OLGA Shut Down by DMCA (again!)

Gavitron writes "The online Guitar Tablature Archive OLGA.net has been shutdown again, to "ensure that composers and songwriters will continue to have incentive to create new music for generations to come." Scant details exist, but there is more information in forums and blogs."

Comments

Terrible!

[Bogtha]

Examples of the compositions infringed include "Beautiful Day" written by Clayton/Evans/Mullen/Hewson and administered by Universal Music Publishing, and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" written by Lennon/McCarthy and administered by Sony/ATV Tunes LLC.

Isn't it awful? If people keep infringing his copyrights, John Lennon might have to quit music and get a day job! Then where will all the Beatles fans be? They'll be moaning about how they aren't getting any new Beatles music, I'm sure.

Re:Terrible!

[jb.hl.com]

Lennon/McCarthy? I doubt McCarthy would be happy to be working with someone as socialist as Lennon... ;)

Re:Terrible!

[some guy on slashdot]

Given that copyright was intended to give artists incentive to continue creating music (which is the grandparent's point, and also happens to be true), how does the Lennon estate justify its privilege to hold the rights to John's work? How are they furthering the cause of encouraging new music creation?

For thousands of years, we had no IP laws. Minstrels, musicians, writers and poets copied from one another and competed for the resulting ubiquity of their works. Hundreds of thousands of books were thus preserved, until they were intentionally destroyed at Alexandria.

My family gets together with several other families every year for a big Easter weekend camp out, and Saturday night is always dedicated to a campfire sing-along. This year, one of my cousins brought a huge compilation of Beatles arrangements (fully licensed) to the sing along. There was only one book, but somehow everyone around the fire knew the songs. We'd all heard them from our parents' album collections. Some of us remembered a now-defunct all-Beatles radio station that played strong for one summer and then shut down because it was unprofitable. Some of us even remember singing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" or the Money Can't Buy Me Love Madrigal in choir. Considering the Beatles haven't been heavily advertised since Anthology, which was almost 10 years ago, I'd say that was pretty damn good. Estates and commercialism aside, the Beatles wrote and performed some amazing music. If all the IP laws in the world disappeared tomorrow, their music would not be forgotten. So what is the function of the Lennon estate again?

They forgot to...

[Threni]

...shut down all the p2p networks! DOH!

Wait a minute...

[macthulhu]

Let me get this straight... somehow showing somebody how to play a song will prevent people from writing new songs? I'm sorry, Logic has just stuffed it's head so far up it's own ass that it disappeared.

Re:Wait a minute...

[gEvil (beta)]

I view this as a major win for music fans everywhere. Think about it--the closure of tab sites on the net will result in a reduction in the number of bad cover bands. Either those people will never play music, or they'll be forced to attempt to create their own music. Judging by the talent of most cover bands, I'm guessing it will be the former. End result--less suck in the music world!

[yes, it's a joke. no, i don't think closing tab sites is a good thing.]

Re:Wait a minute...

[tepples]

Think about it--the closure of tab sites on the net will result in a reduction in the number of bad cover bands. Either those people will never play music, or they'll be forced to attempt to create their own music.

If they attempt to create their own music, they'll still get sued. Look what happened to George Harrison. Worse, there is a combinatoric argument that this was bound to happen.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Exocrist]

When I started to learn to play guitar, I started by learning how to play my favorite songs (new and old) from tab sites like OLGA. I think if anything, shutting down a site like this removes incentive for "musicians and songwriters" to make their music, since there will be fewer people willing to pay for lessons, or invest the time to learn how to figure songs out by ear and then notate the songs to paper (or simply in the head), and thus there will be fewer musicians making music. You have to start somewhere, and if they take away this kind of learning device, fewer people will be learning.

I also think they're just trying to get more people to buy their tabulature books, which are often full of mistakes.

Re:Wait a minute...

[chmod a x mojo]

Cover bands aren't all bad. Yeah SOME are, but just like any software you may find, there are probably 3-4 good ones for every bad one. If anything this would stiffle innovation, do you really think that ANY of the artists that became famous just up and started writing new stuff? Nope they ALL started by playing the music THEY grew up listening to. I don't know anyone who just picked up a guitar and started writing original music, it is impossible. You must first learn chording etc. from actual songs to "hear" how to mesh everything together.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Tx]

Think about it--the closure of tab sites on the net will result in a reduction in the number of bad cover bands.

Nah, we don' need no steenkin' website to show us how to play "Stairway to Heaven" really badly, we can figure it out all by ourselves.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Mr. Slippery]

ONLY if the performer is buying the rights to public performance via sheet music or other arrangements with the publisher.

No. Buying sheet music has nothing to do with performance rights.

Venues pay money to ASCAP, BMI, et cetera, which then do various sampling to see what songs are being played, and distribute money to songwriters. Performers don't buy performance rights, venues do.

I'd hazard a guess that large percentage of people who do perform others' songs learned via free tab sites do not have the legal right to perform that music in public.

Performers don't buy performance rights, venues do. Otherwise open mic nights would be impossible..."Ok, before you come up to the stage, we need to see your performance licences." (In theory, street musicians would need to pay ASCAP, etc., but no one enforces this.)

Music has been passed down for generations

[LiquidCoooled]

Without somewhere to get the pass on the music it will be lost.

I would feel great pride if I were a composer having my tune played around the world by people, its like having your code used all around.
Its not like knowing the chords will give anybody an advantage to become an international star, and I doubt it would lost anyone money.

Re:Music has been passed down for generations

[schon]

Without somewhere to get the pass on the music it will be lost.

Yes, exactly. That's why they're doing this.

