this was in the original article or not...)

I think its amazing that one of the complaining artists on the OLGA take down notice
http://www.olga.net/060621-nmpa-p6of6.jpg
Is Peter Garrett, now a member of the Australian Parliament and part of the shaddow cabinet as the Arts and Environment Minister.
http://www.petergarrett.com.au/

I think it would be good to do some lobbying on this issue, seeing he is indicated as being directly involved in this agenda!

OLGA is currently offline while we attempt to resolve legal issues with the archive.

We received a 'take down' letter (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 ) from lawyers representing the NMPA and the MPA.

"Imaginary property rights"? The right to have the right to say how something you own is used is an imagenary right? Artists have assigned control over their art to representatives, as is their right. Clearly this is the issue, than.

I believe the "imaginary" substitution is somewhat warranted. What is it, exactly that you believe these "artists" own? Is it the chords and how the song is played on an instrument? Because being a guitarist/psuedo-pianist/instrumentalist myself, I find the idea highly objectionable that anyone, that's right anyone can own chords or combinations of chords (known as chord progressions). If it's not the chords they own, is it the lyrics? Because as I've seen it, lyrics often contain information such as cliches and phrases borrowed from other sources. I find it difficult to believe that someone can "own" phrases.

Is it the chords combined with the lyrics? What exactly do they own?

The truth is that "intellectual" property is imaginary. It was only until I read that phrase in this very article that the issue had been nailed home so clearly in my head.

Nobody owns the plot that everyone uses in modern movies, popular culture, or "folk songs" and things were never before subject to such legislation. They were never "property" before. Myths and tales permeated the countryside. That was until plays could be captured forever as "movies", and music could be stowed away on "records." The truth is that media provided these now hugely successful recording artists with a brief window in which to make millions. That window was only provided by the fact that recorded media could be scarce. That limitation is now gone. Records don't require media anymore and are now as free as they were via word of mouth or through strolling minstrels. The truth is that it was a very small amount of time and their business model should *not* be protected. The reason why people say that artists ripping off other artists makes for great artistry is because it's true. Artists for centuries simply innovated and were free to do so by the free society of culture which has been cut off with records and movies. Well, gentlemen, welcome to the other side of the mountain. If you give something out to the free air that can be copied and played again, it will be. You have no power to stop the echo of your voice once you've used it to scream something from atop a mountain, it is then no longer yours to contain. And as such you have no power to stop the spread of your content. Culture is now back in the hands of the people, where it belonged to begin with. All your justifications and ideas of "intellectual property" are now gone. Get used to tightening your belt and practicing your craft...or find a new trade.

Why do this? I think for three reasons. First, I think it's because the lawyers want the whole site taken down, and the DMCA takedown process limits them to identifying each piece of copyrighted material that they say is infringing.

Second, the DMCA notification process allows a counter-notification from the person who put the material on the site to begin with. If OLGA gets a counter-notification, it can leave the material up pending a real court order, and even then only risk being told to take it down by the court.

Third, sending a DMCA notice requires the sender to swear in good faith that copyright is being infringed. Note that the "unsent" takedown notice doesn't say that the web site is infringing -- only the cover letter does. As Diebold found out, sending notices when the material isn't infringing opens oneself up to damages. This appears to be a clever way to avoid that trap. ...JZ

They even gave the following notice at the beginning of each file:
(due to slashdot's stupid "lameness filter", I had to remove several "pound signs" and "hypens")

--
PLEASE NOTE
This OLGA file is the author's own work and represents their interpretation
of the song. You may only use this file for private study, scholarship, or
research. Remember to view this file in Courier, or some other monospaced
font. See http://www.olga.net/faq/ for more information.
--

You can see for yourself using the wayback machine at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050401045224/http://w ww.olga.net/

Just Today I picked up an old reel to reel. It can play reels up to seven inches and also 8-tracks!
Seriously, I have enough old analog audio devices that would be ruined if anything were done to them to prevent the device recording but I can guarantee that my phonograph will not record.

I use a few lyrics sites and also a couple tab site like olga.

Ah, yes. I actually still have the t-shirt I bought to support OLGA's legal defense in the Harry Fox matter. As long as the lyrics weren't with the tabs, they were OK with it, correct?

So will this mark the beginning of the end for the venerable OLGA? That was one of my first discoveries when I was but a lad on the Internet and it really opened my eyes to the fact that the Internet was more than just the MUD on the college network. I'd hate to see it threatened.

