Slashdot Mirror
Threatening Online Tablature
mr_don't writes: "Howard Sacks, president of RenegadeOLGA, has recently released this statement describing the future of RenegadeOLGA after being threatened by the powerful National Music Publishers Association and it's attack dog, the Harry Fox Agency. The RenegadeOLGA.com website has posted a lengthy description of the events that led up to the legal threats. Apparently, the Harry Fox Agency is working with NBCi to develop a digital sheet music site called Songfile.com, and they are using legal threats to eliminate any competiton." Outlawing amateur tablature is a bit like outlawing sports spectators from reporting scores on games they watch -- that is to say, not currently as outrageous as it should be.
Yes, it's exactly like a bystander giving a play by play, albeit a flawed and lame play by play. *BUT*, the important difference is that they're not giving an on air play by play... They're going home and telling a friend the memorable bits play-by-play. They're not running pirate radio and telling everyone in the county how the game went. In most cases, you have to prove you're being financially damaged by someone's use of a derivative of your product. Which they aren't. None of these people are airing unauthorized cover songs on the radio, they're playing them in their rooms or with their garage bands. Point being: No money is being made. Last comment: We all know the sue-out-the-competition business model fairly well. Now we're seeing an offshoot: 1.) Sue the competition out of business in an area where there is no profit. 2.) Attempt to sell something no one is used to paying for. 3.) Convieniently forget that the only people who want your product are the people who you sued out of business, and that most of the content that your competition used was used contributed and that you just pissed them all off. 4.) Close your new Tab website down becuase it's maintenece costs have you working at a loss because almost no one is willing to pay for what they can still get for free from virtually everywhere. ______ Memory is another word for regret.
Yeah! That's a great idea! And right after we do that, let's end world hunger, resurrect the dinosaurs, and fly to jupiter! Those wouldn't be huge projects either, right?
Being a long time supporter of tablature, this really makes me mad. Can someone explain what exactly an artist or the Harry Fox Agency loses from people transcribing music? If anything it's a learning experience for both the reader and the transcriber. Better start sueing schools for teaching out of copyrighted textbooks. sigh.
What Vuarnet wrote reminds of the following:
"They first came for the communists, but I was not a communist so I did not speak. Then they came for the jews, but I was not a jew so I did not speak (etc)"
Not to compare them with Nazis, but you get the idea. We have to realize that these are not separate things. It's all the same. When will the persecution stop?? It's up to us to do something, I guess.
Instead of copying other people's creative works (Napster, guitar tab sites, ROM sites, and so on), how about if all you guitarists out there write some original work, license it under the Open Content License, and then distribute it on the Net? Then you, too, can tell Harry Fox to take a hike.
Hell, maybe if you write some tabs, and some other people write some lyrics, and you all use an open content license, we can actually have Free Music that comes with all the ingredients for the next generation of musicians to tinker with freely.
> Somebody nuke NBCi and this other group for me
:) NBCi have been aquired by NBC (think "stop the bleeding"), who are shutting it down.
It's already happened
I'm amazed at how easily people buy into all that conservative rhetoric. In case you did not know, we have three branches of government: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Those branches act as checks and balances against each other.
Every year, congress writes dozens of laws which violate the constitution. If the courts blindly interpreted those laws, there would be no point in having a constitution at all. In order to keep the constitution intact, the judicial branch has the power to declare a law unconstitutional.
Even if a law is constitutional, the judicial branch has the duty to interpret the law, and they may well believe the law was never intended to apply in some specific case.
Keep in mind, those checks and balances are our buffer against corruption. If a single corrupt interest manages to control all three branches, our final option is the second ammendment. This is what George Washington was referring to when he warned us about political parties.
At least one PhD dissertation has been written on using wavelet transforms to attempt to reconstruct musical notation from a recorded performance. It wasn't terribly successful....
I tend to think that it would be a bit more that a small project to come up with rip-tab!
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I found OLGA about 1992. I do not know when it was established. Back then, ftp.nevada.edu and ftp.uwp.edu (maybe with additional subdomains) were the real deal. Then UW Parkside made the archive available via gopher, and we really had it made. Then people started to notice, and the Henry Fox attack dogs started snapping. The archive has been more scattered, less complete and slower in growing ever since. Harmony Central does a good job of providing a search engine and links to archive site, many of them outside the USA. It's a losing battle, though.
I can't think of anything further from the truth. IP, whether it be written words, software, songs, etc is the product of raw brain power, anything else requires something other than brain power. /.ers claim to
be intellectual, but they can't grasp the notion that without copyright there is only material property
rights, thus the only thing with value is material property. At that point we might as well blow out our
brains because the only thing of value in them is the chemicals they are made of. Copyrights are around
to protect the smartest of our sociaty, there are problems with them but the idea of completely free IP
sickens me. I will be a very dull world the moment copyright dissapears.
As one of the 100,000 "slashdotters" you are referring to, I can't help but wonder - without IP, would people suddenly stop trying to think, because their thoughts suddenly held less value? God forbid the world slip into a coma because corporations couldn't exploit the ability to solve problems or (in some cases) apply simple logic.
some of those songs are like ten minutes long! Can I get respect just for figuring out say, a four minute segment? ;-)
What about those bands who can play by ear (ie do not write down the tablature, but play what they hear)?
Shades of Farenheight 451. It would appear that after centuries of progress, we're back to oral tradition if we want to have any sort of culture that is not wholly owned by various imortal corperate entities who will happily twist it to maximise their profits and minimize questions.
It took mankind thousands of years to develop the technology required to preserve culture and heritage through the generations.
It looks like it will take corperate entities, judges and congress just over 100 years to completely destroy those thousands of years of progress.
I have to wonder, if Bell had realised that ultimatly the gramaphone would be instrumental in handing ownership of culture over to the RIAA, would he have destroyed it quietly?
At the rate we're going, the first generation in U.S. history to never see a copyright expire has already been born.
Laws are enforced by actions in court. If a law is not within the constitutional power of the government, it is not within the constitutional power of the court to enforce.
On top of that, the Federalist Papers were *quite* clear that this was a role of the court; it was a *selling point* to a population that didn't trust central governments . . .
hawk
>I am not talking about the supreme court only. Judges are appointed
>because of their political affiliations in all levels.
There has been more success by both parties at the lower level, yes.
>The senate
>blockade of Clinton's nominees was mostly for federal and appelate
>judges, not the supreme court.
>the "blockade" is a *bit* more complicated than that, but I'll let it pass.
>Plus, you have just said what I said.
>Judges have a political affiliation that is crucial to their decision.
Yes, but at the top level, this political affiliation is only loosely
correlated with with the party appointing the judge.
>You can dress it up as constitutional interpretation.
It's not a matter of "dressing it up". It is *supposed* to be
constitutional interpretation, but as I said, this only has 2.5 of
the 9 votes at the mements. Then the democrats have 4, and the
republicans 2.5. Scalia and Thomas are the only ones who will
consistently vote for a result they don't like when the constitution
requires it--and when Scalia writes the majority opinions in those
cases, it's easy to tell he doesn't like the results.
> Sometimes it is,
>and sometimes it is raw favoritism ( cf. Gore vs. Bush. ).
Unless you're referring to the Florida Supreme Court, this is
just nonsense. The result they reached is the only possible
result that is consistent with the last 100 years of administrative
law and the last 150 of election law. (But yes, I was surprised
that they were able to create a 7 vote majority on the substance
of the issue that relied solely on well-settled law. And for the
record, I'd have joined with the two liberal justice who joined
the majority but thought that Florida should be able to try to
do something consistent with the decision in the 28 (?) or so
hours that remained. I think that the 5 votes that said there
was no possible way to do wo were correct that there would be no
way to meat the deadline [but then again, I had thought there was
no way to get a 7 vote majority based on established principles.
Nonetheless, the state was still entitled to try.)
>>If you look at the actual voting records rather than the political and
>>media hype, you'll find that your best friend on the court (most
>>likely to vote in your favor when faced with government power or
>>intrusion) is Thomas... followed by Scalia.
>I see you have been an intern on Pravda. Could you please supply us
>with some precise examples of Thomas and Scalia protecting me (
>assuming 'me' to be an ordinary citizen without big pockets) against
>anything?
When you cross from generalizations about the behaviro of the court
from years of observation, you get into things that I charge to do.
As such, I won't do it off the cuff. If you or anyone else wants
to cover my retainer, I'll be happy to provide the examples, the
contra-examples, and a detailed analysis. I doubt, though, that
anyone reading slashdot would be interested enough to cover my
minimum fee
>There have been a number of statistical studies of the supreme court.
>There is little doubt that except for the dramatically out of line
>Warren court the US Supreme court has never been in the business of
>protecting ordinary Americans against anything.
Only by those who reach this conclusion before thinking.
> The typical supreme
>court decision protecting against over-zealous government is Dred
>Scott Vs. Stanford, Row vs. Wade is rather the exception.
Curious. You cite the two leading candidates for the worst cases
to ever come down from the court. And no, I don't mean for the
results reached, but for the flagrant abuse of judicial power
used to reach the conclusion in both cases.
>But then, since you are a fan of Scalia, I assume you think Dred Scot
>was a shining example of protecting personal liberties. Good for you!
Ahh, nothing like a good old ad hominem attack when you're relying
on simple ignorance. I would, however, love to read the dissent
that Scalia would have written in that case . . .
>you have a rather skewed view of the approaches taken by the two
>parties here . .
>>I believe I have a realistic understanding that the Republican party
>>is doing what it can to close the door of the court to all but the
>>insanely rich.
Uh, yeah. Leaving aside the fact that it's the moderately rich that
tend to be republican, and that the insanely rich and very big
corporations tend to lean democratic, this just plain falls into the
"what color is the sky in your world category." I was actually
taking you seriously until this.
>You are welcome to prove me wrong.
From the last couple of your comments, it's clear that there's no point.
If God came down and told you otherwise, you'd take it as a
republican trick.
hawk,esq.
*both* parties try to put in judges who view the constitution in the same way as they do. Suggesting that either party does more of this is simply ignorant (at least if you leave out Al Gore--to the best of my knowledge, he's the only candidate for president from either major party in modern history to promise a litmus test on a particular issue).
The republican track record in getting Supreme Court justices to point their way is pathetic; they'd do as well by drawing random names for the membership rolls of the bar in various states--Earl Warren and Justice Souter come to mind.
Right now there's a 3 way split on the court, with the classic liberals holding the swing votes between the liberal/democratic block (about half of which were appointed by republicans) and the conservative/republican block.
If you look at the actual voting records rather than the political and media hype, you'll find that your best friend on the court (most likely to vote in your favor when faced with government power or intrusion) is Thomas (again, against all reasonable expectations at the time of his appointment), followed by Scalia (unless the safety of a police officer is involved). Then comes Kennedy on his good days.
i
On his bad days, Kennedy joins the conservative block and votes like a good
republican. The other six votes are entirely predictable (2 republican and
4 democratic).
The "unual and unexpected coalition" you sometimes here referred to
comes up when the classic liberals vote with the liberals--and these
votes are quite predictable.
When you see a 6-3 vote with Thomas, Rehnquist, and Kennedy in dissent, watch out. Look quickly; the conservatives and liberals just ganged up and took away some of your liberties. Even worse tend to be the 7-2 votes, when Kennedy *doesn't* joint Thomas and Scalia . . . *ugh*
hawk, esq. and civile libertarian at large
YM "comrade". HTH
This was precisely why I think the music copyright holders should not raise fuss about sites that distribute lyrics. If they would allow such sites to exist freely - or at very least give all lyrics with the CDs, we would have much less stuff like "excuse me while I kiss this guy." =)
And I like to sing along. I'm a wolf, after all. =)
Information shall be free, and cannot be owned.
If you want to make money, you're free to try,
but we will ignore your claims of ownership.
Cope.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Lyrics.ch is my all time favorite example of the sort of world the RIAA and associated friends would like to see. Their use of (signed, and thus dangerously unsafe) Java to prevent cut and paste, printing, or even screen shots (no control over the scroll rate for you!) is just insulting. Trust us to not be downloading non-sandboxed Java code to reformat your hard disk, and we'll trust you to see the precious and secret lyrics to 'Happy Birthday' on your computer screen momentarily. And, while you're here, why not click on our banner ads?
Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear citizen, Happy Birthday to you.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Yes, it's time to have every law that abuses the term "limited" in the copyright clause thrown out. Yes, it's time to have every law that abuses the commerce clause thrown out. The same kind of abuse of the Constitution that leads to routine abuse of probable cause leads to abuse like this, and abuse of the fifth and tenth amendments.