If they don't clamp down on public memory, then they can't sell the same crap 20 years from now and call it new.

So what exactly is wrong with amateur tabs?

[Mikachu]

What's so horrible about tabs that will destroy the future for composers and songwriters? Is an imposter band gonna spring up and take their places? What the hell are they afraid of?

Re:So what exactly is wrong with amateur tabs?

[jmv]

What the hell are they afraid of?

That they won't be able to sell you the same tune for an Nth time in the form of an "official" (and often crappy) guitar translation.

Fucking 1984 speak

[Anonymous Coward]

Continue to have incentive blah blah blah... What is this bullshit? Quit spinning the reasons. You think the website hurts sales, so you want to shut it down. Fine. JUST SAY IT THAT WAY.

In my opinion, the creepiest part of 1984 (go reread it) is that language is being dumbed down so as to control modes of thought. The Big Brother ideal is that in 50 years people are too stupid to remember complicated concepts, since the simplified language no longer allows for them to be formed. It's why I want to shoot anybody who actually buys this sort of phrasing, such as what the RIAA is giving us.

Thanks corporate America, for trying to make us all that much dumber.

Re:Fucking 1984 speak

[jbssm]

Hummm, let me see:

Real Sentence vs Bush Sentence:
Global Warming vs Global Climate Changes
War Against Middle East vs War on Terror
Palestine vs Middle East

If you check around, not only the media already adopted these political correct terms, but even the normal people did it ... in fact even the geeks do it all the time now.

I clearly remember some years ago, you would always see the words Global Warming and Palestine ... it's frightening to see that in so little time the changed the way people refer to the events in a way that they become clearly more forgiving to the politicians and they don't transmit the really dimension of the facts.

But perhaps it's just me, perhaps I'm dreaming ... are we fighting against the Eurasia or Eastasia now ? ... this morning in the news it said we are fighting against Eastasia in fact that we were always fighting against Eastasia and that Eurasia is our eternal ally, but I remember that in yesterday newspaper it said that we were fighting against Eurasia.

Perhaps I'm crazy ... perhaps the chocolate ration really increased since last week.

Re:Fucking 1984 speak

[MyNameIsFred]

Some of your examples are poor.

"Global Warming vs Global Climate Changes," the fact is many climate scientists that believe in global warming prefer phrases such as global climate change. Global warming does not necessarily mean the world gets warmer everywhere. Some places can get colder. Look up what happens to Europe if the Gulf Stream is stopped by global warming. Thus the argument that global climate change is more accurate.

"War Against Middle East vs War on Terror," the facts are that the war against Islamic terrorism is much bigger than the Mid East. Take for example the Bali bombing. Or the Madrid bombing. Or the London subway bombing. Or the...

Hang on...

[Morosoph]

In a democracy, we get to discuss what the law should be.

Yes, OLGA has (apparently) broken the law. Should it be law?

Re:Hang on...

[Mr. Slippery]

Yes, OLGA has (apparently) broken the law.

No, it hasn't. Teaching people songs is fair use. If we're jamming at a party and I tell you, "Let's play `Knocking on Heaven's Door'. Oh, you don't know it? It G, D, and a little Am7/C hammer on thing," that's the way music works. Are you going to put a gag order on every guitarist?

Songwriters get paid royalties when people sing their songs in for-profit performaces. (Yes, the details are tricky, but the idea is IMHO basically sound.) OLGA is not just fair use, its existance is actively in songwriter's interests. Neil Young gets a nickel every time I play "Needle and the Damage Done", which I learned off of OLGA, at one of my gigs. (But not if I sing it in the shower, or at a party where I'm playing just for fun.) The people against this are parasitic "music publishers". Fsck them.

We've been through this before. (Note the date on that article.) OLGA's contents have long since been distributed to scores of other tab sites.

Re:Hang on...

[Mr. Slippery]

You'r not just chatting to a few friends any more than singing a song on stage in front of thousands is the same as singing along to your iPod.

If you're in front of even one paying customer, singing along to your iPod is still a public performance requiring payment. Under the right circumstances, singing a song on stage in front of a large audience could be non-commercial. (I sang a Ween song on a "stage" in front of at least 100 people at the national Rainbow Gathering last year, a very non-commercial venue.)

If I'm playing in a bar with one guy drinking, royalties are required; if I'm playing for free at a friend's party with 100 people there, royalties are not required.

Size of the audience is not relevant.

Same goes with teaching a song. What, if I'm at that party with 100 people and I tell everyone what the chords to "Louie, Louie" are (and that they're the same as "Wild Thing"), I owe somebody a nickel? No way. That's a factual statement, covered by my free speech rights. And it doesn't matter if there are 1,000 people at that party, or 10,000.

And if I post that information to the internet - the chords are A, D, E, D, repeat (and the break on Wild Thing is G - A - G - A) - that's still my free speech right.

I don't get it...

[Pedrito]

I've never understood how they can make guitar tableture a copyright violation when you have a gazillion sites out there posting lyrics. How is that any different? The tableture is someone's interpretation of what the artists are doing on the guitar or bass. From experience, I can say for a fact that it's rarely entirely accurate, so it's not really a copyright violation. It's artistic interpretation. Lyrics are far more likely to be accurate and therefore far more likely to actually violate copyrights. Still, I don't really think that either should be a violation.

Besides, this is just as likely to help the RIAA as any of their other foot shooting methods. I mean, how much can you piss off your customer base before they simply stop being your customer base?

Re:I don't get it...