It's a hard argument, because only recently has it come to matter that the data input was not merely copied from the CDs/notes, but was an "interpretation" of that published info. Just like the similarly controversial privatization of OLGA, someone consumed the copyrighted data, and "performed" their interpretation of it. The demonstration of the difference between copy and interpretation is in the "errors". CDDB and OLGA have multiple renditions of the same copyrighted data. Especially in OLGA, those errors are not an artifact of the tech, technique or process of transference, but an artifact of the perception and execution of the human in the loop. An OLGA tablature file typically includes very imprecise, inaccurate or missing rhythm info, and is often in a different key, oversimplified (especially when interpreting multiple simultaneous instruments for a single replayer), or just different pitches - and almost always different "voicings", subtly different ways to play the same notes on a given instrument (eg, one of 5 different possible string/fret combinations for a single "note" or chord on a guitar neck). The CDDB is not as obviously on the "interpretation" side of the line from "copying". It's a question of degrees.

Even if the CDDB data were merely copied, a violation of the original CD copyright, that wouldn't entitle GraceNote to copy it. In fact, they'd be guilty of every violation themselves that the aggregate of submitters were guilty of. And it wouldn't give them the right to violate the agreement under which that data was submitted in exchange for access, open and unrestricted. At least certainly not until some kind of legal decision were made regarding the copyright status of the CDDB data. The Wikipedia is a 12GB download, which costs about $10 to download and store. Our community can use the same strength we wield in creating it to keep it free, by distributing its backup even a fraction of the degree to which we distribute its contribution. Then, if some Google exec decides to try to capture its value a la GraceNote, we won't face a monopoly of the Wikipedia data. Such a setup will preempt Google, or any other Wikipedia host down the road, from keeping us out of our own data.

I guess a bunch of old text files from thousands of guitar players doesn't work out to be training. Still it helped me quite a lot in figuring out popular riffs and breaks.

> just about no one nowadays ever listens to New Kids on the Block

I'm trying to learn how to play keyboards on my own. Most of the printed music for keyboards is boring stuff like "The Blue Danube Waltz" and "The Moonlight Sonata". (OTOH, beginning guitarists have a great selection of rock music songbooks and tablature sites like OLGA.)

Well, I came across a NKOTB songbook at a thrift store. I got the CDs for the songs for next to nothing at a used CD store. Their songs are simple and memorable, I can practice them for hours. If I get burned out on them, so what?

But, being a person of principle myself, I'm essentially boycotting CDs myself and haven't bought one in years, starting with EMI artists when EMI (and later HFA) shut down the On-Line Guitar Archive (OLGA).

The backfiring thing is just a worry though.

That is all.

There are compulsory license rules for the songwriter's copyright. Any artist can cover another artist's work, provided he or she pays the compulsory license fee. I agree with the original article that there should be compulsory licensing for the physical and digital recording. It would also clear up issues with "sampling" as done by rap and other artists.

OLGA is still around. Of course, all the tab files are far from US soil (IIRC, the mirrors are in Poland, The Netherlands, and one other)

Personally I havent bought a CD since 1996. It all started when EMI started going after the On-Line Guitar Archive. For those who havent heard about it, OLGA started in 1992 and grew to be probably the biggest guitar tab archive on the internet. Tabs are basically text files that explain how to play a song and the lyrics for that song is usually included.
However the fucks over at EMI figured that if people knew how to play and sing the songs noone would buy their records. So they basically managed to kick OLGA of its servers. However they relocated and things were running smoothly until 1998 when Harry Fox Agency managed to shut it down.
If noone learns to play guitar who the fuck is gonna make records in the future? (yea yea, im sure you pill popin tranceheads got a smart ass comment, but you know what I mean). Kind of like shooting yourself in the foot huh?
OLGA is still around but its alot more complicated to use because servers have to be located in Poland and such.

So thats it, havent bought a single fucking cd since 1996. Instead I pirate every cd and visit festivals and go to concerts to support bands touring (actually working) which equals more money to the bands and less for the cunt Hillary Rosen.

THE RIAA'S WORST NIGHTMARE.

The most interesting thing about this whole "We'll DoS'em to the stone age!" statement is not so much what they said but what is implied. The RIAA is basically admitting that they can't sue _everyone_ that they need to in order to shut down file sharing services. They can't shut down the services in a litigious manner so they're going to try another route (DoS attacks). The RIAA may have bucket loads of money but their cash reserves are not without end and lawyers don't come cheap. The RIAA must see this and is exploring other avenues.

The only way for the RIAA to benefit from the internet music sharing phenomenon is if they stop trying to be the phone company and monopolize the market. If they just charged everyone a nominal fee for downloading the music that they _don't_ own then they'd be raking in the cash. Instead they spend all of their time, money and resources suing anyone who _dares_ oppose them.

The RIAA is becoming more desperate with their latest actions. It's about time people said no to thugs like the RIAA and the Harry Fox agency who attack our fair use rights at every corner. Now, if we could only come up with a file sharing system to share OLGA tablature then we'd really be on to something!

OLGA (online guitar archive) Has a huge listing of lyrics and tableture ( if you play guita/bass). I've been using that site since hmmm... 1995. All the song files are in ascii so console folks can dig it too.