What we need is a law that attaches serious consequnces to anyone enforcing unconstitutional laws. You bet lawmakers would hear about it pretty quick the first time a bureaucrat got thrown in jail for being overenthusiatic about the power an unconstitutional law conferred on him. Laws are too often made as private deals between lawmakers and law enforcers or, as in this case, people who derive their living by being private enforcers. If there are no consequences, this will go out of control.
I wrote parts of this stuff
FUCK YOU.
You're trying to outlaw free amateur music? How do you suppose music itself was passed down from generation to generation until the 20th century, when some greedy bastard decided everyone who sings a song needs to be handing revenue over to a third party company? Thieving idiots.
--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org
The first step was to get the archive dumped off of the University of Nevada's servers. Then anyone else hosting it would get the nasty letters too. You'd have to hope the cross-atlantic links and the Italian site hosting the archive were up and hope you'd be able to find the tab you were looking for quickly enough.
Of course the maintenance goes downhill too, when you can't connect to the archive or officially host it you can't very well keep adding tabs for all the new stuff that keeps coming along, and whether your preferences run toward the newest Blink182 or the next Satriani album or even Shania, being able to grab tab is nice.
And while some might look at tab as 'cheating', don't forget how many beginners learn from it, people that might not get to hang around with decent guitar players or have money for lessons.
Again, the issue comes down to fair use in an interconnected society and the inability of old distribution and reward models to fit to an interconnected society.
Good luck to OLGA!
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Bleh!
>>...downloading the lyrics is wrong.
>Well they are copyrighted too. Downloading them
>is really not wrong, but distributing them might
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that downloading *is* a method of distribution.
uhh, isn't the point that people don't want to figure it out for themselves, they want someone else to, and get to download it for free. If they were all figuing it out for themselves, then this site would not exist.
If you write them for your personal use you are fine. Distibution is the problem here, and most everywhere.
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/fedreg/mech96-4.htm l
BTW Harry Fox is about the protection of the songwriter.
This isn't about the guitarist using the tabs, it is about the tabs being distributed without authorization, a clear case of copyright infringement.
Because the original writer of the song has rights to royalties for every copy of the song, whether it be an original recording done by the songwriter, a cover by another band, a performance by another band, or even sheet music.
In the early 70s or late 60s, The Kinks successfully sued The Doors for the song Hello I Love You, they claimed it ripped off Every Day and Every Night, they won all royalties for the song in England.
I can't think of anything further from the truth. IP, whether it be written words, software, songs, etc is the product of raw brain power, anything else requires something other than brain power. /.ers claim to be intellectual, but they can't grasp the notion that without copyright there is only material property rights, thus the only thing with value is material property. At that point we might as well blow out our brains because the only thing of value in them is the chemicals they are made of. Copyrights are around to protect the smartest of our sociaty, there are problems with them but the idea of completely free IP sickens me. I will be a very dull world the moment copyright dissapears.
Harry Fox distributes money directly to the artist. What is wrong with that, I think their problem is not with the tabs that aren't transcribed already, but the ones that are, for sale, but not selling. Those take food out of artists mouths.
This is music publishing, unless you have authorization you are not allowed to distribute music in any form, whether it be an MP3 or sheet music.
Funny there where a lot of great bands before the day of online tabliture. Where did they learn the music. Anyone who NEEDS online tabs needs to find a profession other than being a musician.
Bars that play music on a stereo sound system also pays BMI/ASCAP
unauthorized distribution of music is a clear copyright infringement. If some people who would pay for the convienence of having it all spelled out for them now get this same convienence for free, food is being taken out of artist's mouths. Some artists choose to distribute their own lyrics and music for free, that is fine, some want to be paid for this.
That doesn't give you the right to distribute the music for free, write your own songs and distribute them to your hearts content.
You can live in a world where only material property is the norm, but why would anyone pay you to think, if your thought were valueless? In other words, Kia could disassmble the Ford Explorer and build a factory to build Kia Exploiters, exactly like the Ford Explorer, but sell them for half price. Explorers have extreemly high profit margins, so Kia could still make a profit. Why would Ford pay you to design Explorers?
The Harry Fox Agency doesn't have a monopoly, the songwriters themselves choose The Harry Fox Agency to collect their royalties for them.
Patents are simply a type of IP protection for technology, copyrights are for art. Sorry you lack the abstract thinking skills to understand the conncetion. The case here is simply mass distribution of copyrighted material, believe it or not people who wrote this music (composed not transposed) expect to be paid for you enjoying their work.
I think you should work for the next year, with only an advance, then at the end of the year not be paid anymore. Artists don't deserve to be paid a decent living? This is absurd! Who are you to decide that since you can copy their work it has no value, I CAN go to your house with a rifle and take everything I want from your house.
Mozart was paid for everything he wrote
Do you know anything about the Aneid? Virgil was paid up front for it by Ceasar Augustus, and died before finishing it. Due to the fact the printing press did not exist yet, IP was not needed, the cost associated was the actual copies.
When artists stop being paid, most will stop making art. Sorry that is the world we live in try feeding YOUR children with praise.
Creating Art is not work? Do you know any artists? DO you have an ounce of talent? LAst time I checked a small time musician on the road spends there day as follows. Drive 6 hours to the town with the gig. set up and sound check 2 hours, eat at some slop joint in a strange town. Wait around for the shitting opening band to finish. PLay for 2 hours. Go to bed in a shitty hotel room. get up and do it again, all for less than $100, per band member. No work there. Just because these guys can do things that you never will be able to do doesn't mean it is not work.
Here is your chance to be a hero, start a company which acquires copyrights for stuff out of print, and no longer of commercial value, at that point you have every right to distribute this stuff as you choose. One such place (And I have done a lot of work for this place) is the Internet Moving Images Archive. for the most part, places such as OLGA are not doing the ground work to acquire the copyrights, although it looks like they are going to start an legal archive of tablature that has copyrights that allow open distribution, that is a good thing. I don't think that art needs to be commercial, my own art is paid for by me and posted around the city for everyone to enjoy, I have been offered money but turned it down, that was MY choice. Make your own art and you can choose what to do with it. The Harry Fox Agency has been selling their own Tabs for years (1920s or earlier), they didn't just try to get into the act after someone else. See Steve Albini's rant on the music industry, the Publishing Advance, that is from someone such as the Harry Fox Agency, that is one of the few positives in the whole thing.
How the fuck am I being greedy? I don't expect something for nothing.
YOU DO, that is what greed is! I make art! I freely distribute my art. I Have contributed to many open source projects.
What have you done? How do you afford to eat? Pay your rent? In San Francisco artists are being driven out because they can't afford to pay their rent. I want them to make more money so they can stay. What do you say to the guys who lost their practice space because they couldn't afford to pay the rent, but find 100 copies of their latest single on every napster/opennap server?
You forgot to answer the question of "what you do", and why you decide on the rights of other types of workers. There is a place to get scores for free, its called the library, even if your own doesn't have what you want you can get what you want by Inter-Library Loan. This idea that artists should only be paid for live performances is crap, pure and simple. The economics of touring make it nearly impossible to make a decent living touring. Also life on the road is extreamly hard, try having a wife and kid when you are on the road 200+ days a year, for the huge salary of $100 a night. Albini makes touring economics quite clear in his Baffler rant. Also years ago, but now gone, Man or Astroman had a write up by the Brannock Device of all the money in and out of a show (9/1996) at Irving Plaza NYC, I think there were over 1200 people at this show, sold out in about an hour, $10 a ticket, net procedes to each band member $200. Less money into art means less art, especially less interesting art, sorry if you can fund more artists, making sure they get the money, then start your own lable, and "free" the information. Until then shut up about things that you are completely uninformed about.
Nevermind that some of these tabs (as was some of the lyrics on lyrics.ch) are "backward engineered", in that they are other people's interpretations of what the lyrics or tabs might be or probably are. They'll be determined to keep control to the point they'll make their tabs completely unusable. Copyright holders need to look at things in a different light.
By your argument, I could read a book and post my interpretation of the book on the web. This interpretation would have a significant amount of content from the originial - so much so that it is very recognizable as the original. (For a song, this just means getting the "hook".) Basically, this is called copying and under IP laws (for many moons) it has been illegal. How do we know these people aren't just buying tab books (or even borrowing them) and just copying that to the web? I mean, Christ, these people are simply copying! It's that simple. Pure and simple, posting tabluature is very clear violation of copyright.
Interpretations of music, namely performances, have always costed those who play them. However, it is utterly unfeasible to follow all live performances, so establishments that have live performaces pay blanket fees based on the number of cover performaces they will or did have (based on some statistics, like how often they have live performaces, etc.). So even your interpretations argument does not hold.
I don't think the Harry Fox agency is being unreasonable. They are protecting the copyrights of the musicians who sat and wrote the music. If the musicians are willing, let them give away the tablature.
Besides, if you want to be a decent musician (namely guitarist), put down the tab, open your ears and listen to what you want to play and attempt to recreate it. Hell, you may even write something original in the process. This is generally how music is written anyway.
Nagash
If tab is put up in partial form, then I'm not sure where the line gets drawn. As you mentioned, posting the whole thing is the bad thing. I was referring to this. I don't use tabs anymore, so I haven't gone looking for them for a long time.
You are also correct that you cannot copyright chord changes. What you do have copyright on, however, is the arrangement of the piece and its performance. Note that this is not like a patent or trademark! Other people can still use it, they just can't use the exact same one. When you publish/post (full) tablature, you are essentially copying the original arrangement. If you only give out certin "licks" or "riffs", I doubt that's a major infringement. Of course, I don't know where the line is drawn - that's always been the fuzzy part about this.
Nagash
What about those bands who can play by ear (ie do not write down the tablature, but play what they hear)?
A couple of hundred years ago the Vatican wouldn't let anyone have the sheet music to a famous piece, the Miserere by Allegri. Until Mozart came to listen, heard it once, and wrote it down from memory.
e gri/miserere.html
The story: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/all
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
Actually I noticed my karma had somehow through no fault of my own got to double digits...
Thought I'd get modded down a bit to compensate. Since this is slashdot voice an opinion that is pro copyright (unless it's 'open source' of course) and get modded down...
My karma is still above 9, someone mod this down please...
(I actually have mod points right now, but since you can't post and mod to the same story, I guess I can't mod myself down...)
Don't be such a narrow-minded idiot. There are official publications which have the actual tabs used by the bands during their recordings. Is the site ripping these off, or are the members coming up with their own by ear? Or ripping them off from other places which have created them by ear?
Cheers,
Okay, please remit US$5000 to the estate of Martin Niemöller or prepare to face charges of copyright infringement.
I think the AC did a fine job quoting enough that we got the point. He also (surprisingly enough for a Slashdot poster) correctly spelled "Nazis" without an apostrophe.
And your version is not necessarily correct:
http://serendipity.magnet.ch/cda/niemoll.html
I remember reading something, maybe fiction, maybe not, about people who were working on making a computer program that would work on creating hit pop songs. The software would learn by receiving feedback on how successful its previous attempts at making songs were, and what parts people liked most in the songs. I could see that happening. Not to slight the work it takes to make techno music, but if it started being made solely by machines, you might not notice. Heck, maybe some of it already is.
Do you guys get that over there occasionally? Can you get rid of judges who are clueless? Do you have any frigging say in the way your country is run at all?
The purpose of a judge in the U.S. is to interpret existing law. It's entirely possible that amateur tablature falls in the category of "fair use." (I think it would), but a judge might very rule that it is copyright infringement. It depends on how you interpret the law. At least in this case we're not likely to have the situation, as in the Napster suit, where the judge has no frigging clue...online tablature is basically the same as writing it down on a piece of paper.
The real question is is writing it (the tablature...the music if you will) down a piece of paper and then distributing it to the masses copyright infringement? If I just write it down and give it to a few friends, may. But if I write it down take it to a print shop, have a million copies made and even if I don't sell them for $10 a pop, well, maybe that IS copyright infringement. Translating a work is considered to be one of the protected rights under copyright. That's what you have to consider.
My journal has hot
You cannot copyright chord changes.
While you can copyright the score of a piece of music, you cannot ban a person from figuring out the chord progression and passing it on to anyone.
So when a tab is posted, it is (usually) just a chord progression posted with a preferred way of playing the chords. The way the chords are fingered are not copyrightable, either.
Of course, my argument sort of breaks down when entire scroes are posted, but that happens in less that 5% of the tabs out there, in my estimation.
Innovation has become the sole province of corporations, it seems, and this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. This is an unprecedented attack on the sovereignty of the individual, on many different fronts, concocted by people who have few common ties but the ability to profit from conformity, and it isn't getting any better. We can keep fighting them point-by-point to slow down the machine's progress, but what can we do to reverse the trend? What can we do to restore discovery, initiative, and independence to their rightful place as the cornerstone of Western achievement, in a world filled with prefab, overpriced, purpose-built, rubber-bumpered crap?