[Capt'n Hector]

With classical music, you can listen to a CD or performance of a work, then "reverse engineer" it to produce the sheet music. Alternatively, if you can get your hands on the original manuscript, then you can copy directly from the source (if the copyright has expired.) In short: You have just as much right to produce sheet music for Beethoven as the current crop of companies do. However, these companies do go to considerable lengths to produce a quality product: extensive research goes into investigating the various versions of the manuscript, typos and errors on the part of the composer/transcriber/whatever are weeded out, and often fingerings/bowings are inserted by famous musicians through exclusive contracts.

For works produced before ~1950 (or whatever it is now...), the only thing that's copyrighted is the version produced by the sheetmusic company. Think of it like a map: the actual geography isn't copyrighted, only the representation of it on the page. You're free to go out and make a map of your own, just don't use the original map as a reference.

For more recent works, the issue is more sticky. I suppose it all depends on the composer. For instance, some demand written permission to perform the work (this is usually ignored by all but the most visible/famous orchestras.) In other cases, anyone might be free to perform the work, as long as the sheetmusic has been bought and paid for (some composers contract out sheetmusic production to some company, and then get royalties/kickbacks when that sheetmusic is sold.)

Regardless, it's not as cut-and-dry as you might think. There are several "layers" to a piece of music: the original manuscript, the sheet music (including bowings/fingerings if any), the actual sound produced by some performance of the work, an individual recording of the work, and perhaps on a more metaphysical level, the actual note progressions themselves. (That is, if I were to go out and write a piece that was based on Shostakovich's "DSCH" signature progression, is that copyright violation?)

As for the topic at hand, these guitar tabuletures are synonymous with fingerings/bowings. This is not sheet music, because it doesn't include the instrument-indepent staff. In the case of violin/viola/cello/etc. music, fingerings/bowings without the staff is almost useless. Who could claim foul if I copied the fingerings from the latest rendition of a classical work still under copyright? The performer or the composer?

There is no exact answer to this, which I suppose makes it the perfect ground for lawyers. Welcome to copyright hell...

Too bad for amateurs, but I understand the concern

[pbooktebo]

I think that the online tab revolution has been wonderful for amateur musicians all over the world (of course, especially guitarists). I've used the tabs, and I think that it is possible to make the case that this is often a fair use of copyright (though, often, not).

That said, I can understand the music industry has concerns like these:
1. They do sell sheet music, and this practice cuts into their profits. I'm guessing that some revenue-sharing model could work, but that the RIAA/BMG/etc. aren't (yet) interested. In fact, I have actually seen some bands distribute their own tabs (or tabs contributed by fans), which I think is a fantastic idea.
2. The quality of most tab is fair to poor. I teach music and guitar, and I always end up correcting tabs (even chords) for students. On some level, this is OK, but the chunky and too-often incorrect chords can really make a tune sound much worse than it is. If I were an artist and thought everyone was learning some ham-handed version of my tune, I'd probably be a bit pissed.
3. In this copyright-dominated world, it does seem that you risk losing your rights if you don't defend them.

I wish it weren't so. I'm a big fan of Lawrence Lessig, and believe that the stifling of things like OLGA make us less creative as a culture. I also love that there are still amateur musicians out there who want to play music for themselves and their friends for the pleasure of making muisic. I hope a good compromise or capitulation (on part of the music industry) is in the works.

Tabs still available on archive.org

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Here's one, for example. Can't just go to the root page via archive.org and start clicking links, though, as the links to the artists and tabs aren't modified, even though the tabs are in the archive. And if it hasn't happened already, I'm sure these small text files will be compressed into an archive and posted regularly to Usenet.

OLGA to become an errata sheet?

[tepples]

That they won't be able to sell you the same tune for an Nth time in the form of an "official" (and often crappy) guitar translation.

If this is the case, then OLGA might again rise from the ashes as a sort of "errata sheet" to the official translation, explaining every single error in every single song book. Criticism of a copyrighted work is likely to be ruled as fair use of that work and thus not an infringement (17 USC 107).

Re:Should all copying be considered infringement?

[suprchunk]

The "copyrighted" material you are referring to is not as blatant as you so quickly assumed. It is people who think what they are writing down what they are hearing correctly. It is usually pretty close, but they are not the original artists so they do not actually know if it is 100% exact. But you seem to think they are getting the sheet music from the artists and posting exact copies. That is usually never the case with tabs posted online. If you would look at some of the sites instead of assuming, you would see how many different versions of the same tab exist. I don't think the artist wrote that many versions that seem to differ from each other, sometimes vastly. But you do. It is akin to someone retelling a story, by your standards. So any book synopsis should never be printed except by the publisher because you are infringing on someone's copyright by trying to convey what happened in a book.

Klezmer clarinet virtuoso concealed his fingering

[dpbsmith]

Naftule Brandwein, the Klezmer clarinet virtuoso, turned his back on the audience in order to keep the secret of the finger he used to achieve certain effects.

Of course, we're talking "trade secret," not "copyright" here.

I wonder whether he ever considered patenting his fingerings? I wonder whether that's possible. It seems to me that it might be.

The RIAA aren't the culprits- this time.

[gottagetmac]

This cease and desist had nothing to do with the RIAA- it was brought by the NMPA and the MPA (if you read the letter). These organizations publish sheet music, not music. They could care less about the popularity of the music itself, and only care about their own sales, which probably are hurt by the availability of tab.

Re:Terrible!-Violating gooses and ganders.

[Bogtha]

You obviously missed my point. Please show me somebody who thinks it is necessary to protect GPLed software written 43 years ago, by somebody who's made more than enough money to retire on and who died decades ago.

They sell at about $5 per song....

[Kunta Kinte]

Part of the reason RIAA is going after the free music databases is that they would like to sell you the sheet music for about $5 per song. Checkout MusicNotes. In fact I've seen songs for more than $10 bucks on there, depending on the format.

