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Threat To Free, Legal Guitar Tablature Online
An anonymous reader writes "Recently Hal Leonard Corporation, the world's largest songbook publisher, sent an email to the music publishing and copyright community urging them not to license guitar tablature for free, advertising-supported use online. The email includes a number of factual errors and was potentially very damaging to the potential for a free, legal, and licensed destination for guitar tab online. Musicnotes and MXTabs have posted the full letter along with their response."
One thing i cant stand is big companies taking "legal" action against free services just so they can charge the user money. Infuriating.
Back in the day. This was a non-commercial use for educational purposes and they killed it, so screw them.
I began playing guitar in 1995 and discovered OLGA early on. Hal Leonard (the person) was a great teacher. The Corporation OTOH ... once again knowledge & your right (Hal and many of the great teachers used to call it an obligation) to pass it on once again comes up against the almighty dollar.
I spent a couple of years teaching in the late 90s. I'll try to avoid waxing lyrical about the philosophy of teaching but music is a LIVING thing. If you restrict it, less will find it and it withers. With regard to learning music (and any other discipline outside of Scientology and ITIL) information wants to be free.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Nine years ago, I was interviewed for this article about the original OLGA kerfuffle.
Nine years. You'd think that after that long, the traditional music publishing industry might have learned something from their complete inability to stop the spread of on-line guitar tabs.
Hey, publishers: It's over. You lost. You're not going to get to stop people from talking about how to play music. Quit whining, join the world in the 21st century, and you might yet find a way to profit.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Once again, Frank Zappa was unbelievably precient
This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...
it is my responsibility to enforce all the laws that haven't been passed yet.
It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you to the potential
consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be performing which
could eventually lead to The Death Penalty (or affect your parents'
credit rating).
Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things...
and many of them were driven to these crimes by a horrible force called MUSIC!
Our studies have shown that this horrible force is so dangerous to society at large
that laws are being drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever!
Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they
won't conflict with the Constitution (which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate
THE FUTURE).
You will see companies battling for information controls for a good while. We are living in the IP landgrab. Current speculation is that information is property, and probably far more valuable than goods. An ear of corn is pittance to the knowledge of the process of raising, harvesting, and distributing corn. 1000 years ago, you couldn't restrict someone from telling their neighbor or son how to do any of those. Today, we have patents, copyrights, patent-copyrights (for software), process patents, plot patents, etc, etc.
We will see new instruments of IP control before this is over. The current consensus among MANY think tanks, blowhard economists, and business leaders is that if it has value, it should be owned and exploited. In that case, expect to see the future demotivator poster and lolcat memes protected. Memes have value, specifically cultural value. You may even see a day in which safety and consumer protection information owned and protected.
In the dark past, we had to band together to form libraries to preserve our knowledge and culture, and to share it. Today, we are the librarians, and we MUST do our jobs to protect our collective knowledge and culture, and to make sure it is freely sharable. All we are is flesh and knowledge. We cannot let either be subject to trade.
As an aside, when did capitalism become about giving trade rights to those who can charge the most? Shouldn't that argument fall on its face? Capitalism is a method to efficiently manage resources, in which those who must charge the most are the least efficient, and those that are more efficient are rewarded with the most or all profits. The most expensive price is the red-headed stepchild of capitalism, not it's pinnacle. The capitalist hero is not the whiny John Gault, it IS the busy looter or pirate. The pirates are the ones that realized a far more efficient method of production or distribution.
It astonishes me that the morons at Hal Leonard can't see that MXTabs is analogous to the iTunes Music Store: a different-yet-profitable delivery system. The letter refers to the easy availability of digital sheet music, ignoring the fact that a single song typically costs US$5.00, far more than it's worth to garage musicians. Licensed tabs that are ad-supported or reasonably-priced will generate revenue.
Equally astonishing (well, not really) is that the *AAs haven't realized that tablature is useless without a copy of the song it represents. Basic tablature doesn't completely specify a work in the way that standard notation does, so someone who downloads a tab will need an audio file. And not all of those audio files will be pirated, as recent studies indicate. It's a gain for music sales in general.