Hey, Katz, if you want to do something useful for "The Kids", then quit defending mindless entertainment and start advocating mindful engagement. Ten million zombies playing Quake are not going to fix the problem.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
I would genuinely like to know just what successes there have been against obvious greed by a corporation in the courts over the last eighteen months or so. I define success as something along the lines of: an impartial judge considers the facts of the case and what implications his or her judgement would have and then tells the corporate entity bringing the action to go and stick it.
Do you guys get that over there occasionally? Can you get rid of judges who are clueless? Do you have any frigging say in the way your country is run at all?
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
What I hate to see, is that in the quest for total content control, they will likely make their site unusable, much like they did lyrics.ch. It will become less than useless. At that point, people won't use it, and the Harry Fox agency, and the RIAA, and the MPAA will say "well, see, people don't want to pay for what they can get for free. Now we must go out and bust all the small people who are distributing this stuff."
Guess what, surprise, I would pay for stuff like this. Well, not tabs, because I don't play guitar. But, hey, if there was a place where I could get all the MP3s I could download in a month for $30, I'd sign up... or if I could get them for a reasonable price -- say $0.10 a piece. A place where downloads didn't time out, and quality was certain. Or, if I could subscribe to lyrics.ch, pay a minute monthly fee, and know that the lyrics were correct.
Are there people who will steal IP rather than pay for it? Sure. There are people (who can certainly afford it) who shoplift rather than pay for merchandise. Is that any reason to say that we shouldn't have stores or that theft prevention in those stores should degrade the quality of the product I'm buying?
-------------------------------------------------
Besides, honestly, most of my refering was done when stuck in gridlock or when I was a passenger. It's not like I was trying to read while driving 100 mph in a residential area.
-------------------------------------------------
However. The draconian IP laws we have in place are indeed destroying our intellectual underpinnings. Think about the video games you played as a kid. Those are protected under copyright 75 plus the life of the author -- bascially your whole life. Many of these games will not survive 75 years. There is no real profit for Atari to re-release a bunch of 2600 games, but at the same time, we're raising the next generation of game designers on copycat games (first person shooters, real-time stragegy, driving, martial arts fighting). I can remember when every game had a very unique strategy, look and feel to it. The ones that didn't, died. If you want to play any of those 2600 games now, the game manufacturers won't sell them to you, and they don't want you to grab them off the net, so you must find an old Atari 2600 somewhere that still works (good luck), with good controllers, and then find the games you want to play. Oh wait, the IP people don't like reseller shops -- remember the flack over used CDs?
Truth of the matter is, be it film, video games, music, books, or software, much of this IP loses it's commercial value within five years. It's the odd thing that maintains it's worth more than 15 (Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables). Most of this stuff will not survive for 75 years when it might possibly come out of copyright. They don't want to sell it to you now, because it costs too much for too small a profit. They do want to hang on it, on the off chance it becomes valuable. Only problem is, they are looking at the dollar signs, they have no real interest in preserving history. When these things are lost (and some things are already lost, try to find a good copy of Metropolis), they cannot be regained.
The fact they'd rather clamp down and control content rather than sell us the very thing we're stealing -- well, that's just bad business and we shouldn't protect that with law.
-------------------------------------------------
Apparently the Harry Fox agency didn't like that. And, they ruined lyrics.ch. They tried to change it, and in their zeal for total content control, they made it unusable. Now, you can't print the lyrics, and you can't scroll back to read the ones just displayed, you can't even control the speed of the scrolling. Plus, most songs aren't even listed. Great solution guys. I can only see how lyrics.ch helped promote music, but copyright is king today.
Now, I see they're going to do it with guitar tabs. Nevermind that some of these tabs (as was some of the lyrics on lyrics.ch) are "backward engineered", in that they are other people's interpretations of what the lyrics or tabs might be or probably are. They'll be determined to keep control to the point they'll make their tabs completely unusable. Copyright holders need to look at things in a different light.
Rather than asking how they can keep people from making money off their IP, they need to ask "why are people making money off this?" and "how can I make it better and easier to use, so they like my service better?" I'd be willing to pay a nominal fee for lyrics or tabs or god forbid, mp3s. If and only if, I can do whatever I want with them after I purchase them. Don't cripple them, don't worry about me misusing them. As it is, I'm not buying any intellectual property until these strong-arm tactics are under control.
Copyright law is ruining the intellectual underpinnings of our society.
-------------------------------------------------
The ability to get free tabs makes playing music much easier, which in turn creates more musicians, and makes the recording industry MORE MONEY. If they shut down the tab websites, they'll get back the INCREDIBLY small amount of money from people who'd rather hear a local band perform an artist's song than the artist themself.
Do I have any less desire to see Clapton in concert because I heard FuzzBucket perform "Tears in Heaven"? Absolutley not.
mefus
--
um, er... eh -- *click*
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
I've thought about this a bit in the past and feel that multiple passes would solve this problem. You do one pass over the data using a long FFT window... this gives you fine frequency resolution that allows establishment of the chordal patterns tied to time. Then you do another pass over the data using a short FFT window; this will give you good temporal resolution but will be ambiguous as to individual notes.... however you now pull in the chordal pattern data to resolve ambiguities to the most harmonious note. Just remember: A human can do it, therefore it must be possible. If there isn't enough data in the raw music itself, there must be other assumed idiomatic information being used by the human. Represent that idiomatic information in code, and it can be automated. -Rob
--Rob
Consult the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. s. 106, which provides that the copyright holder owns exclusive rights to reproduction and distribution. With respect to a copyrighted work directly from the original sheet music, a recording or a performance of a copyrighted work, if you record the tablature, and published that result, you have implicated both reproduction and distribution rights. There are some merger issues, but for many tunes, you will run into quite a few walls trying to defend on grounds of noninfringement.
A better claim might be fair use. Much depends on the particular facts of the case; the work, how much is taken; impact on the publishing marketplace; for what purposes the tablature was recorded, and so forth.
Right. Their license requires them to give notice concerning the "accounts" issue. It is the generally feeble efforts of MLB and similar sports organizations to hold on to what's left of the hot news exception.
Nope. That was settled in the Motorola cases not too long ago. There is nothing copyrightable in the subject matter of a sporting event. Of course, you can't simply rebroadcast a particular sportscast, or use excerpts of the play by play commentary -- that (the photography and the content) is most certainly protected.
however, the subject matter of what is shown on the newscast -- that's no violation of copyright.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the common law action for misappropriation would apply. The law varies from state to state whether the action protects contemporaneous rebroadcast of "hot news." But that is another (really hypertechnical, but fun for geek lawyers) issue.
What is clear is that traditional sporting events, itself, is not likely to be protected by copyright. (There may be interesting issues in highly choreographed events, perhaps something like pro wrestlying).
You, my friend, are talking straight out of your ass. If you could implement even a fraction of what you say "wouldn't be a huge project," you would single-handedly show up all of the current experts in the field.
I recommend you read the alt.binaries.sounds.midi FAQ, where the task of converting WAV->MIDI is discussed in depth (section 1.4). This is equivalent to the process you propose, the idea of taking a digital PCM sound file and decomposing it into musical "events." The discussion concludes with the following:
--
So, so much...it opens a new window for every thing you want to do and then at the end, there's no instant access to the song file...you have to put it in the basket. WTF?
Now, if the site rocked and charged micropayments, it might be sweet, but there's just something so perverse about paying for something that is worse than the free alternative.
I guess it's nice to see the system working for somebody...too bad it's not us.
OTOH, if database protection passes, preemption won't offer even the weak shield it currently does...
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
I find that hard to believe based on my understanding of copyright law. Do you have a reference?
How is this different from a movie reviewer giving a plot summary?
I feel like picking a fight with everyone who thinks they are right. - Rainmakers
Since you're asserting it's pretty much impossible to quantify the sales lost, are the record companies equally at a loss? I know that for the thousands of MP3 files I've downloaded in the last year or two, I've bought more CDs than ever before. I don't think I'm the exception here. Additionally, many of the files I've collected are live performances, rarities, demos, bootlegs, items out of print etc. and would not be available anywhere else on any other medium at any price. Are those counted as 'lost sales'? Hardly, since the record companies would have no inclination to ever make those items available to artists' fans. To say that more product equals more sales I think is pretty bogus. What about items resold on eBay or Half.com? Record companies don't see a dime of that (even tho' that's not what we're dealing w/here). In short, I think the record companies, the Harry Fox Agency, NBCi et al have the most far reaching, powerfully dynamic and effective marketing tool ever devised by man staring them right in the face and their own greed and stupidity prevents them from recognizing it. Too bad, since the genie's already out of the bottle...
B
"Look, Smithers! I'm Davy Crockett!"
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/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Distributing tablature derived from listening to music? That's outrageous! It's almost as bad as communally deciphering and publishing lyrics! These people need to be thrown in jail, along with softcore drug users, and encryption users.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yer, cause we all know that the laws werent made to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. At least figure out what it is your attacking before you attack it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
please at least show enough respect to quote the entire thing:
In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me -
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
- Pastor Martin Niemöller
How we know is more important than what we know.
That's great! Now you can close your eyes and pretend the law doesn't exist because there is no way to enforce it. Yah! An alternative, would be to do something about the law rather than just giving up on society.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The common satire:
:)
First they came for the hackers.
But I never did anything illegal with my computer,
so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the pornographers.
But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway,
so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the anonymous remailers.
But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi,
so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the encryption users.
But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway,
so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for me.
And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
My google skills are unmatched
How we know is more important than what we know.
Music score is like source code and tablature is like object code and the sound is like the gui! That's why Oasis isn't in jail for rippin' their look and feel off The Beatles.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Thanks for reminding me of lyrics.ch; such a wonderful site; remember a few words; search; --ahhh there's the lyrics to that song.
Kinda like alt.penet.fi (sp?), anonymous emailer that scientlogy shut down. 'Good guys finish last.'
Mandrake 7.2 and KDE 2 for me? for free?
1000 SlashDot sigs
No matter how efficient the technology becomes the right of people to meet and share is obvious, however selling copyrighted material is illegal.
(IANAL, bla bla)
It may be "obvious" that you can "share" things, but that does not necessarily make it generally legal.
For example, in the US, you can borrow your friend's CD and copy it legally for your own personal use. But if he performs the coping and gives you the copy, even for no consideration (i.e., even if he doesn't make money on the deal), that is against the law.
Similarly, if I lend or give you my copy of a book that is copyright, that is legal. If I copy it first, and lend or give you that copy ("share" it), that is illegal.
I'm not sure about your country (Canada), but I am sure that few laws are obvious.
The law is concerned with more than just whether the "sharer" makes a profit or not.
The funny thing is, the tab thst I have got from OLGA sites have been better than most published sheet music. Yes, sometimes people seem to mistake a Am chord for a C major chord, but lots of popular songs on OLGA have more than one submission, so you can look at each one and decide for your self on which is correct, or combine bits of each.
When I was in high school, I spent $25 (which is alot when you don't have a real job) on a deluxe copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon Tab Book. And guess what? A good deal with it was wrong. The opening of "Brain Damage" is not as complex as the book claimed (it's just D and G7 chords with a FEW extra notes). The cheap version of the same book (just sheet music , no tab) of the same leaves out the solo to Time (among other things) and includes a song called "Wots Uh the Deal" that isn't even on the Dark Side of the Moon album. To be fair, I got a better understanding of how to play "Us and Them", better than I have seen on OLGA, but that seems to be rare.
I have been downloading tab since the days that you had to sniff out FTP sites. I was just starting out and I didn't know a 1-4-5 progression if it bit me on the ass. For a newbie, a lot of songs that I liked were hard to figure out, and the Tab books were watered down versions that were hardly useful to me. How was I to know that using a capo would make the opening part to Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" so easy to play?
Since then I posted a bit to OLGA (no job at the time), mostly Ween and Beck songs. And I loved it when people emailed me back with thanks, or requests to post my stuff on their web sites (which I always agreed to). When I was starting, I didn't even have a computer. I just went down to the college computer labs and printed out what I wanted to learn (using very small fonts to save paper), took it home and got to it. How cheap and easy could you get?
And how the hell is this stealing any money from the artists? Most tabs say ( as well as I did) to listen to th CD to get the timing right, as plain text tab is very limited in showing note lengths. Trying to play a song by using tab and ot having a CD or tape of the music in question is almost impossible. I wated to learn songs on CDs that I PAYED FOR AND OWNED. They (whoever) already got my money. It's just sometimes my ears needed a bit of help playing what I like. What the big idea about that?
I was just thinking about this exact same thing the other day. This is what makes it so hard to be a lawyer and/or understand the law in the US -- not only do you have to know the laws, but you have to know all of the relevant case law as well so you can know how various judges have interpreted it. This, as you say, is totally assinine. One judge makes a bad ruling and it's going to take a Supreme Court decision to get it undone.