Yeah good ol' Harry Fux pulled the same crap with The OnLine Guitar Archive. I haven't been there in a while, but looks like they're up and running succesfully. I checked their About Page and at the bottom it mentions they need funds to pursure a case about the legality of "by ear" transcriptions. I've donated in the past and I think I'll do it again now...

Yeah good ol' Harry Fux pulled the same crap with The OnLine Guitar Archive. I haven't been there in a while, but looks like they're up and running succesfully. I checked their About Page and at the bottom it mentions they need funds to pursure a case about the legality of "by ear" transcriptions. I've donated in the past and I think I'll do it again now...

Not that I've got any remorse for a record company feeling the sting of licensing agreements, but publishers tried to drop the hammer on OLGA (the On-Line Guitar (tab) Archives), too.
Friends of mine submitted music to FarmClub.com, and, never having actually been to the site, I was under the impression that it was all unsigned bands trying to make their music more visible. I wonder if they can look forward to a piece of the pie.

However, OLGA does live on - and they are seeking support in order to stave off future legal bullying. In any case, I'm glad I don't have to pull out all the archives I 'backed up' before they went down...

However, OLGA does live on - and they are seeking support in order to stave off future legal bullying. In any case, I'm glad I don't have to pull out all the archives I 'backed up' before they went down...

...giving a play by play account of a sporting event. Which, guess what, that's copyright infringement.

Nonsense. Describing something - a plya-by-play of a sporting event, a review of a play, a transcription of a song - in my own words does not violate anyones copyright. My description is my creation. In fact, I automatically hold copyright on my description.

Anyway, I thought these assholes at Harry Fox would have learned their lesson when they went after the orginal OLGA, only to have mirrors spring up all over the place - the same way pressure on Napster has led to things like OpenNap. I said it then and I'll say it now: Music is not a crime.

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

While the OLGA network was shut down due to threats from the Harry Fox legal agency, a new incarnation of OLGA was started that is legally acceptable to both parties; the by-ear guitar tabulature of songs it contained may be posted, but they must be without the song lyrics which are copyrighted. New songs can be found at OLGA or Harmony Central.

Olga was like this. . .

--

First place I always check for my favorite copyright violations is The On-Line Guitar Archive. Not only do they post lyrics, but (as the name implies) you get the bare bones of what you need to cover the guitar part, too. :)

When has that ever happened? I've played in many a band, played in many a cover band, and played many a bar. In none of these situations did we ever have to pay composers royalties.

With regards to OLGA, it is still there and in my opinion better than ever. It has more tabs then they used to, and more mirrors...don't tell people that OLGA is gone because it isn't.

OLGA used to hold about 33,000 files. Now it holds about 1,500. What happened in between was a legal dispute with HFA. The old OLGA went off-line in June 1998, and all of the mirrors were asked to close. Some refused, and so you can still access those files through the search engine.

When a service that's of value to the "average slashdot user" is endangered, we'll see like six articles with updates, and interviews with the agency trying to shut them down. But when the little guy is actually getting screwed when they really aren't doing anything wrong, it gets shrugged off because it doesn't affect you people.

Scour may or may not be operating in the legal limits of the laws, but one can certainly see how it's service is questionable. But the precent (not a legal precedent, it's never been to court) set by OLGA scares me. It really, really does.

OLGA used to hold about 33,000 files. Now it holds about 1,500.

Don't forget OLGA, the "We used to house 33,000 song titles now we have 1400". For non-musicians it was basically an online repository of online guitar and bass "tabletures" (basically transcriptions in guitarist shorthand, kind of like source code). Mirrored all to hell and back, there are a few sites that still carry the entire thing, but by and large the Harry Fox agency killed them. How giving a few computer savvy teens the instructions for playing cool riffs (most were actually excerpts with commentary on how to technically pull off the riffs, I would think fair use would apply) could damage the RIAA is irrelavent. Anyway, they at least have a search engine on their site that supposedly indexes the 'rogue' sites, and a few of the tabletures actually contain lyrics, so...

If you deny Dylan the right to set the terms under which he will let you buy a copy of his singing, then Dylan will stop offering it for sale.

The only right we offer to create (and I deliberately use "create" rather than "recognize") for Dylan is to prevent - or, rather, punish - unauthorized copying. That's just not going to work anymore. Digital media makes control of copying impossible, short of stormtrooper techniques; you might smash Napster, but alternatives will spring up. It happened a few years back with OLGA, a collection of guitar tabs and chord charts; they shut down the main site, but mirrors - and search engines for those mirrors - sprouted like weeds.

Even if you somehow shut down centralized site, you can't stop personal swapping. Sending an MP3 to a friend is going to become as natural as the e-mail jokes we all forward.