I never got tabs, they're often incorrect and missing a lot of information. But there is no way guitarist are going to spend $5 per song for sheet music en masse. Personally, I prefer buying books of non-RIAA songs.

They saw that legal online music only took off after iTunes started selling music for $1...

PS. Does anyone know of an online database of public-domain MusicXML sheet music?

Not 'apparent' at all

[kripkenstein]

Yes, OLGA has (apparently) broken the law.

No, this is not apparent at all. The site owner of Olga says so, and I agree with him completely.

Olga (and similar sites) do not publish recordings of songs, which is a clear copyright violation. Nor do they publish lyrics (although they do sometimes). They primarily publish tab files (tabulature), which are specifications of where to place your fingers on a guitar (not even notes), and chord files, which are lists of chords. Now, to see how ridiculous the 'copyright' claim is, consider the case of chord files.

A typical chord file contains something like "G D Em C" - which are all the chords you need to play for quite a lot of rock/pop songs (up to modulation to a different key). A lot of others are covered by "G D C" (even simpler). There are only 6 basic chords on the guitar (in a specific key). Most songs use only a few of those (except for people like e.g. David Bowie, who uses dozens of chords in some songs). Basically, to claim copyright violation here, is to claim that "G D C" is copyrighted. But by which of the 1,000,000 songs that use it? It isn't unique in any way (unlike, say, lyrics or mp3s). Chord files (usually) only contain names of chords, not rythym or anything else. They are brief and nonunique in the extreme. To claim copyright violation would be amusing if it weren't sad.

The case of tab files is different, as these can be fairly specific to a song. However, even here it is far from clear that a copyright violation is being committed. A perfect, note-for-note transcription may seem to be an obvious copyright violation, but 99% of tabs are far from that. They are more like a guess or an interpretation of the song (for example, in nearly all cases they contain only notes, not durations of notes - and again, not even notes, but positions on the guitar).

As a guitar player who has enjoyed Olga for many years, this (repeat) development is sad, and I believe unjustified.

Re:Not 'apparent' at all

[6031769]

This is quite correct. I would further point out that many of the tunes listed on OLGA were neither written nor recorded on a guitar, and therefore all OLGA and their contributors are doing is describing how one might go about performing that work on a guitar. In those cases they are certainly less worthy of the banner of law-breakers than a member of the public openly violating copyright by whistling their favourite tune while walking down the street (not just copyright violation, but public performance no less). Lock up the whistlers now!

Re:Not 'apparent' at all

[kfg]

Olga (and similar sites) do not publish recordings of songs

They don't? Then how is it you can learn to play songs from them?

Notation is a recording. The very musical recording copyright was invented to protect. The recorded music business predates sound recording by hundreds of years.

Kids these frickin' days. Your factory fed tech brain is ruining your good sense.

KFG

Re:Not 'apparent' at all

[dartarrow]

A typical chord file contains something like "G D Em C"

Dude... u just listed the chords for Every Single Green Day song

Re:Should all copying be considered infringement?

[runlevel 5]

Mod parent up. This has long been the theory supporting the legality of tabs. The writers of tabs see them as learning tools at best or derrivative works at the very worst. The fact that tabs are not written out as sheet music also encourages guitarists to purchase CDs in order to learn to play at the correct timing, which is not written into the tablature. Tabs are by-ear transcriptions and their availability has helped untold numbers of budding guitars develop their skills without the need to [buy and] learn from expensive sheet music. Tab websites have slowly been closing their doors due to threats from sheet music associations, the industry, and fear of punishment under copyright laws that leave very few fair use rights in them at all, heavily favoring the recording companies. It's a real shame that yet another one has been pressured to go under.

Re:Why?

[senatorpjt]

This reminds me of the joke argument that people make about having their minds erased after hearing music because remembering the song is a form of copying.

Tabs on OLGA aren't from published sheet music, they're written by people learning to play the song by ear. (And, they're usually wrong, in my experience)

Re:Innocent before proven guilty

[senatorpjt]

A guitar tab of copyrighted music is like a plot summary of a copyrighted movie. It's a description of a work, not a copy.

Not the DMCA

[John Hasler]

The site was not "shut down by the DMCA". It was shut down by copyright law.

Re:HOW SAD

[krewemaynard]

I think maybe you should keep the quarter. ;)

Lennon's rolling in his grave

[FhnuZoag]

Right. What his 'representatives' are doing with his music seems to be the very antithesis of his philosophy. Indeed, recall the lyrics to Imagine:

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

Re:Lennon's rolling in his grave

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

Those are his lyrics, not his philosophy. He lived in a very big house and had many material possessions.

Re:Lennon's rolling in his grave

[jb.hl.com]

As someone else pointed out, his actions seem to be the antithesis of his philosophy.

Poor Quality

[Nerdfest]

Not OLGA, but the commercial sheet music. I've found many examples where the sheet music I've bought is of lower quality than that available from OLGA. It smeels of the publishing compamies putting out music unrelated to what the original artist actually plays. Protecting a crappy product with lawyers isn't the way to make your customers happy ...

Re:Should all copying be considered infringement?

[bogado]

So I guess your programs that you made while listening to some of the RIAA music should be considered derived work? I guess I went a little bit over the line here? But what about if the work you done is music? When is it a derived work or it is your music based on another?

Musitians usually learn by first "coping" what they hear. How many of the bands and musitian of top 10 hit list have not played in his garage a cover of his prefered musics. This is so common that the first question almost anyone asks in an enterview with almost every artist is what are your influences. Creative process is a copy process, get over it.