Since when does talk amongst yourselves mean
repeat the same old rhetoric. I was proposing a solution. Traxinspace has a huge following they could buy out songfile.com in no time.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Quick personal note: When art forms an industry, and decides to make the public pay for its use, it ceases to be art. Art is that which enriches your soul for no greater price than that of your time.
Example given: Mozart's operas were always shown in paying venues (you had to buy a ticket to see Figaro). Therefore, Mozart's operas are not art. Eh.
An artist is someone who can live out of fresh air and pure aesthetics. Anyone who needs basely material things (such as, say, money) to survive ceases to be an artist.
(Boy, and this is rated +5 insightful...)
Thomas Miconi
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Go here and search fo something. Book mark the servernames you get out of the results - many of them are in foreign countries which, if the sites aren't owned by americans, may be more immune to this crap. It's important to do this now because the URL above IS in the good ol' USA, so even tho it's only a search engine, it might get shut down under the same reasoning as Napster.
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I can tell you from personal experience that most of the "official" sheet music that comes out for guitar is pure garbage. Example: I paid a great deal for a Led Zeppelin book to understand "The Rain Song". It was a VERY POOR approximation, in that it didn't even have the correct tuning of the guitar (which is how the strings are tuned, and makes a huge difference in how the song is played and how it SOUNDS). The publishers can take a hike until they produce a quality product at ANY proce (which they've spent 25 years that I know of proving that they can't or won't.
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Screw Fox. Also, you can go to Google Advanced Groups Search, enter the song title into the "with the exact phrase" field and enter "alt.guitar.tab" into the "Newsgroup" field, then click "google search" and you're set. Let's see the pricks shut down usenet.
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
It is not like hacking in and stealing the sources. If it's like anything it's reverse engineering. It's an interpretation of the song, put on the web for free.
What if I were to play a song I'd learned from an... uuuh... illegal tablature, in my own room, by my self. Would this be like running Win98 compiled from stolen source code?
Anyway I think it's a bad idea comparing it to source code since the code can't be kept a secret, the music is the code, it's never in some sorta binary form.
Or, if the general public doesn't protest too much, then the laws stick around forever and are selectively enforced by the authorities whenever they feel like.
Too bad there's nothing in the Constitution which says that laws which can't be enforced consistently will automatically expire.
http://www.lawmemo.com/ip/sum/iplm/i20001107.htm
And with database treaties, this will probably become even more of an issueDisclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, just interested in the topic.
Although I personally have my doubts as to how much this will help 2600's case, this article is yet case they will be able to refer to in their hearing tommorow. See yesterday's article about the university professor who had to back off due to legal bullying.
The number of times I've consulted on-line, amature tablature for both bass, rhythm, and lead parts cannot be counted. Its a great way to find out how to play songs - especially since no one ever completely gets it "right". Each person's transcription has its own character since we all hear things a little bit differently. It would be a disgrace to musicians everywhere to allow legal hound dogs ruin this tradition over "potential competition" to something I doubt I'd ever use.
Again, someone nuke them now. It seems the only sane thing left to do, other than outlaw lawyers, but that's a little too paradoxical.
One Can Never Own Enough Musical Instruments...
-Legion
-Legion
-Legion
Incidentally, I was serious.
-Legion
-Legion
-Legion
In this case the laws are preventing the Progress of useful Arts, the Right to Writings and Discoveries is being stolen and abused by non-Authors, and the whole limited Times clause has become a laughing matter. The recording/movie industries get copyright extensions the way a 5-year old gets gumballs -- insert money, turn crank.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
So if I listen to a song a few times without an instrument in my hands, then walk into a room where I can't hear the original, but do have an instrument, and I work out the TAB from what I remember in my head, then that would constitute a clean room reverse engineering which has been protected by the courts, right?
------
WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
This sig intentionally left justified.
The tabs on the site are transcribed by people that listened to the music. This can be compared to running a program and then making your own that is similar without looking at the source code. The reason they want them closed down is they think people are copying the tab books they sell, but iirc the sites quit posting tabs like that and only take ones that are done by the individual.
Just put all the tabulature on Freenet. It's obivous! Thanks, Travis forkspoon@hotmail.com
lyrics. oh please... some of us like to know what mr. stipe is mumbling in his songs. we're not going to sell the lyrics, we just want to read them. i don't think thats wrong.
tabs. yeah... illegal to play a song that someone else wrote! if not for tabs, i know a lot of people who would never have learned to play a guitar. this is just ridiculous.
-------
-------
"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
If you take away the guitars, then there's no chance of infringement. I can think of many people who need their guitars taken away, and would be happy to provide a list (with home addresses) to facilitate this action.
Or I suppose you could just stop selling strings. That would work too.
uhh, isn't the point that people don't want to figure it out for themselves, they want someone else to, and get to download it for free. If they were all figuing it out for themselves, then this site would not exist
;-)
Ahh, but we're talking about joe guitar player figuring it out and then posting it on the web for free. And as i said, most people would rather figure it out than pay for it. Getting it for free is a different matter
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Think Hendrix, Page, Van Halen, Holdsworth, Buckethead, etc. Sometimes it's difficult to figure what they're doing without seeing their hands
;-)
I consider myself an average guitarist. I am by no means technically elite nor am i a complete schlock garage-band power-chord weenie. I learned the intro to little wing over the course of about a week (on and off). I have been figuring out guys like SRV, Jimi, John lee hooker, Muddy waters, etc. since i've been playing. And believe me when i say that a guitarist that isn't on par with me is probably not going to be playing jimi hendrix well enough to need the tab anyway
Of course, i am also of the opinion that learning cut-and-dried tab can be a dangerous thing. It doesn't provide training for innovation and skill. If someone learns tab their whole life, in the end they will be nothing more than a guitarist with some show-off songs that can't jam for shit.
Oh well, at least you and i can agree that places like the OLGA should definitely not be shut down.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
The artist chooses to distribute their lyrics and music the moment their song gets played for the first time. But, along your line of thought i have a few questions:
Is playing a song on the radio legal?
How about if i hear that song, and am able to figure out the lyrics and chord structure from having listened to that song (e.g. something like Polly by Nirvana)? Is that illegal? After all, i have "reverse engineered" the song.
What if i purchase the latest album of a band i like? Would it be considered within the realm of fair use to sit with my guitar and play the songs over and over until i know how to play them, and have memorized the lyrics?
What if a friend who was also a guitarist came over and wanted to learn how to play those songs as well (or, perhaps, songs we had both heard on the radio)? Would it be acceptable for me to teach him how to play these songs? That would be, by your argument of course, verbotten since the artist wasn't getting a kick back from my teaching my friend how to play a song.
What if i don't see my friend that often and i only have the time to jot down the chords to song X on a napkin i got while drinking an overpriced frapa-fucking-vanilla-iced-latte from Starbuck's coffee and give that napkin to my friend later? Should i be ticketed or arrested for piracy if a policeman walking into the Starbuck's at the same time i'm walking out notices that the chords and melody i wrote down on the napkin can be played on a guitar and sound exactly like that new Hansen song he just heard in his squad car while he was munching on a doughnut?
Or does the illegality of the napkin come in to play when i actually give the napkin to my friend? You would have no trouble with the police perhaps setting up a sting operation to take down my illicit napkin trading ring?
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
always nice to see my questions answered with a bunch of questions. not to mention, pretty much the same ones.
Perhaps it comes down to a battle of those who think IP encourages innovation, and those who feel it doesn't. As for myself, i definitely have a bent towards the latter argument.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
you do realize, of course, that most of the tabs you get in books are transcribed by someone hired to figure out the music, not the musicians. a fine example is sunhawk. Just busineses transcribing tab, or even sheet music, and trying to get people to pay for it. A lame concept in and of itself (as most guitarists will get a hell of a lot better by just jamming to the radio rather than playing from tab). And the only reason companies are starting to get pissed is because they can't bear the idea that most people would rather figure the music out themselves than pay for tab.
But who knows, this may make for better guitarists in the long run. Perhaps even revive the lost art of the trained ear.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
i think this is a far cry from some play by play (which, AFAIK, isn't copyright infringement).
1) Anyone who is getting these tabs is usually getting them for personal use. They'll either use them to play when they're bored, or they'll play them when friends come over for shits ang giggles. That, my friend, is definitely fair use. Unless, of course, there is something sinister about playing covers for your friends, and, dear god, not charging them for your private show.
2) Any half-way competent guitarist should be able to figure out any song without use of tablature. Sure, there are some discrepancies(sp) with the way that the song is played, sometimes complete chords are fubar'ed, but - it's really not that difficult to figure out what the musician was doing by listening to a song a few times (hell, i figured out Travis' cover of Hit Me Baby, One More Time because i couldn't find it on the OLGA. The only reason most people use sites like that are because of laziness, not because of some sinister desire to undermine the profit margin of the music industry. Outlawing sites like the OLGA isn't going to stop cover bands, and it's sure as hell not going to stop anyone who can play anything more than power cords. (Subnote: It's a good song, and no, i'm not gay).
3. Most importantly, these songs were "reverse engineered" so to speak. 99.9% of the tab you see on places like the OLGA weren't written by anyone who had anything to do with the music industry. They were written by average joes like you and me who decided to help others out. They weren't, and aren't, doing anything more than providing easy instructions for a product that doesn't come with an instruction manual.
In that sense, the music industry is trying to outlaw do-it-yourself manuals. Why don't we just take the next step and outlaw Chilton's car guides and Time-Life Home Improvement books.
Quick personal note: When art forms an industry, and decides to make the public pay for its use, it ceases to be art. Art is that which enriches your soul for no greater price than that of your time.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
The ability to get free tabs makes playing music much easier, which in turn creates more musicians
It creates more performers, but it doesn't create more songwriters, does it? Most of the better artists (i.e. not Titney Spears or Backdoor Boys) write their own music.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Wouldn't that be the same as a clean re-implementation, and be legal?
It'd be another representation of the same notes. The sound isn't the issue here; the music is. A copyright on a musical composition can exist independent of any sound recording.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How about all those bar bands that play nothing but cover songs? I guess they should pay to play music.
Except cover artists pay ASCAP and BMI for Public Performance rights.
Will I retire or break 10K?
any given tab you pull off the internet will not be like source code because it will never be 100% accurate (I have seen exceptions, but those are few and far between). Therefore, it's not the same as the original work.
Your argument, "Just because it's a derivative work means it's no longer restricted," doesn't hold legal water. 17 USC 106 and foreign counterparts give the copyright owner exclusive rights to prepare and authorize "derivative works based upon the copyrighted work." Clones of software are not based upon the original source code, but tablature and other sheet music are based upon the original sequence of notes that makes up the music, and sequences of notes are expressions not ideas.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But what about the owner of the underlying song?
I knew that. I wrote: "But they're derivative works of the original musical composition" not "original sound recording".
Of course, nothing you read on Slashdot can be taken as legal advice.Will I retire or break 10K?
what if i don't have a cd.
Then go buy the CD. Or rip the tape or the vinyl.
some people don't have cd players.
If your home computer is old enough not to have a CD-ROM drive, it probably doesn't have a large enough hard drive to store many MPEG audio files.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Music score is like source code and tablature is like object code and the sound is like the gui!
Music score is like source code. Tablature is another form of music score, and so is a MIDI file. The .wav or .mp3 is a binary, statically linked with the instruments, unlike MODs which are dynamically linked to their instruments.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Now you can close your eyes and pretend the law doesn't exist because there is no way to enforce it.
Laws that are too much trouble to enforce either cease to be enforced or are repealed. This war on sharing is similar to the war on drugs and the old war on alcohol (Prohibition era); it just doesn't work. There are other other ways to compensate artists, such as the Street Performer Protocol in which the full version of a work is released if and only if enough paid orders for it are received.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Or, why not apply an accoustic-analysis procedure and create a file that, when fed to the appropriate program, reproduces the music almost exactly how it was played!
This is MPEG layer 3 audio compression in a nutshell (sorry, O'Reilly).
Still free?
No. Look at the deep sh*t Napster is in right now.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Clearly the poster has never played with FFTs (Fast Fourier Transforms for frequency analysis). The problem with a Fourier transform is that you must collect a large number of samples in order to get reasonable frequency resolution, unfortunately, that causes you to loose time resolution.
Most rock music is composed at a maximum resolution of about sixteenth notes (ignore complex guitar solos for now); decent beat detection will find the note grid. For a song at about 120 quarter per minute (Nirvana), this gives 1/8 second per grid space, or over 5,000 samples. 4,096 samples is more than enough to get a decent spectral resolution in an FFT. The problems discussed in MIDI FAQ may not apply as much to rock because you don't have 100 layers of instruments on top of each other (more like just drums, bass, three guitar notes, and vocals) or that many effects (just reverb and various sorts of harmonic distortion).
