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OLGA Shut Down by DMCA (again!) 449

Posted by CmdrTaco 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."
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OLGA Shut Down by DMCA (again!) More

OLGA Shut Down by DMCA (again!)

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  • Terrible! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:49AM (#15897959)

    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! (Score:5, Funny)

      by jb.hl.com ( 782137 ) <joe@[ ]-baldwin.net ['joe' in gap]> on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:51AM (#15897965) Homepage Journal
      Lennon/McCarthy? I doubt McCarthy would be happy to be working with someone as socialist as Lennon... ;)
    • Isn't it awful? If people keep infringing his copyrights, John Lennon might have to quit music and get a day job!

      It is called estate planning, asset management. Something the grown-ups here will understand.

      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.

      NASA loses the moon-walk tapes. The master recordings of The Beatles are preserved and protected because they have commercial value. There are 170 Beatles titles in print. The al

      • Re:Terrible! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by some guy on slashdot ( 914343 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @12:05PM (#15898409)
        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?
    • Can we sue the RIAA for not releasing any new Beatles songs? Isn't it in their contract somewhere?

      I bet without the RIAA songs would cost 20% what they do today.

      To make them go away all we gotta do is stop giving them or their affiliates money..

      You want them to go away, don't you? /grin/

    • Legal Failure corrected by Innovation and Market (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aqui ( 472334 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @11:55AM (#15898375)
      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...
  • ...shut down all the p2p networks! DOH!

  • Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by macthulhu ( 603399 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:50AM (#15897962)
    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... (Score:5, Funny)

      by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:55AM (#15897977)
      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.]
      • However, sometimes it's nice to see a cover band, only pay $5, and get to be 10 feet from the band, and be able to get good cheap bear because you're in an actual bar. As opposed to paying $100, to sit 300 yards away from the actual band, and overpaying for crap beer in a plastic cup.

      • Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        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 [google.com]. Worse, there is a combinatoric argument that this was bound to happen [slashdot.org].

      • 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 "he
        • ...there are probably 3-4 good ones for every bad one.

          IMHO, you have those numbers backwards. Also, I view music as a creative art form. Only being able to play something that someone else has shown you indicates that you can mimic, but that you can't create on your own. Yes, you need to start somewhere, and that usually is playing songs that already exist [which is why my note at the end of my prior post says that I don't think these closures are a good thing]. However, there comes a time when you shoul
      • considering most cover bands are better than what the labels endorse these days I say get rid of the record labels and only let cover bands play. competition will drive out the sucky ones and the good ones can make money without selling their souls to the record labels.

        That is called win win. of course since the labels lose money they call it lose lose.

      • Re:Wait a minute... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Tx ( 96709 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:46AM (#15898144) Journal
        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... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Exocrist ( 770370 )
      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 some

  • Music has been passed down for generations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:50AM (#15897963) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • 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?

  • Fucking 1984 speak (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:51AM (#15897966)
    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 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jbssm ( 961115 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:40AM (#15898121)
      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.
      • 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 w

    • It's why I want to shoot anybody who actually buys this sort of phrasing, such as what the RIAA is giving us.

      Better shoot those that use such language to achieve their goals - those buying it can still be educated.

      How about "We Will Prevail" [amazon.com] (by now a whole book full of Newspeak instead of just another rallying cry - read the user reviews at amazon!) or "Islamic Fascism" [zaman.com]? Would you shoot?

  • I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:55AM (#15897976)
    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?
    • Lyrics sites are being shut down. As well as they can anyway. Most of them are hosted overseas, and there isn't much the RIAA can do, try as they may. I think it's hillarious. If people know how to play the song, they will play it, and others will hear it, and then people will go buy the album. People won't not buy the album because they can play the songs themselves. Because it's really hard to drive down the interstate playing guitar, and your friends don't like it when you call them up at 3 in the m

    • Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Capt'n Hector ( 650760 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:40AM (#15898119)
      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...
  • Programmatically generate all possible guitar tablatures between 0 and 30 minutes. Then shut down artists who write new songs under 30 minutes for copyright infringement.

  • Too bad for amateurs, but I understand the concern (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pbooktebo ( 699003 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:13AM (#15898029)
    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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ph33r th3 g(O)at ( 592622 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:17AM (#15898039)
    Here's one, for example [archive.org]. 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.

  • Klezmer clarinet virtuoso concealed his fingering (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:21AM (#15898056) Homepage
    Naftule Brandwein, the Klezmer clarinet virtuoso, turned his back on the audience [amazon.com] 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.
    • 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.

      • Mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)

        by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) *
        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

  • The RIAA aren't the culprits- this time. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gottagetmac ( 995021 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:22AM (#15898064)
    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.
  • I use http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ [ultimate-guitar.com] - it has everything I need. The ratings system is a welcome addition, and the forums and reviews are nice.
  • Do you know how many times I have gone and BOUGHT the track that I am trying to learn how to play? Guitar Tabs SELL music....

  • They sell at about $5 per song.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:34AM (#15898103) Journal

    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 [musicnotes.com]. 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 [recordare.com] sheet music?

    • I never got tabs, they're often incorrect and missing a lot of information.

      Well, that's why they are independent works and the take down is harassment. From the site owner:

      I have long been of the understanding that an original, by-ear transcription of a song, which is a duplicate of no copyrighted work and which generally deviates substantially from the work on which it is based is the property of its transcriber, and not the original composer of the song.

      If you are doing cover songs with a band, yo

  • I never used OLGA, it was always or seemed to always be spotty and there are plenty of other sites online that provide tabs and links to tabs more efficiently. Having said that, it's sad to see it go. One more avenue for free expression of user made tab interpretations of songs gone. Gone but replaced already. And if anything, being able to learn guitar, to be able to call up in an instant a tab or five for one song I'm learning on my guitar has sent me off buying those Mel Bay tab books and compilation tab
  • Back when I was first learning guitar before the internet became big, I would buy all kinds of books that had songs I wanted to learn. Then when OLGA came along I had no incentive to buy them anymore because a song was just a search box away. I don't think it has much to do with artist incentive as much as profit from those books. Music instrument stores have walls of those things.
  • It takes a heartless recording corporation to believe that the only incentive for creating music is money.

  • Not the DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @10:49AM (#15898152) Homepage
    The site was not "shut down by the DMCA". It was shut down by copyright law.

  • Poor Quality (Score:2, Informative)

    by Nerdfest ( 867930 )
    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 ...
  • Are they for real? Back in the days when I was practicing guitar I had to listen to the tunes myself and write down the chords.
    Songbooks where to expensive and the web wasnt there yet. So would this mean I am breaking copyright?

    Am I breaking copyright law by LISTENING to the music or what?? Its plain insane!
  • 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!
  • 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 si

  • If money is your incentive... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mushadv ( 909107 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @11:50AM (#15898362)
    ...then you shouldn't be making music.

  • * /long angry rant on* (Score:4, Interesting)

    by extra the woos ( 601736 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @11:52AM (#15898366)
    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.

  • Wanna really get the RIAA fired up? (Score:4, Funny)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @11:56AM (#15898381)

    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.

  • Eventually, (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Progman3K ( 515744 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @02:29PM (#15898899)
    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 [slashdot.org] 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.

  • I wonder how this affects music teachers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dvNull ( 235982 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @07:02PM (#15899816) Homepage
    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.

  • Why is it in RIAA's interest to destroy music? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by robbak ( 775424 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @09:35PM (#15900295) Homepage
    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.

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