So this tabs you get on the net are helping to pass our culture ahead for the next generation of musics. Those tabs have not a single drop of sweat of the original artist, those tabs are the work of a individual who as to begin to write his own music he starts to write or read other people's first.

Re:Innocent before proven guilty

[evanism]

Crikey, I had it down as "you are guilty of anything until proven innocent at extreme cost".

Law = defense
Defense = time
Time = money
Money = profit... QED;
Law = profit

Better watch out. Gitmo awaits you all my learned friends! Rendition...?

Ergo... plead guilty, its cheaper than going broke, even if you are innocent.

Re:Why?

[TheSpoom]

This story reminds me of a short story called Melancholy Elephants, which gives a theory on what could happen is copyright were extended indefinitely.

"Senator, if I try to hoard the fruits of my husband's genius, I may cripple my race. Don't you see what perpetual copyright implies? It is perpetual racial memory! That bill will give the human race an elephant's memory. Have you ever seen a cheerful elephant?"

An interesting read.

Re:Klezmer clarinet virtuoso concealed his fingeri

[Xamataca]

Let's go back to the ancient school tradition were masters and artisans of every discipline only shared is knowledge with fellow members and disciples.
Let's develope obscure societies with secret rules, strict hierarchies and stupid ceremonies all for the high and noble ideal of keeping the secrets away from the peasants.

Welcome to the future, welcome to the Middle Age.

PoV from a serious musician, the good/bad/ugly

[TibbonZero]

I can see why on a LEGAL level they would want to shut them down, asides from the DMCA. They have in effect created and distributed a derrivative work from the music. However, it's a really minor offense IMHO. It isn't mallicious or trying to shut people out of money.

It is indirectly (perhaps directly) shutting people out of money however. Artists actually make a TON more from their publishing (which includes music in films, on the cd itself, printed stuff, etc...) than from Record Deals (which rarely make anything). In fact it's one of the easiest ways for a new artist to legitmately make money. As well as songwriters, as that's the ONLY place they get their money from. Using the DMCA is odd, as they have other things they can use against them.

I think it's uncool however that they do this. OLGA first of all isn't really a good representation of the music IMHO. Tabs are, well horrid, for reading music. I can't see why they are getting so bent. This isn't going to push the amount of sheet music purchased up as they hope.

The good side is that maybe for a bit people will (either google other sites or...) learn to use their ears. A real musician doesn't really need tab for playing pop tunes (which most of these songs are). Just use your ears and boom, there they go!

It'll hurt them eventually

[LaurieDash]

I've recently signed a small record deal with an indie label and i can honestly say that i would never have been as motivated to learn guitar and write songs had it not been for guitar tablature sites. The music that i listen to is often not even published (as sheet music) by the record labels and as a beginner i required other people's interpretations of my favourite songs so i could learn a version, work out chord structures and eventually write my own songs. If they want to close down guitar tablature sites i think record companies are hurting themselves in the long run, as they're erasing an entire generation of potential musicians.

If money is your incentive...

[mushadv]

...then you shouldn't be making music.

* /long angry rant on*

[extra the woos]

I don't agree with a lot of the stuff that people post on here. I don't agree with a lot of people's political views. I am against the war (which I would assume most here are). I'm against smoking bans in states and cities on private property (I think if you don't like a restraunt because it is smoke-filled you can do what my parents and I did when i was litte: tell them their restraunt smells like ass and we won't be back unless they ban smoking in their facility). I think private businesses (but not government or businesses with public contracts) should be able to discriminate against people if they damn well please, whether it be because they don't like gays, catholics, women, white people, or whatever the hell they like (but if they have public contracts they should have to adhere to non-discriminatory policies). If they discriminate I'll be one of the ones telling everyone I know not go there.

I'm a Christian and I believe God created man (not necessarily 6k years ago, but w/e) but I don't think we should teach creation in schools as scientific theory. I don't think homosexuality is necessarly right but I am 100% (and I argue with as many other christians as I can to try to convince them) pro gay-marriage because, thank God we do not live in a theocracy (look at the middle east). I am for drug legalization and against the death penalty. I agree with some and disagree with some of the views that are the norm here.

Yet this kind of shit is just RIDICULOUS. OF COURSE you should NOT be allowed to sneak into the studio, copy the sheets of music (or w/e if they are on a computer), paste them into a file, save it as a PDF and save it online. I think we can pretty much all agree that this should be a civil infraction (I think reasonable people should also agree that there is nothing *criminal* about doing that and the gov should not be paying to investigate copyright infringment either, but w/e).

But if someone figures out the damn chords themselves from listening to the fucking music, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY ABILITY TO PREVENT THEM FROM SHARING WHAT THEY HAVE HEARD WITH THEIR FRIENDS. GOOD GOD. If someone listens to your music, figures out how to play it on their instrument (lets not limit this to popular music) there should be NO LAW and NO PENALTY for them sharing what they have figured out. To try to control human thought is just unconciable.

There is a *HUGE* difference between trying to share the ability to play a song and infringing on someone's copyright. When copyright was invented (before the U.S. even existed) it didn't extend to people trying to figure out the notes to what they were hearing and playing them back to their friends.

It is already at the point where schools have been sued for performing music in plays etc when they did not have a license to perform it in a public performance. Is this what was intended?

I believe that if you walk up to someone on the street who is not familiar at all with copyright law and ask them questions about what they believe is right or not right, you would garner a pretty reasonable response overall. It is worthy of a lawsuit if you make a play about some guy's script and charge money for it. That guy who wrote the damn thing deserves to be compensated. But if your kid's elementary school finds that play on the 'net and performs it for the parents at Thanksgiving, fuck you if you think that is wrong and fuck you if you think the school should have to pay. Seriously.