Will I retire or break 10K?
then the laws stick around forever and are selectively enforced by the authorities whenever they feel like
Except authorities who enforce forgotten laws end up on DumbLaws.com and are embarrassed out of their... Next point?
there's nothing in the Constitution which says that laws which can't be enforced consistently will automatically expire.
In fact, there's nothing in the Constitution that requires copyright itself to expire. The "for limited times" in U.S. Const. 1.8.8 is relatively meaningless in the face of the Eldred v. Reno^H^H^H^HAshcroft decision, setting a precedent allowing for already nearly perpetual copyright to be extended even longer. This is a bad thing.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The tabs on the site are transcribed by people that listened to the music.
But they're derivative works of the original musical composition.
This can be compared to running a program and then making your own that is similar without looking at the source code.
Cloning software is legal, but cloning music is not. They differ in the amount of paraphrase (copying of ideas with new expression) between the original and the copy. Copying the behavior of a program is copying ideas and not restricted under copyright law. Raw music itself, on the other hand, contains hardly any content that could be considered "idea" (you can be sued for four notes), and the lyrics that normally accompany tablature are generally copied verbatim.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I certainly, in the hundreds of gigs I've played, have never been required to list by the dollar and dime which of the popular slop I am playing I owe royalties on.
I'm afraid you have. The fact that you haven't done it doesn't relieve you of the responsibility. If you're ever playing copyright songs for money, there's a fee per song. Larger organisations may wangle a "block booking", but I'd ask to see the documents b4 I'd trust them.
If you don't pay your taxes and you don't get any letters chasing you for them, does that mean you're no longer liable to pay tax? Of course not. Same thing here.
Of course, most part-time pub bands will get away without paying the royalties. But if Metallica cover "Ecstacy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone then they'll be paying a fee per recording and per performance to use that song, unless Morricone (or his publishers) make it public domain. Harry Fox is merely the collection agency, contracted by the music companies to collect royalties owing to songwriters. How they collect and who they collect from is their business - at some point it'll cost more to chase all the little pub bands than they'd get back in royalties.
I agree the time period is too long (myself, I'd look at around 10 years for copyright of anything, maybe 20 at most), but that's the way the rules work ATM, right or wrong.
Grab.
They won't have to pay to buy the tab, but they'll still have to pay if they perform it for money. If they don't charge for it, they don't pay. But Metallica would pay to perform and record "Ecstacy of Gold", Mike Flowers Pops would pay to perform and record "Wonderwall", etc.
Grab.
No, it's more like outlawing sports spectators from giving a play by play account of a sporting event. Which, guess what, that's copyright infringement.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
No that's not the issue (at least not the one the previous poster was referring to). Some people just copy tab directly out of the various tab books that are put out by the music companies. These really shouldn't be allowed to be copied. But most of the tab on the net is created by people listening to the notes and chords and writing down what they think they are. This sort of thing should be allowed.
Or, why not apply an accoustic-analysis procedure and create a file that, when fed to the appropriate program, reproduces the music almost exactly how it was played! Still free?
Oh wait...
If you play guitar and can't transpose a riff between keys (especially when you've got the original to compare to, and it's obviously wrong) then you should probably just give up.
Idiot.
It's very simple. Don't give them a market. The rich get richer by looking for new ways to make money. Sometimes that means twisting and redefining the legal system in their favor or to squelch "competitors." If you are a "professional" musician, don't deal with labels or publishers. Make a self-sufficient business around your art. If you are an "amateur" musician (and don't suck! :-), then try your hand at composing. Play locally, distribute globally.
Culture yields freedom. Freedom yields culture.
Insightful? Try moronic...comparing tab to stolen code is insane...by that way of thinking I guess Linux would be concidered stolen unix?
Why must you illustrate absurdity by being absurd? The protection for Ford in your example is that they have PATENTED technologies, not copyright. Copyright laws began as a protection for creative people (a good thing, IMHO), but such is no longer the case. Why you fail to acknowledge this I cannot see. Copyright and the concept of IP have been perverted into tools of rampant greed and tools to crush individual liberties like fair use, clean room implementations as a product of reverse engineering, etc.. If there had been a DCMA 25 years ago, then there would never have been a PC maker other than IBM and we wouldn't have had the explosion in cheap commodity computers. It is CRITICAL to encourage these practices to promote innovation, contrary to the arguments of all the lawyers and politicians in the pockets of big business. I know that there was an entirely different environment back in the bad old days of Big Blue being the big corporate bully, and the DMCA is a reaction to the new world of -- and please excuse the use of a buzz word -- "Digital Media," but it should never be the intent of laws to decrease the freedoms of the individual citizen while promoting the agenda of industry. Of course, "should" and "does" rarely meet in the real world.
In this particular case, the ability simply to IDENTIFY what you hear in a piece of music, store that information in a manner that is human readable, and share that interpretation with others who share an interest in that music is criminal??? At what point does it become a crime? Many musicians recognize music in numeric intervals, so if I simply say that a song is a 12 bar blues in E, then a musician knows the song is usually constructed with E as the 1 chord, A as the 4 chord, and B as the 5 chord with a chord structure like 1-1-1-1-4-4-1-1-5-4-1-5. Have I just violated someone's copyright? If I tell someone to take the same numeric structure that occurs in another piece of music and simply change 1 to Bb, 4 to Eb and 5 to F, have I suddenly violated someone else's copyrights? Or if I show only the hook from a song, am I still in violation? When does it become criminal? When I tell what key it is in? When I show how to play the first full measure? Two measures? Four? Can I simply copyright a piece of music that contains the note C and nothing else, and then claim that anything written afterwards containing it is a "derivative?" (I use your technique of illustrating absurdity by being absurd here.)
It saddens me that a government that used to be "of, by, and for the people" has become Government over the people (who cannot afford a huge legal team and lobbyists), for (the benefit of the coroporate) people (whose lawyers are willing to sue the non-submissive types into oblivion), and by the people (whom the aforementioned corporate people have purchased by way of political "contributions," legalized bribery, and other underhanded methods).
Perhaps Willy Shakespeare was right about lawyers, eh?
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
Throughout this article, you've proven to be nothing but an apologist for lawyers of greedy corporations. The people who take the time to write these tabs don't profit from it. They do it as a community service, and not to steal from artists. Patents should protect INVENTIONS, not intangibles like software and business models. Similarly, copyright should protect artists from others (like greedy corporate types) from profiting from their work without the artist getting his or her fair share. Fans who take the time to make the words or guitar / bass parts available at absolutely NO financial profit are, as far as I and most others are concerned, engaging in Fair Use for the purpose of educating other fans in how to understand the musical workings of a song. That is absolutely NOT stealing from the artist. That is helping the fans of the artist understand and appreciate even more the artists' work.
It is you, sir, who fails to grasp subtle concepts like Fair Use and For Educational Purposes. Perhaps until you learn to recognize lawyers (are you one yourself?) abusing existing laws by distorting the spirit and intent of laws to meet the agenda of corporate greed with the help of bought politicians and judges are what's criminal, and NOT fans of artists trading information to further their appreciation of the art involved.
Despite the degree to which I disagree with you, I respect your right to voice a dissenting opinion, but you've totally driven it into the ground on this forum. You can only say the same thing so many times before it gets tiresome.
As another view, once a song is publically broadcast, it become a matter of public knowledge. Commentary on something that is public knowledge should also be protected by the 1st Amendment, since anyone who hears it and writes a tab is actally only writing down a technical analysis of how THEY THINK that it sounds. And again, this would be for educational purposes, not for profit.
From the argument you seem to support, it should be illegal for a musician with a good ear to learn a song by listening to it, but that they should HAVE to have a copy of the sheet music from the publisher, even if they don't read music. After all, if they do publicly perform what they learned either by ear, tab, or sheet music, they are ALREADY required to compensate the artist by way of BMI or ASCAAP as is the bar or venue where they perform it. Also, if they're union musicians, then I'm sure a significant portion of their dues go towards BMI and ASCAAP. As I see it, they're already getting more than their fair share by double or even triple dipping into the pockets of the ones who already BUY the music. Now that's greed!
This is entirely different from the mp3 situation, where I agree that in order to qualify as fair use, one must own a legitimate copy of either the cassette, CD, vinyl, or other media so that the artist is properly compensated (unless, of course, you paid for the mp3 itself or the artist explicitly permits free trade of their music as an mp3).
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
I think you need to read my posts more carefully. Not only do you read more into what I said, but you also bend my words into things are obviously misinterpreted. I never even implied that the ORIGINAL artist should only be paid for live performances. Reread what I have said about mp3s and artist compensation. What I _did_ say is that if another performer covers someone else's work, then the cover performer and the venue are both already obligated to pay the artist through established channels solely for having written the original. And I ALSO acknowledged the fact that sometimes performers make very little to no money by playing live. But if a local band plays at the local pub, they may spend MORE for transportation, drinks, soundman, etc. than they earned. So even if they LOST money playing, they are still under the same obligation to BMI or ASCAAP since they had revenue generated by performing other artists' works. I am neither uninformed nor inexperienced in these matters, and I would rather you not drag this down into a personal flamewar.
The only difference between the people providing these unofficial interpretations and the public library is the level of convenience. The library usually won't be open when that one riff keeps escaping you at 3AM. Plus, my tax dollars don't get funneled into the private citizens who are donating their tabs.
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
Making and distributing copies of those books would indeed be copyright infringements, and I don't think the community should get behind that. However, when it comes to tabs that individuals have contributed based on their own interpretation, that's another matter entirely. There's a little trick called "wget -m " that's great for making mirrors. I'm already making my own mirrors just in case.
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
If a performer adheres to the letter of the law, and profits (or even loses money, but still takes in some revenue) by publicly performing a song, the artist IS compensated by way of union dues, ASCAAP, BMI, et. al.. That is definitely NOT getting something for nothing. If, on the other hand, someone gets the tab to figure out all or part of a song stricty for personal enjoyment, and not to make money with, how is that taking anything away from the artists?
I'd rather you debate the points of the discussion, rather than rehash the same tired arguments again and again or brag about what you've "contributed". I am programmer and musician myself, although I have not contributed more than bug reports and testing time to the Open Source community (mostly due to a lack of free time, not desire). The database company that I work for does promote Linux as our primary development and server paltform, though.
My work aside, how do you justify the belief that using tabs from people who themselves have NOT profitted from providing them strtictly for learning purposes is taking anything away from artists like the ones you mention? Again, I have already stated that this is completely different from distributing unauthorized mp3s, so the last line of your argument completely disregards an area where I've already made clear that I am totally in favor of the artist getting paid. These guys aren't distributing the songs themselves (like mp3s, which would be almost impossible to justify as learning materials), but educational materials...
Also, most of the musicians good enough to be booking paying gigs rarely have to rely on tabs, anyway... at least ones that I'd be willing to pay to see. There's just not that big of a legitimate market for tabs among those calibre musicians. I'd personally just as soon go out and by a book from the music store if I wanted to learn 8 or 9 Pink Floyd songs... but if I'm stuck on just a riff or two of one song, and I take a peak at a tab to get a better idea of how to play it, I've not taken food from the mouths of these artists, because I'd have never spent 19.95 to learn that one riff, and nor would the "starving artists" themselves.
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
I am so sick of laws that have no purpose other than to enrich a few scumbags by creating artificial markets:
How can executives at these companies not look at themselves in the mirror each morning and think, "I am a disgusting parasitic leech of a human being"?
I just don't know. Maybe they just need a reminder.
I can always find the TAB I want at Harmony Central's search engine and the search target always seems to be hosted on a different site all the time.
OK assuming there's only 88 Standard notes (see also the piano Keyboard) then if i copyright the key of C can i claim that everyones else is just transposing my work?
Languages are based on standard rules etc, yet books continue to be copyrighted.
Your iea is nice but flawed
---
This
Say they write it out in with a drop D but it is really a STD tuning (see also Dem Bones) you'll "never" play it right.
I know when it is wrong, I neversaid i couldn't play it b/c it was wrong. I said it was wrong. Very diff't.
---
This
Of course, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This applies to their dreams of creating a sample-based music world as well. :-P
http://www.bootyproject.org
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
As a lot of posters have already pointed out, removing free tablature is actually going to hurt budding muscians, and will actually rob the recording industry of musical talent in the future.
"So", the outraged Slashdotters say. "The RIAA is just shooting themself in the foot! By nipping tomorrow's musicians in the bud, they're just depriving themselves of musicians they can make money off of tomorrow!"