Morons.
Considering this company is capitalizing on the old Real Book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Book an illegal book (songs in there were unlicensed) used by jazz musicians for decades, I am curious as to where they intend to go with this. For a perspective on a similar experience in the past, back in the day jazz musicians could only find the standard songs in the lead sheet format (Chord chart and melody line) through illegal means, the most prevalent one being the Real Book. They were difficult to find though and were only available through word of mouth (though the internet helped a little). Recently however Hal Leonard has published "New Editions" of the three main volumes of the Real Books which I have found to be quite good, but unfortunately missing many of the standards that the original Real Books had. The biggest advantage these new Real Books have is that they are extremely easy to find. One of the biggest differences here however, is the Real Books were completely unlicensed and illegal, there was no consent by the authors of the songs. Though many of them probably owned the illegal books themselves and may have benefited by the fact their songs were now standards. It seems that with this online database however, with the intent to hold only licensed songs and an easier to find product, they stand on better grounds than the Real Books of old. It may be a battle of who can provide a better service, and if Musicnotes and MXTabs can keep persuading artists to release their tabulature freely. With the record store going away, I don't know how long the printed music store will be able to hold out against the internet.
I very much miss easier access to tabs. They have taken down so many sites already. OLGA, of course, is most missed. I donated to several sites over the years, including OLGA. Figured it was like teaching someone a new dance. Who knows if Dance Dance Revolution will be going after people who imitate their dance steps 10 years from now.
The problem with the guitar tab situation has been that it is a difficult situation to explain to non-players. Everyone knows that almost all great rock players have openly admitted for 40 years that they learned by imitating records, writing down what they knew, and sharing it.
First it was the lyrics, now the tabs are gone. Not only will they ultimately hurt the music publishing business, but the instrument business as well. God knows how much money I have spent on guitars/music toys ONLY due to the existence of tabs.
On the next cool evening, I shall be burning any Hal Leonard books I own in the pit outside.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I really wonder if companies that go on the warpath over internet copyright violations really think in their long-term best interest.
You make a common mistake -- thinking that a "company" has a brain of its own somewhere. Obviously, it doesn't; it's made up of people -- and those people are working in their own best interest.
It may be, and probably is, that the interests of the people running the company, and perhaps even the majority of the stockholders, are not the same as the interests of the "company" as an organization.
For instance, it might be in the major stockholders' best interests to do idiotic things that will get them media attention, and run the share price up, so they can sell it, make a bundle, and leave some other people with the bag. Witness SCO -- I hate beating a dead horse around here, but it's a great example. If the people at SCO have any brains at all (debatable, sure), they could be making tons of money while simultaneously running the organization into the ground.
It's quite possible to crash and burn a company and come out on top; some people have practically made careers out of it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Yes, and ironically...is anyone going to their local music store to buy all the Hal Leonard tabs? Anyone? Someone? Yeah. Didn't think so.
Here's what you'll do: you will get with a more experienced player and learn from him, go to the library, or *gasp* learn it by ear (which how the old school musicians did it).
It's not such a smart move to criminalize your would-be consumers. It's called shooting yourself in the foot. Especially considering the target audience for guitar tabs: teenage and twentysomething guys. Not exactly the most forgiving lot, especially for these kind of shenanigans.
blah blah blah
Shoot themselves in the foot? No, not at all. What you described is what the recording industry always wanted. If only authorized people can play music, and they are the only people who can authorize, then they control the market completely.
Great Intellect...
I can't wait until I take a guitar lesson, and the instructor tells me that he isn't allowed to teach me, for example, and Warner music, because he only has a Sony license.
Just wait. It'll happen.
Jeremy
Two centuries from now I think there's going to be a big dead zone in cultural history. I refer to the bulk of 20th century art, which it will be difficult to preserve and keep relevant as long as *all copying without permission is illegal.
Millions of great pieces of pre-Gutenberg literature were lost because of inadequate technology. Millions of pre-Internet pieces will be lost because of politics.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love