There comes a point at which our society needs to decide which way it is going to go. There can either be a place for the modern day media corporations, or they can stay behind. That is their choice. But they cannot drag everyone else back in time with them. If they succeed in taking control of what people can or cannot think then it is only a matter of time before freedom of (or from) religion, freedom to own firearms, freedom to speak our minds (well, drugs are already illegal so we are getting there), etc... also fall to the same precedents.

Legal Failure corrected by Innovation and Market

[aqui]

I see this as much more of a symptom of the perversion of the legal
system by the special interests of corporations (and their lawyers).

Unfortunately justice is still out of reach for many of us, and I
think the number of people who cannot afford to go to court is growing.
Corporations take advantage of their wealth and this financial imbalance.

Corporations in their short sightedness rather than competing through
innovation and invention seek to compete by controlling the market by
suppressing competition where possible.

Copyright and Patent laws were originally created to prevent this and
strike a balance between the rights of the user and the creator. The idea
was to create a functioning market where innovation is encouraged and
sufficiently rewarded, while retaining open competition and consumer choice.

Copyright and IP law is particularly vulnerable since its complexity and
the need to seek a balance between content users and content providers
makes easy to pervert. That combined with the general lack of knowledge
about copyright law and fair use and a systematic public campaign by the
content industry to confuse the issue, has lead to the current situation.

It is disappointing that judges, lawyers and politicians (the guardians of
our legal system) have failed to protect our legal system from growing
greed and corruption.

Despite all this the content industry middlemen (RIAA etc...) will lose.
The reasons are simple:
1) A new medium, the internet allows anyone to connect with customers.
2) A number of users are no longer interested in working with
the content industry middlemen.
3) A large number of users are willing to share their content for free.

This is creating a large pool of accessible content that the content industry
middlemen do not own or control in anyway. As this pool grows which it inevitably will
the very content "protection" laws lobbied for by the record industry will
protect the rights of the creators of this music. Since the creators have
the right to distribute their content under any licensing scheme that they
see fit (eg. creative commons) they can distribute it for free.

Consumers faced with the choice of easy free to use accessible content and the
choice of copy protected digitally managed "official" industry content
will simply vote with their feet.

These sorts of legal challenges just help create a hostile climate for traditional
industry content users and will hasten the decline of the traditional content industry
as these consumers move on.

These are the violent thrashes of a dying beast...
(which unfortunately will take time and cause much damage).

We've seen it with software... and we'll see it again...

Wanna really get the RIAA fired up?

[PeeAitchPee]

Take ASCII versions of the tabs and embed them in the mp3 metadata, along with the lyrics. Once released in the wild via .torrent or your favorite p2p app, it's one-stop shopping for starving guitar players.

If the music biz was serious about embracing tech, they'd be selling these files on iTunes / whatever right now -- you could probably sell them for $1 more than the "regular" version of the .mp3. Instead, they bitch and moan about OLGA, shut it down (again) while giving some bullshit excuse (just say you want the publishing revenue already!), and we're exactly where we were ten years ago -- except now you can get .pdf rips of their "official recorded version" tab books that sell for $24.95 or more on eMule etc. for absolutely nothing.

Idiots.

Re:Why?

[hesiod]

> Playing by ear is the only method, lazy pricks.

Playing by ear is the lazy way to do it. It's mimicry. Learning how to read music, and understanding musical theory, is the correct way to learn music.

WTF?

[EddyPearson]

This has GOT to be a joke! Only, it isn't!
How can a business like the muic industry continually attack their customers? It is not going to work forever!

What really shocks me about this is as a guitar player, I KNOW had i not had access to tabs to learn from, i'd have never have been able to. Actions like this may someday end in a severe lack of artists to produce what the industry i trying to protect.

Re:Why?

[Tatsh]

Then amateur tabs is definitely not the answer. The general concensus today is that most guitarists are unable to even read a staff, especially when it's a 6 (7 or even 12) string guitar chord. Tabs are used everywhere because they are easier, the music staff is pushed up an octave for guitar from piano, and it really was never designed for guitar. This is why they even have finger diagrams for chords. It's much easier than reading several notes, unless you truly learn that way first. If any guitarist saw tabs after learning "hard" chords on staffs, I think they would immediately see the benefits of reading tabs live if they weren't going to memorize it. Would you consider learning tabs as "reading music"? I definitely would.

I agree on understanding music theory though. Not even I have done much of that yet.

And the other thing is that some people are said to just not have a musical ear, which is the reason for written music, including tabs. Someone loves the song Johnny B. Goode, but can't even figure out that fast guitar riff going on through the entire song because they simply can't hear it. And a lot of times that's true for me even, sometimes notes are too fast to hear (this is the time when I pull out Sound Forge and do a time stretch), and I keep matching notes, sometimes tabbing them down, till I finish. Other times the scale is obvious; I think I have a better than ear than some of my friends because some praise tab sites like OLGA, and I hate what I would consider inaccuracies. Books are 100% accurate apparently, but I really don't own many and don't feel like I need to (plus the price). The argument then becomes, as usual, why pay when you can get it for free? Shouldn't written music be like free speech? Why can't the publishing company lower the prices? Sometimes, even the most simple music gets priced at $20 or more per book (I'm not advocating prices based on complexity either). That's more than the album, which you could buy and just play by ear if you have one. My $0.02.

No Blood for Oil

[Z34107]

..."War in Middle East" ... which got nothing to do with terrorism ... the real term should really be "War for Oil"

Iraq's current oil production is 2,900,000 barrels per day. At $70 a barrel, the value of Iraq's entire daily production is $203,000,000. The total cost of your "War Against Middle East" (so far) is $65,000,000,000 and is expected to top $300,000,000,000. If today the war magically became free and we magically got all $203 million in revenue (not profit) each day, it would take a year to "break even" on the war.