Tempting argument, but that assumes the recording industry wants musicians tomorrow. I, for one, feel that they're just moving towards a sample-based recording industry. There are already trillions of hours of recorded music out there; they don't need to go through the inefficient process of actually finding musicians who can play music anymore. It's far more efficient for them to just licsense samples from their back catalogs to people who want to create "new" "music".
This business model also has the added bonus of keeping pesky start-up labels out of the game, because they obviously don't have huge catalogs of samplable, licensable music to rely upon for income.
Holy fucking shit... this post started out as a very sarcastic attempt at humor, but then it actually started to make sense while I was writing it! Help! Calgon, please take me away!!!
http://www.bootyproject.org
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Wouldn't that be the same as a clean re-implementation, and be legal?
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
I don't know - but I have a guess. First of all, I'd guess that all the new users that Slashdot has been generating (over 300,000 (!!) new accounts since I created mine - and that was a year and a half ago!!) - have suddenly become elligible to moderate. And so we have a flood of mod points.
Plus, it's possible Taco screwed with the moderation settings since I was a moderator on Thursday and I come back from the weekend to discover I'm a moderator today - maybe Taco's upped the frequency people get mod points.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
all the time.
Really? In rock guitar music? Do tell. Would you care to provide an example that I've somehow failed to notice in the last eighteen years of this "common" substitution on the guitar? I know I don't use it because there's no good way to do it with a barred chord, and unless one does it in the key of A one runs the risk of a bunch of jangling, dissonant open strings ruining the chord altogether. And please, don't try to fool me with a Vb7. I can tell the difference, and they are not the same thing at all. It would only be significant if the bass also voiced on the root of vii. If it's voicing the root of V, then the chord is Vb7, no matter what the guitar player or pianist want.
BTW Harry Fox is about the protection of the songwriter.
Was I supposed to laugh at this?
As if this was part of the issue. I program computers for a living.
I think you should work for the next year, with only an advance, then at the end of the year not be paid anymore.
I think I have. Actually, I didn't get paid anything that year. I subsisted on the good will of friends.
ho are you to decide that since you can copy their work it has no value, I CAN go to your house with a rifle and take everything I want from your house.
God DAMN it that is not the same at all. Where do you get this shit? You've got to be the most irrational person I've met all day. How the fuck does two people trading tablature take money out of the artists' pocket? How? When is the amateur guitarist going to go down to the store and find copies of tab somehow made by other amateurs? How is tablature considered to be "ripping off." I would like to point out that if I couldn't get the tab I'd just pick it out by ear. I can pick out just about anything I want to by ear. Am I stealing from the artists if I just bypass the entire process and DO IT MYSELF? That is really what's the issue here. Let me repeat it so you can see it, and have it tatooed to your fucking forehead so you don't forget it: IF YOU WANT SOMEONE TO HEAR YOUR WORK YOU MUST EXPOSE IT TO THEIR EARS AT SOME POINT! There is the associated risk that they may imitate you. And you might not make a dime out of that transaction. But it is not neccesary to nickel and dime your audience for the pleasure of your work. Doing so will just piss them off and drive them away. If they enjoy you they will support you. They will arrive at your shows and buy your t-shirts and hang on your every word. If they do not you will have to find something else to do for a living. That is where I am today. But you must accept the risk like everyone else, and get the hell used to it.
Do you know any artists? DO you have an ounce of talent?
This is sloppy logic and pointless. Some of us may be musicians, and some may not. For the record, I note that I have been playing the guitar for eighteen years. I have been there and done all that and have subsisted on the meager givings a musician at the bottom of the rung can make. Whether I have or not is not the point. We are not arguing about who is a musician here.
LAst time I checked a small time musician on the road spends there day as follows. . . all for less than $100,
Ah, the pity. It's a sad day when you can't sympathize with someone's arguments because of how ragged their clothing is. But we aren't arguing about that hypothetical situation either.
In other posts you have pretty much followed the slippery-slope-leads-to-hell and pity-us-poverty-stricken-musician threads to their bitter, terrible ends, and yet I have somehow failed to bite. Let's examine why:
If you're a working musician who makes your money solely from touring and have yet to cut a CD deal, it's not likely you have anxious teenagers picking it out and posting the tab online.
If you are a published songwriter or author, where exactly do you publish tablature? The last time I went into a music store, I found lots of sheet music, printed on traditional staves. I didn't find much in the way of tablature. Remember that tablature is printed by people who by and large cannot read traditional five-line staves of music. The only place I've found genuine tablature is in guitar magazines, and if your music is popular enough that it's getting transcribed in Guitar World, you aren't exactly salivating over the 0.03 royalty check that comes from each sale thereof.
If you are are selling CD's, only then do you have enough fan-level interest to start seeing tabs of your material show up on the internet. At that point, you have already sold a $12-$20 CD to most of the people listening to your songs. In order to make the tab useful (remember, there is no rhythmic notation in the tab beyond the bare mention of the bar lines) they have to get a copy of the song. That is a transaction you can benefit from.
So from where I sit, tablature is not competing with anything musicians are selling today anyway. This activity that we now see on the internet has been going on for years and years anyway. I know, because remember I have been doing this for eighteen years, long before there was a world wide web. I traded tabs with dozens of guitar-playing friends at school. None of us intended to starve the poor members of Led Zepplin or Rush with our tabs, and even if we were, the transaction we were performing was invisible and untraceable, and therefore any law against it was completely unenforcable.
Finally, you fail to address the primary point of this all anyway, which is that the users and creators of this tablature feel that it is perfectly justifiable fair use. Copyright draws a boundary between the private ownership of IP and the public's use of it, and as copyrights have been increased in an effort to nickel-and-dime the consumer out of as much cash as possible, the public's benefit from these works (the entire reason copyrights are granted in the first place) has diminished. In this case it is the very concrete loss of the right to learn from and imitate art and one's culture. All art is imitation. Every artist in every era has imitated the work of his predecessors. If artists of today are so unwilling to share their work with students, they may derive from this greed an unexpected effect:
If they (or their handlers) are unwilling to grant the modicum of freedom with their works that is fair use, quotation, and educational, they may find themselves omitted from historical record. The medium on which most music is recorded, nowdays, is CD. Once the CD stops becoming popular (i.e., the kids who listened to it grow up) the only way to preserve it is to start copying it. But if it's illegal (and indeed impossible) to copy the CD, it won't make its way into educational materials, won't be studied as a period in music history, and in a hundred years or so, it will all but vanish from our culture. So the artists who want their kids and great grand kids and great great grandkids to be the only ones allowed to copy their material: think carefully before you wish for that. Your material is already, in my opinion, in grave danger of vanishing from the face of the earth altogether.
Finally, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the surest indication of success. If no one imitates your songs, they probably aren't that popular. And if no band ever tries to clone your act (by first learning your songs, then imitating them), you probably won't make it into anyone's hall of fame, either.
It's the copyright holder's choice and publishing the tabs without permission is the equivalent to hacking into Microsoft's computers, stealing the source code to Win98 and posting it online for the world to see.
God this analogy is fucking weak. First of all, as people trying to copy-protect music have discovered, if you want someone to hear your music, eventually you have to unpack the data and let it reach their ears. You have to expose yourself to copying if you want to have a business at all.
Secondly, if you want to have music, you have to have musicians. Musicians who don't go to the Juliard school of music usually don't get a lot of either money or encouragement. To learn how to play the easiest method is to learn someone else's songs. Right now I'm doing that for a student of mine. She has brought me CD's she would like to play, and I am learning the songs and transcribing them for her. If I were not doing this she would be subjecting herself to a ludicrous game of hunt-the-music. There is no way in hell all of the sheet music to all of the CD's in the world can be published. Even when it is it's frequently not accurate. I've got a Rush book which is filled with errors and omissions, and it's all arranged on two staves, as if some pianist would sit down and churn through "Limelight."
If musicians are unable to learn songs they know, they will surely never progress to writing songs, and the Harry Fucking Fox Agency will have no one to "protect" from copyright infringement.
I think transcribing a tab for amateur musicians' edification easily falls under fair use. It's used to illustrate a point or as an educational tool, or for hobbyists to share amongst one another. It is not demonstrably taking money out of someone's pocket -- let's face it, what 16-year-old kid has eight bucks to blow on learning a single song? If that had been my option back then I would have simply stuck to learning it myself.
This is really just the gigantic fist of a gigantic corporate monolith, squashing that which it does not comprehend. No good will come of it, I guarantee. If amateur tab is driven off the web, it will show up in furtive emails and newsgroup postings instead. It will get encrypted, and it will be impossible to trace or control.
Let's ask George Harrison. I'm sure he's got a highly sarcastic reply.
Seriously, there are only seven available chords in any given key anyway. I ii iii IV V vi and vii. Most rock musicians to my knowledge do not bother with vii as it's highly dissonant and hard to play on a guitar besides. Almost every song you will hear on the radio alternates betwee I and V and IV, unless you listen to the "alternative" station in your area, where you will hear fucked up minor chords in no key in particular.
Shifting the key doesn't make much difference except to people with perfect pitch. A large number of alternative groups drop their guitars down to eb or d (nirvana, korn, etc) anyway.
Chordless riffs (the opening of "Day Tripper" if you're over 40, or the opening of Rush "Limelight" or Ozzy's "Crazy Train" if you're an '80's metalhead, or to PJ's "Jeremy" if you're an alterna-dude) qualify as melody, and you really couldn't disguise them without ruining them. If you flattened the G in Day tripper to an F# to put it in the same key as the rest of the riff it would just barely be recognizable as the wrong riff. Alter any other note in the riff by a semitone and it becomes cacophany. Alter it by more than a semitone and it becomes increasingly difficult to play.
add in new notes (according to a map),
That would definitely obscure things, but only if done in a random way. You can add trills and grace notes to most existing songs and you'll just sound like you're showing off.
and change the tempo
Since tablature doesn't contain rhythm, this won't make any difference.
Although, now that this interesting fact has re-occurred to me, I wonder if tab can be seen as infringing at all? Since it doesn't contain that vital third dimension in music, the rhythm, they can't really be considered as a copy of the music. It's one reason why I don't use tab anymore, becase most bass parts are rhythmic, not melodic, and tab can only show me so many times that I play an E for eighteen mind-numbing measures.
Anyway, what I think is far more likely is that the greed-driven activity of lawyers will once again drive a harmless activity underground, make more previously harmless people into angry dissidents, fester discontent in our society, foster disrespect for the law in general, and push us all one more step closer to a societal collapse. Thanks, Harry Fox Agency.
You're already pretty dull. If you cannot view music and art as anything but property, you haven't grasped their fundamental worth anyway.
Yesterday I rented the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie. It was supposed to be entertaining to the kids, but it was kind of flat. After the movie we watched the "deleted scenes" as my son calls them. The daughter of Jay Ward, creator of the original series, apparently had started to try to make the movie almost immediately after his death in 1989. Her description of the film was a "fine, family oriented property." I don't know about you, but when I go to see a film, I don't consider myself to be viewing a property. That's what I do when I go looking for a house. I can't buy a film from the maker. I can buy a copy of it. But the real payback, for any person with genuine creativities, is ultimately not the money. The money is not why I create. I do not write songs for money, I do not write essays or books for money. I do them because they need to be done. I have invested thousands of dollars in musical instruments because I need to play them. Not because I expect to make money off them. I do not collect bass guitars because I expect to sell them in twenty years. I have them because I need them like a drug addict needs heroin, or a fourteen-year-old needs to jack off. It's an unstoppable urge that has no reason and no excuse. My 1973 Rickenbacker 4001 has a sound that I FUCKING NEED. I sit at my job all day and sometimes I can feel the strings beneath my fingers. It relieves my tension. I tap on office furniture with my right hand to the rhythm of songs. I fret imaginary notes with my left hand when no one's looking. I whistle in the elevator and harmonize to the songs I hear in my head.
And I own every single note I play or write. I own it all, more truly than I own my house and my cars and all the things inside them. I own the fruits of my intellectual labor because they are original to me and clearly mine. When I play someone a recording of me, they never doubt that it is me because that's my voice singing on the recording. When I show someone an essay or story I have written they never question whether I copied it from the Internet because they recognize my voice in the words.
And it is for these reasons that I find the entire concept of intellectual property to be, well, fucking absurd.
