Slashdot Mirror
Guitartabs.com Suspends Under Legal Pressure
Music publishers are stepping up their campaign to remove guitar tablature from the Net. Recently Guitartabs.com received a nastygram from lawyers for the National Music Publishers Association and The Music Publishers Association of America. These organizations want to stretch the definition of their intellectual property to include by-ear transcriptions of music. Guitartabs.com is currently not offering tablature while the owner evaluates his legal options.
No stairway. Denied!
First of all, I'm against the whole 'I thought of it first so I have the only rights to it forever' thing.
But if a song is IP, why does it matter how it was copied? Copying it by looking at the paper, or copying by listening... It only takes a more talented individual.
It's like saying that it's legal to copy DVDs, but only if you're talented enough to crack the encryption yourself, with no help.
It either IS or IS NOT legal to copy it, there should be no 'only if by this method' BS.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I have not yet decided what response is appropriate. Ummmm.. the appropriate response is to forward their communications to your ISP and wait until they send the DMCA takedown. When they do, file the appropriate DMCA response outlining why the material isn't infringing. Your ISP simply cannot remove your material if you follow the procedure. Then, if they were doing anything more than bluffing, they will send you a proper cease and desist, which you can then choose to ignore, and, very unlikely now, wait until they file suit. All of this will take YEARS and cost them many hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees which I'm sure they'll quickly realize they can't recover from you, and, as such, they won't bother.
Don't give in to bullies.. the law is on your side.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The letter essentially says "Die. Now." And faced with overwhelming force, that's just what guitartabs.com did. The ugliest part of the letter, though, is probably this:
"Under the circumstances, both the transcriber of the compositions and you as the owner of the website are copyright infringers."
And they're right. Under copyright law, merely transcribing a song by ear (even without sending it to a website) is copyright infringement. Specifically, unauthorized creation of a derivative work. That is an illustration of how nasty and flawed the entire system of copyright is.
Well, it's usually more the composer's copyright that is claimed to be violated.
How we know is more important than what we know.
What's the difference between listening to a song so you can guess at the tablature and publishing that
and
Reading a book so you can publish a review (with spoilers and character names)?
You cannot use those characters in your own book without licensing them. You cannot use that tablature in your own song without licensing it.
This is about personal, private usage.
National Music Publishers Association?
The Music Publishers Association of America???
Isn't the RIAA enough??
You Americans hate music... huh?
Are we to believe that there has been some new revolution in the ability of a musician to transcribe things by ear? Why would this longstanding exemption suddenly need changing? hmmm... perhaps Greed? Face it the only reason people are going to by a tabliture of your damn song is if they are a FAN. So they probably already own the album and love the song. They are just still developing as a musician and need the help of the more talented musicians at guitartabs to help them figure out how to play this song that they love. That is something to be encouraged if you want your music to have influence and you want to nuture growing musicians. The whole point of music copywright is to foster a good environment for new works. Or at least it used to be, but I guess that is an outdated idea this days.
We are all just people.
Metaltabs.com recently went through this as well. Their solution was to get the permission of either the record labels or the bands themselves to publish tabs on their site. Of the ones who have responded, about 90-95% are giving permission. I wonder if guitartabs would have the same luck.
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
They listened to the song and wrote down the notes for the separate instruments. That appears more like reverse engineering to me, which IS legal.
I don't think this is legal, but nevermind that. This isn't Right(tm).
How does new music come to be? Do you think a good (and creative) musician got to be that good all by himself? The way I learned music is (1) by listening to good music, (2) by trying to figure out how the piece worked and what made it satisfying and (3) trying to recreate the same effect on my own. Most of the times, on at least one of those steps, I needed somebody else's help. Either in getting to know new music, in figuring out the chords or in learning to play in new ways.
I couldn't have played the way I do without this help, and I have OLGA to thank for a large piece of that. Of course, I got a lot of help from my friends and teachers, but the sort of collaboration that is possible on the net is, I believe, a real boon for every musician, of every level, from beginner to professional. Then again, who's to say if my friend telling me (or writing down for me to play) the chords to a copyrighted song is legal!?
My point being, this kind of litigation has only one effect, and that is to suffocate creativity and the growth of our culture.
In that case, no book reviews or movie reviews or any other review would ever be legal without express permission.
I can publish a movie review complete with character names, plot and spoilers.
You can read my movie review and write your own, private, screen play with that same plot and characters and events.
Two examples of "fair use".
""Publishing" is not "personal, private usage". Fair use is not republishing. Fair use is sitting in your personal space looking at the tablature and playing."
In that case, no book reviews or movie reviews or any other review would ever be legal without express permission.
That is a straw man argument. It is also severely flawed on its face, reviews contain excerpts not the entire work.
I wonder who is the owner of this tune :
1-1-4-1-5-4-1-5
Three chords that are the base, in that very same order, of at least one third of every rock'n'roll and blues tunes known by human.
Guitar tabs are not the tune. The tune is the combination of the melody, the lyrics, the chords, the arrangements and the feeling of the band. Finally, this story is all again a try to patent the wheel.
I hate all sigs, mine included.
Since apparently the only requirement is something sounding similar, I recommend they start suing each other. There are hundreds if not thousands but these are a few suggestions off the top of my head to get them started:
Metallica has a good case against Kid Rock since American Badass sounds like Sad But True.
The Beatles should have sued the Monkeys for ripping off Paperback writer to bring up Last Train to Clarksville.
How about Don Henley's End of the Innocence and Bruce Hornsby's Thats Just The Way It Is".
Rod Stewart should sue Kiss for Hard Luck Woman its a complete copy of You Wear It Well.
A-Ha's take on me completely lifted the Police's Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.
Linkin Park should sue itself for making Pushing Me Avway and Numb which are nearly identical musically. Ditto for Nickelback.
While we are at it, lets just make it illegal to play any song using 12 bar blues
A
Blah blah blah blah-dy blah blah blah,
D A
Blah blah blah blah-dy blah blah blah.
D
Blah blah-dy blah blah, blah blah blah,
A
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
E7 D
Blah, blah blah; blah blah blah.
A
Blah! Blah blah blah.
There, I've just written some chords for a song I made up. But you know what? Those chords are NOT COPYRIGHTABLE. The lyrics are (and if you record and distribute a song with these lyrics without paying me royalties, I'll come after you). The melody is, but I haven't written that down. The arrangement is (harmonies, instrumentation, etc.) but I haven't written that down either. The chords themselves are not. This is data, information about how the song is put together - not art.
By the way, this particular series of chords (transposed into all 24 major and minor keys) is used in hundreds if not THOUSANDS of different songs.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
So, most people judge a composers work by how the the sheets look on a site that's unrelated to the composer? In a related thread, The Beatles are no longer popular due to a huge amount of bad versions of Yesterday in primary schools. I'm officially wiser than 2 minutes ago.