Can anyone really believe that a war was fought for oil if it costs more (just in money!) to FIGHT the war than to just buy the oil?

Also, "Climate Change" is more accurate. We're in a period of "global warming" right now (1 to 2 degrees), but we just finished with a "global cooling" - the "Little Ice Age". See here. See how our climate is changing, not just warming? And that this isn't a recent phenomenon? Not that global warming/climate change isn't an issue - climate change just isn't newspeak.

Bushspeak != Duckspeak

Re:Do you forget 17 USC 107 et seq?

[Jerf]

From my understanding, once you change a couple of "riffs" in the song, it becomes a different song and therefore is not subject to copyright.

Your understanding needs to grow to include the concept of derivative work.

Believe me, I am well aware the current copyright system has some major conceptual holes in it (most of which even the Slashdot community really hasn't gotten to noticing yet) and the shit has only begun to hit the fan. But the system is not so broken that they would fail to notice such an obvious hole that would allow you to basically strip copyright protection from whatever you want with minimal effort.

Just because I am correcting you on this point should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the entire existing system, or as anything other than, simply, a correction on how you understand the current system.

Source Code...

[eemerton]

So, what's the "source code" for music? Is it the files encoded on the disc or mp3? Or is it the instructions on how to reproduce that music, ie. tabs and lyrics? Look, I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here, no one likes the RIAA and it's resonable to look for tabs from songs without hassle. But if software companies can hold on to source code, which unless you knew code it would be usless to you... just like playing music. -EW

Re:Why?

[hesiod]

> Would you consider learning tabs as "reading music"?

Hmm... Not really. It's more like reading "Cliffs Notes." You get the gist of it, but the execution is greatly obscured. Sheet music tells you things that just aren't in tabulatures: most importantly, note and rest duration. But it also shows other things, like note style (legato/staccato), volume changes ([de]crescendos), and there are other handy things like codas. I believe it is also easier to denote dramatic changes in the music, such as time or key signatures, in the middle of a song.

Also with sheet music, it is easier to represent more than one instrument on the same page, although since we are only talking about one instrument here (guitar), that's mostly just a space-saving convenience and not really important in this discussion. Unless you have a friend that plays Bass. :)

BTW, I'm not really suggesting that tabs are worse than sheet music. With tabs, a creative person may take more liberties with the music, adding their own feel to it, making it "theirs." With sheet music, people usually play exactly what is printed, exactly as was originally intended.

Re:Why?

[kfg]

Learning how to read music . . .

. . .is mimicry, done wrong.

Music is sound, not notation. The ear is the proper organ for sound, not the eye.

The correct way to use notation is to "hear" it in the mind's ear and play from that, so the first thing you need to play well from notation is a really good ear. . . backed up by music theory so you know what it is you're hearing; and why.

But I advise beginning to learn your theory with a monochord and a yard/meterstick and moving on to a one octave koto/dulcimer, tuning your intervals by ear. The piano has been the death of musical sense.

KFG

Re:Why?

[kfg]

I still fail to see the harm in guitar tabs.

You don't make a living selling sheet music. Sheet music is just as much a recording as is a sound recording. Before the invention/wide distribution of sound recordings sheet music was the recorded music business and there's still money in it. The popular jazz fake book once had to be distributed by samizdat sneaker net, because it was just as illegal as a home burned CD to distribute.

Jay Ungar makes a good deal of his living from selling the sheet music for that fiddle tune he wrote, downloading it rather than buying it really is taking food from his mouth, although why one would need the sheet music for it is beyond me.

KFG

Missing some things here...

[Saxophonist]

I teach guitar, among lots of other instruments and voice. Every so often, someone wants to learn some song from tablature, or they come to me only knowing how to read tablature with no acutal experience with regular notation. This is all fine and good -- I can help the student learn notation then -- but I typically point out several limitations of tablature (several of which apply also to chord diagrams, which are not the same thing as tab; a lot of people confuse the two):

• Tablature does not convey rhythm at all. You have to already know the tune to have any idea how to play it. For most people, this necessitates a recording so that they can listen to the piece again and again. If they didn't pirate the recording, then the recording industry actually made money from this individual.
• Tablature is non-portable. It is not a notation that makes sense for playing the music on any other instrument or singing it.
• Tablature misses the visual cues that standard notation has. For instance, in standard notation, notes of higher pitch are higher on the staff, and there is a correlation between the distance between notes on the staff and the distance between the actual pitches. Not so with tablature.
• Learning tablature is not the same as learning to read music. This one is somewhat obvious, but the student's understanding of music in general increases just by learning standard notation.

I am sure there are other issues as well. That said, I cannot see how shutting down a tablature site benefits the musicians at all; if anything, it encourages recording sales.

While the recording artist could potentially be disappointed with other musicians' inferior performances of their tunes, anyone in the U.S. can record and sell an original rendition of anything that has already been recorded, thanks to compulsory mechanical licensing, whether the original artist likes it or not. Of course, few amateurs are going to be able to pull off any kind of publishable album, but with the ubiquity of computerized recording tools (ProTools, etc.), it's not hard to make independent CD's anymore. Not that anyone but friends and family will buy them...

Your ass called, and it wants its wrong info back.

[teamhasnoi]

As other posters have commented, there is *no* venue that requires sheet music. In fact, they could give a rats ass if you know how to read it, learned it from a yeti in the mountains or was given the knowledge divinely.