At that point we might as well blow out our brains
What would make me want to blow out my brains would be a world where no one could talk about music, or literature, without a plethora(tm) of (c) idiotic trademarks(r) and Capitalized Trendy Words, and Licensing fee$ interfering. When art becomes all about money, it becomes prostitution, and artists become whores. Look no further than Hollywood for what happens when it becomes about the money. Once in a very long while an independent filmmaker comes along and turns the industry on its ear, by making genuinely inspired, original art for no other reason than the joy of it. The year following, we see eight or ten shameless, lifeless ripoffs following in its wake.
the idea of completely free IP sickens me
Free IP didn't stop Virgil from writing the Aneid. Bare substinence living didn't stop Mozart from writing some of the most brilliant music of all time. Hand-to-mouth returns on their efforts never stopped the Van Goghs or the Edgar Allan Poes. And as thousands of slashdotters will immediately attest to, lack of profits do not stop contributors from putting their mark on the Linux source code. Intellectual efforts are created because someone needs to do it. Creativity is beyond business models or investor expectations. If you don't understand how that works, well I pity you that you've never had the fire inside you. There's nothing like it in the world.
Does prohibiting the distribution of amateur-created guitar tabs serve this purpose? Would the extra income generated by having exclusive guitar-tab-creation rights result in musicians producing more music? And if so, would the public benefit more from that increase than they would lose from giving up the right to create and distribute their own guitar tabs?
Unless the answer to both questions can be shown to be "yes" (and shown convincingly), people should be free to create and distribute their own guitar tabs. (Note that I'm not talking about what current law says, I'm talking about what it should say.)
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Tablature may also fall under this catagory.
As a citizen of the U.S., I'm pissed.
As a human being, I'm outraged.
As a guitarist, I'm fucking homicidal.
To think that anyone would PAY for a guitar/bass/drum/keyboard/whatever tab, is beyond me. Personally, when I'm trying to figure out a song, if there's a part that just doesn't sound right, I look up the tab to see the correct (or semi-correct) fret.
While it may not be _too_ much of an inconvieniance for me, I know as a beginner, you look for a tab _then_ try to figure it out for yourself. By putting a system in place where you must pay for tabs, most people will not pay, and therefore never learn.
In the name of profits.
--
--
#nohup cat
I see a lot of people saying tabs:music::source code:programs. However, I can tell that most of the people making these statements has never played by a tab they got off the internet.
You see, depending on the tab writer (and the tuning of his guitar, amp settings, skill, etc), the tab itself is not^H^H^H never 100% accurate. This holds true especially when a song uses something more complicated like alternate tunings, artifical harmonics, effects, etc. In my experience with tabs, they vary from a 50% to 99% accuracy. Most get the main body of the song right, but then lose accuracy on a solo, bridge or the like.
Anyway, I'm pointing this out because in order to show that any given tab you pull off the internet will not be like source code because it will never be 100% accurate (I have seen exceptions, but those are few and far between). Therefore, it's not the same as the original work. You could even go so far as to call it a remix. Whatever you call it, it's not the same, and therefore cannot (or atleast should not) be held under the same law.
My guitar wants to kill your lawyer.
--
--
#nohup cat
Okay, getting tab online has made me the guitar-player I am. I wouldn't be playing guitar today without so much good tab online. Now, let's apply this to people in similar situations.
:-)
In 20 years, people won't be interested in learning music, and all these record companies won't have anyone to promote.
Hey..
Let's turn this into a freedom of speech thing. It's my opinion that this tab represents the music. I have a right to post it!
Black market tablature. Nice.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
The problem is that song books do not have the full score for a song. Often I come across only the lyrics and guitar. Being a bass player, my only resort is to sit and figure it out myself or find the tab.
If american publishers offered the whole score, I would purchase their books. As there is no alternitive, I have to purchase the japanese versons of american song books which generally include the guitar, bass as well as the drums.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ya know, it wouldn't be a huge project to write a program you plug your sound recording into and it writes the tabulature to the screen or file in real time. There's only a finite number of ways to finger to get notes out of a fretted instrument, so run a frequency analysis and then apply some simple algorithms for fingurability. Add basic harmonic analysis and it's easy to separate the bass from the guitar from whatever.
If this is copyright violation, then so is just listening if you have perfect pitch and the background to imagine the finguring as you hear it - which a whole lot of better guitarists can do, actually. If a computer augments your intelligence to match another guys or gals, this should be as free as thought.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
No, you can write your own transcription of a song and use it, but you can't PUBLISH the sheet music without permission.
If you re-read my post you will see that I am not an advocate of the present copyright system.
But I do think that it should be the right of the artist who creates a song to decide what happens to it, otherwise the small independent artists will get steamrolled by large corporate interests everytime.
Otherwise, a band like Rage Against the Machine (granted they are on a major label-I'm using them as an example because their political beliefs are widely known) could have one of their songs co-opted and used in a commercial for Exxon and they wouldn't be able to stop it. Would that be right? I don't think so.
If posters think that music publishers should not have the right to be the only source of sheet music for a song they own, then that is a *good* and *different* point. But the fact is they do have that right, and Harry Fox is just protecting that right. If you don't like it, then get the law changed--I'll help you..
If you transcribe a song for yourself or your band mates to jam on, then that is fair use, if you publish the tabulature on the Web, you are publishing the sheet music and, like it or not, your are infringing on someone else's rights.
It is easy to pretend that you are fighting the System and the Man, but the reality is the music copyrights are most needed by small powerless musicians to protect themselves against the large corporations. For example, these assocated music copyright laws are the only thing that help early black musicians recover part of the huge amount of revenues they generated for the companies that screwed them.
If you want to take away these rights, what recourse do the individual, non-corporate musicians have when MegaLabel wants to absorb all music into there online database that you have to pay to subscribe to? As an independent musician, I wouldn't want some large corporation making money off of me, and I would want to be able to stop that from happening, but without those laws, I couldn't.
I agree totally with you. This is nonsense. What's next, copyright infringement for listening to music? How about all those bar bands that play nothing but cover songs? I guess they should pay to play music. How about Xerox copy machines, heck, they do more copyright infringement than anything. Why not put a copy tax on all copy machines that goes to music publishers? This country is getting ridiculous.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Thank you for posting the correct quote with attribution. I was about to, but you got there first. I appreciate it.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Don't get the cheapest thing you can find, take the electrics coverplate off and see that you aren't buying plywood- buy a solid body electric, made of whole wood instead of plywood- You can see the plys as you look inside the electrics cavity.
Then, take it to the local guitar shop and have them put strings on it, adjust it, and tune it.
When you go to the pawn shop, take a friend who plays guitar with you. He can play it through an amp and you can decide if you like the sound of the guitar... and he can tell you if it's any good or not.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Other songs that have similar chord changes are between thenselves are: "Heart and Soul", "Last Kiss", "Stand By Me", "D'yer Myker", and most of "Grease".
Also Check out Rage Against the Machine's "Wake Up" from the Matrix soundtrack and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir".
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"
>...downloading the lyrics is wrong.
Well they are copyrighted too. Downloading them is really not wrong, but distributing them might
"
However, the "Bernstein" view (see EFF's history of Bernstein), is that the user on downloading sends a request, and that the server 'distributes' them.
So You can't _download_ them without someone illegally serving them.
Unless they're officially available, in which case the legal downloader can distribute freely, as he can claim he's simply a caching proxy as he sends copies out to other people.
Unless caching proxies are now illegal...
FP.
--
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
How about using supposed frequency analysis to a much more refined degree and creating playable music (enhanced sheet music with much more information) for an entire ensamble. Then pass that to an electronic ensamble that reproduces the music in near-duplicate to the one you recorded from. Still free?
The recording and other content companies will form a system, which uses a real time black hole list. The content black hole(TM)would block all Internet traffic to the offending site. Once this is established, the recording and other companies will then sue small ISPs first then significantly larger ISPs under the theory that the ISP's are not using the "best methods" of preventing copyright infringement. They will state that the ISP's in fact are encouraging infringement and thus should be liable for doing so. With the current judicial system, such a system would probably pass muster by the courts. This sadly should not be the case. ISP's should be entitled to common carrier status. This would mean that the ISPs are not liable for traffic passing over internet links owned by them. As it stands now the framework that the DMCA and other content provider love-in legislation has provided leaves ISP's in the position of enforcement police. Write your congressmen and women and encourage them to take a close look at the current situation. The Slashdot and other online activist are good at talking online however it is the voices of the content industries, which are the loudest to our government.
:P
--
When I'm good I'm very good, when I'm bad I'm better, But when I'm evil you better run
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
lol....they also forgot to turn off the default "one-chord" structure in their song-writing software :)
Looks like the world hates them not for writing abysmally boring music but for attempting to be like the beatles. Not even the Beatles can be like the beatles.
Since when did interpreting a song or a guitar solo come to mean copyright infringement? If i publish my interpretation of a band's lyrics, is that infringement? Is it an infringement to analyze a poem? How is a tablature any different? By giving people easy and free access to tabs, the industry could actually help popularize the music. Of course, any half-decent guitarist wouldnt depend on tabs, but sometimes, they are convenient, cheap and fast. Period. Its not as if someone's gonna make a boat-load of cash by publishing (often hilariously incorrect) tabs. For the more serious, discerning players, the choice of buying a full-blown sheet music is *always* there. But let's be realistic here too. How much sheet music does one need to play rock and roll? If I can get the basic chord progressions, I can play. If I want to learn the solo, I will noodle around till I get it right. If it sounds really complex, I will ask a friend. If I dont have a friend who knows it, I will ask guitarists who have internet access. The real problem, it seems to me, is that the law enforcers are unable to understand that these tab sites are not any different from me calling up a friend to ask him about some tabs. Another question - would the law-enforcers call it illegal if someone ran a "tabs-by-email" service for free?
tell that to MP3.com
There is no way in hell this will hold out in court. If this guy can prove that nbci is working to eliminate competition, it will immediately be thrown out. Its abuses such as this one is why America should join Canada and other countries in legal system reforms. Basically in a reformed system, an abusive company that practices unreasonable prosecution has to pay the legal defense cost of the guy being sued. With all the news about the SDMI research being stoped because just one suit by the mpaa will cost alot of money to defend, makes a strong arguement for it.
The guys like NBCI and the MPAA will always ( finicially ) win because they have big pockets. If your a defendent and win a lawsuit what do you gain? You just lose your house, some cars and perhaps your childs college fund just to prove that you did nothing wrong.
Big corporations have nothing but gain. IF they lose the case it doesn't hurt them finicially. IF they win it rewards them with bigger profits.
All the corps do is point and they win hands down every time. IT so unfair.
http://saveie6.com/
Well the record company's goin' out of business
They price the records too damn high
And the boys in the band could use some assistance
Well the record company's goin' out of business
They price the records too damn high
And the boys in the band could use some assistance
Get a daytime job just to get by
Well the P.D.'s they won't play the record
They're too worried about that book
And the D.J's they all hate the song
But they're in love with the hook
Chorus
So na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
I bet you've heard this song before
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
Take your cocaine and hit the door
Well folk rock, punk rock, power pop music
Turned out to be the latest trends
And ther ain't no more progressive music
The business has put it to an end
Ol' "Rolling Stone" has gathered some moss
No they ain't what they used to be
They try to look like "Look" with their political pages
And advertising all over T.V.
Appariently in 1983 he knew that the business would put alot of things to an end. Go figure.
Now, we got a business who wants to sell digital sheet music and kill off other simular services who offer simular stuff (albeit not exact) for FREE!!! The great thing about OLGA is that first its free, and the tablature isn't THAT BAD. Its enough to give you a feel for the chord structure, and some of them are very very close to the real thing.
Tablature is a great way for a beginner to get his feet wet playing guitar. I've personally used OLGA for a number of songs that i wanted to learn how to play, and it's a great service with a good deal of tab selections to choose from.
Most guitarists know there are songbooks out by popular artists with the exact chord structures (in the form of sheet music) in them. You need to pay for this, but it's worth it, if you want to play the song exactly how it was written musically. And i have bought a few.
However, services like OGLA, I use on the side (and a good bit) when I don't want to spend $10-$20 dollars for a whole freakin book of sheet music. I just want to learn one damn song, not the artists whole album in sheet music. It's a waste of money, unless your a big fan of that artist.
Why can't they just advertise their service by saying "it's the ORGNINAL and EXACT reproduction of the artist's music" or something to that effect instead of just crushing the tab sites? How are sites like OGLA competition? They know they got a better, truer product, why not just hype that and be done with it?...It'd be too damn easy.
- NetGyver
"A penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off."
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
...downloading the MP3 is wrong.
...downloading the lyrics is wrong.
...downloading the Tabs is wrong.
What's next? Buying the CDs online from any store other than their website? Downloading wallpapers and WinAmp skins of your favorite artists? Someone send them a clue, please.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
Officer: License and registration, please. Were you even looking where you were going? You were all over the road.
einTier: Yes, well, it's just... you know, there was this Nirvana song on my mix tape, and I didn't know the lyrics, and...