I propose that we create a new right, the right to royalties when someone profits from your work. Previously, royalties were derived from copyright and contracts, but now we would make them primary. No restrictions on copying, but if you sell (or broadcast, or make available for download) copies and make a profit you owe the creator a cut.

Also, you can't perform their material in public without paying royalties. Cover bands who pay their liscensing fees can tell you about that.

Incidently, that's another way that artists can make money when people copy their work - those copying it might play the song on the stereo at their bar, or learn and perform it, and cause perforance royalties to get paid. (Performance royalties are morally clearer and easier to enforce than copying restrictions.) This might apply less to MP3s than it does to guitar transcriptions like those at OLGA. OLGA also shows how ineffective these copyright enforcements are - when they were stomped, mirrors sprung up immediately.

I long ago gave up on the local daily paper (the Sun ) not just because it's been surplanted by the Web and CNN but because it sucks. The lack of competition among local papers (Baltimore had three dailies when I was a kid) allowed quality to slide. While I'll pick one up if it's lying around, I haven't bought a copy in two or three years - I even forgot to pick one up when they had a big photo of me and an interview in their "Plugged In" section. (This was about the OLGA/Harry Fox Agency copyright battle.)

However, I find the local "alternative" weekly City Paper to be useful; local news, event calendars, etcetera. Unlike the daily, it's not full of sections I have no interest in (sports, travel, "society", and the like). And when I'm done reading, the dogs get to pee on it.

The future? I'd like to see customizable newpapers. Assuming better quality than today's dreck, I might subscribe if I could say "Send me the comics, world news headlines, local news, and don't bother burying me in dead trees for the rest - I don't give a damn who won the football game and I get my tech news from /. so don't bother with you wimpy little PC column. Oh, and something above an eighth grade reading level, please."

As an aside, I can see something like this being useful as a generic way of creating a public archive of files, not just .mp3's. A public guitar tab archive, or lyrics archive comes to mind.

You thinking OLGA by any chance? I really feel for those guys, suffering the same fate as the Napster guys are going through, but for ear-transcriptions of the music. Nowadays they only link to mirrors of the previous full archive through a search engine. (I would be happy to help with creating such a beast, unfortunately I just now completed section 1.4 of the Kernighan/Ritchie ANSI-C book :( However if the project requires a temperature conversion chart I guess I'm your man)
:)

P.S. I have like 2-3 Smithereens' songs I contrib'd like 4 years ago in there somewhere.


mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.

Of course, this comes as no surprise. The other day I posted a rant (yes, I'll proudly admit it) about the threats of legal action against the authors of DeCSS.

This is pretty typical behaviour, unfortunately. Take the example of the OnLine Guitar Archive. Here were a bunch of musicians manually transcribing music off of records (and CDs, etc.) and sharing the tabulature with each other, so we could learn to play songs for our own, non-commercial purposes. The Harry Fox Agency decided they didn't like this, and threatened legal action. OLGA has quit distributing to their mirror sites as a result. Keep in mind that these are HAND-TRANSCRIBED BY-EAR works that HFA is claiming copyright infringement over.

The real problem, I think, is that the industry is fat, lazy, powerful, and rich. They don't like people playing instruments because it'll cut into their album sales. (Although in a pinch, they'll sell you the sheet music for a good profit.) They don't like people writing DVD code, because they don't want us to play DVDs how and where we want. They REALLY don't like MP3s, because they give artists too much control over their own music. (Even more than, say, Ani DiFranco)

This is the crux: The industry (RIAA, agencies, and production companies) has utter control over 90% of the music, books, movies, and TV shows that get made; and as a consequence, over the artists and audiences. They don't want to lose that control, and they'll fight in any dirty manner they can to keep it.

Our job is to not let them.

One can easily imagine RMS having gotten bent over not being allowed to record and distribute his own cover version of some song, instead of a printer driver.

• You are allowed to play covers, and even copy existing recordings, if it's not a commercial endeavor. If you're making money at it, you have to give BMI or ASCAP their cut to pass along to the songwriter.
• There's no practical way to prevent a song from being reverse-engineered.
• No one sticks end-listener license agreements on audio CDs. ("You are prohibited from singing, humming, or whistling any tune, melody, or song contained therein. Your hearing of the music on this disk indicates your acceptance of the terms of this License.")
• No one has tried to patent the twelve-bar blues. ("A method for the combination of audio tones to induce within the listener certain changes of mental and physical state, including but not limited to emotional changes, rhythmic body movements, and the Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu.")

I prefer a more pragmatic approach: intellectual property is a construct we invented for the betterment of society as a whole. Does it work? Which parts help more than they hurt?

There is a group of musicians following the Free Music Philosophy, which is interesting. I will probably do something like that with my own music when I get enough good stuff together to make it worthwhile. (That may take a while. B-) )

-Begin Evan's Dumb Signature.....