Most venues would be overjoyed if they could play the radio, have bands, and have a jukebox without paying ASCAP or BMI. It's an expense, and I've seen a few venues that don't pay it. When pressed, they say, "Why should I have to pay to play the radio? It's free in my car and in my home!"

So, you're wrong. So wrong in fact, that you could be right - if you were talking about 60 years ago, or an orchestra, but we're talking about TAB and chords, guitar and popular songs. Single note playing intruments in orchestras use music written for the instrument they play - and are not required to own, purchase, or otherwise HAVE sheet music by any! venue. (Maybe a bandleader who's a copyright nazi or a published composer whose music is being played might require it, but those days are fading fast - if not gone already!)

So, please. Either get back in your time machine and join us in the present, pick up a manual on what the hell is going on in the real world, or shutty.

Eventually,

[Progman3K]

Learning how to play an instrument could become illegal:
When you learn how to play an instrument, you gain the skills to be able to 'reverse-engineer' and copy just about any piece of music. What's to stop you from learning the notes to a melody then?

I suppose if the RIAA had their way they would use software http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/18/132923 8&tid=141 to write 'hits' and subsequently ram the product down our collective throats.

After all, if they use software to write the music, they no longer need artists.
If they never need to pay an artist, they keep all the profits.

Finally, by discouraging the freedom of sharing of musical exploration and discovery among people, they hope to make us unable to compete.

Mod parent up

[commodoresloat]

I'm sick of hearing about artists supporting this kind of crap. If you don't want people to learn from your creative output, don't make it public! Sit in your room and play your fancy guitar chords through your headphones. All intellectual progress has come from open sharing of ideas, not from hoarding them. I'm a DJ, and this reminds me of early DJs who used to soak their records in hot soapy water to remove the labels so that people couldn't see what record they were playing. It's yet another logical leap of absurdity, since they were playing music recorded by someone else to begin with. Luckily, the world of turntablism appears to have moved beyond that embarrassing history, as most well known DJs today share their techniques and "secrets" through classes, videos, etc. I think suing people for sharing ideas in general is nonsense, but doing it in this way - specifically attacking people for figuring something out on their own and sharing what they've learned - is uniquely execrable.

I wonder how this affects music teachers

[dvNull]

Since the MPA and NMPA are now claiming that tabs violate their copyright, how does this affect music teachers? When I learnt how to play a guitar from a private teacher, he used a combination of sheet music and tablature to teach me how to play. He wrote down the music notation as well as the tabs and did not use any published book.

If they MPA and NMPA are shown to have rights concerning music tabs, then teachers will find it much harder to teach since they HAVE to purchase *AA authorized sheet music and cannot 'reverse engineer' the sounds into notations.

The scary part is that in the future other forms of media will be restricted so much that any cultural development will stagnate so much that we all might as well be zombies.

The best way to learn

[enharmonix]

I'm a musician, like music theory, and a guitarist, and I started with tabs and playing by ear, and I can tell you from personal experience what works and why. I am very familiar with OLGA, but all this "lazy way to do it" stuff is driving me crazy! Moxley is 100% correct. Here's the scoop:

• Playing by ear: This is the best way to learn to play. All classically trained students take Ear Training - you are expected to be able, upon hearing a note, chord, or rhythm, transcribe or perform what you've just heard. Music is aural.
• Reading a staff (not tab): This is the international, trans-era, agreed-upon method by which musicians have communicated for centuries. Everybody who studies music quickly learns there are a lot of things wrong with our notational system, but it was developed over about a millenium, and its too late to change it now. But it's still got a huge advantage over learning by ear and over tablature: I can communicate everything to everybody, regardless of what instrument they play, instantly. Any group larger than a garage band just can't learn a song "by ear", and nobody but guitarists can read tablature (technically, tablature exists for certain other instruments, but it's probably even harder to read than tablature for guitar).
• Tablature: Anybody that thinks tab is legitimate, it's not. This really is lazy (and it's how I first learned). Tablature was designed to give people a chance to play the guitar without taking lessons, but I can speak from personal experience: if you are at all serious about music, drop the tab and struggle with the staff and playing by ear. Even if it means you are playing kid stuff. It is possible to pick up a guitar and learn to read tab in a day. Learning to read a staff can take a lifetime. However, the classically trained musician is more skilled by an order of magnitude than somebody "taught" by tab... Tab does have one distinct advantage over standard notation, however: it translates easily to ASCII.

</rant> Sorry, but the whole ear/reading argument is moot - a good musician is expected to maintain both these skills. Tablature is good for hobbyists and for learning over the web.

Re:The day the music died

[minuszero]

were good old boys drinking whisky and rye?

Re:Why?

[Tatsh]

Very true, which is why today there is more and more music coming out that does not follow the "rules", even music theory rules. See the links below please:

Noise
Noise music FAQ

These are some of the many genres today breaking all the "rules." I don't personally like this stuff, but I know many others who do, and I can definitely see in the future that things like this will change music back to the way it was before the "experts" came along.

Indeed everyone will sing again and play instruments without a care, search YouTube for noise music videos, it's crazy shit and people seem to like it.

Why is it in RIAA's interest to destroy music?

[robbak]

People become musicians by playing with music. First step is often chord based from sites like OLGA. Then progressing to full tablatures, again from OLGA. Then they are good enought to start making money.
Then they start paying royalties on songs they cover when they start selling music, or mildly serious public performance. RIAA starts making money. But it all starts from those guitar tabs!
RIAA makes money from talent. Talent starts from OLGA. So RIAA makes their money thanks to OLGA. What a great reasong for RIAA to shut it down.
If I thought that they had any logic, I'd be puzzled. But this is just so typical.