Depends on what type of music you want to play. If you like Blues or Rock, Fender Standard Stratocaster or Standard Telecaster are pretty cool - I have both the Mexican and American models, and I can tell you the Mexicans are well worth what you pay for them . If you like heavy metal, Ibanez and Jackson low end models seem to be pretty good. That's sort of the ~$300 range of starter guitars. check out alt.guitar.beginner , alt.guitar, and other guitar related NGs . My advice if you are open to all kinds of music, get the Mexican Standard Fender Telecaster.
IDSA - Evil company that shuts down ROM sites harboring blatantly illegal Atari 2600 ROMs, and, on occasion, Cease and Desists' popular emulation sites like Snes9x.
MPAA - Evil company that hired Judge Kaplan to lay the smackdown on 2600 by issuing his, IMO, incredibly narrowminded ruling on DeCSS.
RIAA - No description need be written about this horrible spawn of Cthulthu (sp?)
NSPA - New kid on the block, wants to stomp out the horrendous evil of publishing songs
Exactly right. Somebody should mod that comment up.
It seems quite obvious that publishing sheet music online without approval is a copyright violation, no different from publishing somebody's novel or poetry. (As you point out, if one objects to copyrights in general, and intellectual property rights, that's a totally different argument. It's also a tough fight considering the current worldwide body of law.)
Publishing tablature is the same thing as publishing [other] sheet music, except it's intended for musical illiterates. There's no shame in being unable to read music, but surely the distinction between traditional musical notation and tablature isn't so much greater than the difference between HTML and ASCII text. "It isn't a copyright violation because I published in in Arial instead of Garamond."
Sheesh.
By all means, publish tablature to your heart's content for music you have a right to distribute -- things in the public domain and things you write yourself. We can always use more new music. Just don't steal from the guy who chooses to publish music for a living through resources like Harry Fox.
JMHO -- Trevor
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
Also, the search space soon will be exhausted IMHO.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
If you bring 2 million venture capital I'll show you why.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Like XOR them! Or change their filenames from Hanson.tab to hhhhhhhhhhHanson.tab!
Good idea: We could change the ASCII indicated tempo from, say, 130 BPM to 130 + 10^-17, resulting in a completely different song! HA ha! That'll teach 'em.Got friends?
huh?
So if I write down the chords I think I'm hearing its infringement?
How do you figure that?
so ? what if my guessing is as good as theirs ? Should that be illegal ?
Err. Should have used preview.
out there that's sold for free
should be "sold out there". No "for free". Selling something for free is an interesting concept, but not one I wanted to be part of that sentence.
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
If publishers can't produce higher quality tablature/sheet music than I can for free, then they deserve to go out of business.
They've got access to the artists who WROTE the piece, for heaven sakes. They're a business, so presumably they have some operating cash and employees they can put into getting it just right -- and the value of getting it just right is enough that I'd pay a buck or two for that, certainly.
But the strange thing is, there's a lot of tab/music out there that's sold for free that really sucks; I can produce a better variation by listening to the song and transcribing it myself.
So publishers: compete on quality. Compete on cool art and glossy covers and scribblings done in the artist's handwriting. Compete on actually selling a pre-printed and pre-bound product. In other words, actually provide a service for your fees. But don't whine that you can't compete with a bunch of amateurs who do this in their spare time.
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Man, half the time I'm not even sure I'm looking at the right song.
And yes, someone nuke NBCi.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
maybe i am just too drunk to realize it, but i think there are a ton of these cases.
/.
everybody from napster to 2600 to renegade OLGA is being sued.
i am now under the impression that this, just like the dot.com boom, will fade and everybody will realize what schmucks they were being. again, i predict the downfall being them taking out a site everybody likes, and hits a nerve. to hell with them all. and if they take out http://www.basstabarchive.com i am gonna organize a coup de tat on the government that let them win and them. same for
Furthermore, if tabs are outlawed, only the Outlaws will be able to play "Green Grass and High Tides Forever."
Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good argument in favor of doing so.
I have no prob w/Fox giving money to the artists, or for cracking down on tabs that they actively sell. As Frank Zappa noted, it costs a lot of money to get those damn little dots put on the right lines in the right place. More power to them for all that, but why crack down on tabs that they DON'T sell and don't plan to?
this is getting old and so are you
blog
The band doesn't need tablature, Zico. They already know the song because they created it. Once you've learned the verse chorus and maybe an intro riff, if you can't play it from memory you will probably be kicked out of the band. "Writing" it usually refers to charting the lyrics out. The guitar solo is usually, like, improvised. Most rock bands don't read music, so they likely won't have a nice score.
The site is created by listeners who pick the part out by ear and write it down. Don't be such an uninformed tool.
I like your "official publications" line. It plays right into the idea that there is only one source anyone can have for music and culture. The "official" one. Do I have to get a license to be an "official" musician, too?
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Play with one for about 5 years. Learn its in's and out's. Pair with a nice Marshall. Learn to manipulate the sound. No Effects neccessary. Win the 2001 Guitarmageddon Contest (which I will). Smile. The Les Paul is by far the best sounding guitar out there.
Arathres
I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!
stainless steel
Buy something cheap, then after you get better and realize you actually want to play, then there is only one choice
GIBSON LES PAUL!!!!
The best! guitar on the planet.
Arathres
I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!
stainless steel
Next some pushy recording industry group will decide that singing in the shower obviously violates precious Intellectual Property rights. I just wonder how they'll enforce it.
Isn't it ironic that the RIAA and other groups are raining on everybody's parade, yet they artists are getting screwed just as badly as the fans? Methinks they are exercising their fictitious yet inalienable right to profit without limit.
Ewige Blumenkraft!
Ewige Blumenkraft!
this seems to me to be yet another attempt by the Recording Industry to strengthen thier waneing grasp on the control of music production and distribution. Im glad to see that this website/organization isn't just cowering in a corner at the waving fist of the RIAA.
Somebody needs to fight these bozos (legally, of course). Im thinking that the RIAA is starting to make to many enemies. Eventually, If this keeps up, all the toes they've steped on will come back to kick them in the arse at one time.
I cant wait.
RA7
-
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
What if someone were to change all of the tabs in some musical way? Like.. shift all of the notes up or down, add in new notes (according to a map), and change the tempo. In other words, do enough to the song so that if played, it wouldn't sound much like the original. Would the court find these tabs to be in violation? What if there were a utility available to convert the tab back to the one the author intended? Would this utility become a circumvention utility?
How close does a song have to be to the original before it can be declared the original?
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
As an aside to those who remain unmoved, I have only this remark: Unless you live in a banana republic reading slashdot off a wifi network the professor made from a hairpin, coconuts, plam leaves and two of Ginger's sequins, you're enjoying the stolen fruits of someone else's uncompensated labor. Enjoy.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
And following this same line of logic, students should never be allowed to write any form of a report in school. This would include reports that had a works cited page and gave credit to the sources. Guitar tab is the exact same thing. It is one persons opinion of a song, with the original creator being named (how else would you be able to find it?). It would be a different scenario if it were taken from an authorized source and then transcribed to the web, rather than a song that someone listened to.
I'm sorry if you dont agree with me but as soon as these big corporate entities, advertising agencies, and governments started strong arming the people of the net was the day the internet died. Its gone. Gone are the days of yore where the internet was ment to share IDEAS and KNOWLEGE with the WORLD! Now the only thing that matters is profit margins and stock value. Look at great companies like Ximian and such that just DIE because they depend on funding to run. Remember back in 96 when people would just get together and work on projects for the love of it reguardless of payback? I mean, it might not have been the most efficient means of working but it did the job! Now every little FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT we DESERVE, the fundamental rights the Internet was CRAFTED TO PROMOTE, is being stripped of us so that companies like AOL and BMI can make a couple extra million dollars to shove more mindless bull down our throats.
It's most likely all over from here on out. Creativity will be stifled by big business and the internet will no longer be the safe haven for humanity's collective knowlege.
(some will call me a cynic)
-DaPhoenix
-- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
I am not so sure about that. The Harry Fox agency (to the best of my knowledge) does not represent that peoplle that own the rights to the sound recordings or the air time. I also do not think that they have the rights to the covers. There is some clause that allows bands to play covers without being sued. If you do not believe me than explain why there are legal bands that do very little but cover others works (i.e Itchy Fish and excellent perl jam cover band)
That's easy. They will get a bribed judge to mandate that all showerhead manufacturers build surveillence microphones and GPS units into each of their showerheads. When installed, these will enable the RIAA to monitor all sound emissions created in your shower, and locate your position for purposes of prosecution should you dare to hum the tune of the newest Brittney Spears song while cleansing yourself.
-----
Bow before my sig, for it is good.
So I should be arrested for copyright infringement for being able to identify a chord I hear? How ever will bands and orchestras be able to stay in tune? The next step is outlawing tuning forks!
What's next? Elementary school students can't sound out a difficult word for fear of infringing upon the author's copyright? Best Buy won't be able to use an album's name in its advertisements without consent of the copyright holder? Will Microsoft sue me for typing the word "microsoft" in my browser in an attempt to get to microsoft.com?
You are way off base. Tab writers do not "hack" into the songwriter's secret archive, get exact note-by-note tabs and then post it to the net. They reverse-engineer the song through listening and figuring out what the notes are BY EAR.
By the way, you are aware that even tab publishers [Cherry Lane, et al] do not guarantee note-for-note accuracy?
"The problem with our economy is that our budget is balanced by people who aren't" - A.E.N.
So if I listen to a Led Zeppelin song, and then memorize the drum part, aren't the brain cells that store that drum part an illegal copy of the music? I'll be expecting a nasty letter from the RIAA thought police any day now...
correction
Chordfind
sorry, my bad.
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
Guitartabs.cc Lots of guitar tabs.
Wholenote Guitar tabs and a MIDI guitar tuner.
Chordfind use this site to find out how to play any chord.
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
Well, the internet was supposedly a great place for gathering information all with ease. Now people step in and start restricting us from this information. Great job.
--
Good point. Look, any IP lawyer will tell you that intellectual property isn't treated as some sort of fundamental right; it's a social construction with the purpose of encouraging creativity and innovation. If it were merely a fundamental right, it wouldn't take so many pages of laws and court cases to just try to figure out what it is.
IP is a slippery slope. For one example: Suppose (taking a large leap here, believe me) I'm Mozart, and I'm alive today. Now, presumably I have the right to listen to music. So I hear some music. For the sake of argument, it's a new piano concerto. Both the music and the performance are protected by copyright. Being Mozart, I've got the whole score to the piece figured out, in my head, instantly- unconciously, even. Well, can't prosecute me for my brain, right?
Now I go home, and for my convenience and amusement I write the thing out on paper. Well, nothing's really changed for me, right? I have the same access to it, whether it's in my head or on paper. So I should be OK. Now I duplicate the performance on my piano. I'm just playing what's in my head. Am I okay? What if I record my duplication so I can play it to myself later? I could just replay the song in my mind and have the same sensations- remember, I'm Mozart- so what has changed?
And one night I have a few friends over for coffee, and - 'You won't believe this John Cage piece I just heard' - I bang it out on my piano again. Or play that recording I made. Have I crossed over into illegally distributing music? Suppose one of my friends is Salieri, and despite not being quite my musical equal, he can go and do the same thing. Upshot is, even an ordinary brain and mouth is a pretty good recording and disseminating technology. To what extent do we become limited in what would seem our awfully natural right to use them?
Those who stand to profit big, in the short term, from copyright law try to cast it as an intrinsic right, as old as the hills. But my ownership of an idea can never be as secure as my ownership of a car. Owning an idea isn't a profound right, it's a social structure we set up for a purpose, and it must exist in harmony with both our other social structures, and our more profound rights, which to my mind certainly include limits on government scrutiny and court-mandated behavior.
Coca Cola threatened to sue Oasis because their song 'Shakermaker' sounds quite a bit like 'I'd like to teach the world to sing', meaning that Oasis had to change some of the lyrics. Record companies have been suing people for decades - it's second nature to them.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
This post should not be mistaken for legal advice.
"The dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program." - Niven
If tablatures are outlawed, only outlaw garage bands will be able to cover Stairway To Heaven.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Nope, not me, I must be someone else...
You're missing the point. This isn't 100% about copywrite violation. The problem is that RenegadeOLGA has attempted to license the content and the NMPA has refused to license. They have only offered licenses to songfile.com and other sites with nmpa board members(i.e. sunhawk.com).
check out www.musicyo.com
....The Stuff Tabernacle is back up.....http://stuff.fiax.net :)
why do they want the ips in the first place? What law do they think was broken?
or a 'clift notes' version of the song... Unlike sheet music, TAB indicates nothing of timing, speed, feel, etc. Given that, it'd be virtually impossible to simply pick up a .tab file and start sight-reading it and playing it, without having listened to the original song (over and over again). I'd venture to say that most people wishing to learn a song by TAB, actually own that particular cd, so they -can- listen to it over and over to get it right.
*shrug*