Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the but-how-will-i-know-when-to-change-chords dept.
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."
Wait a minute...
by
macthulhu
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
--
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
Re:Wait a minute...
by
gEvil+(beta)
·
· Score: 5, Funny
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.]
-- This guy's the limit!
Music has been passed down for generations
by
LiquidCoooled
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
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:Should all copying be considered infringement?
by
suprchunk
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
Not 'apparent' at all
by
kripkenstein
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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:Should all copying be considered infringement?
by
runlevel+5
·
· Score: 5, Informative
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.
Lennon's rolling in his grave
by
FhnuZoag
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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...
Legal Failure corrected by Innovation and Market
by
aqui
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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...
-- -----
"Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
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.
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?
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.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
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.
liqbase
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
> 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.
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?
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.