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."

Infuriating

One thing i cant stand is big companies taking "legal" action against free services just so they can charge the user money. Infuriating.

Re:Infuriating

So am I violating the license by possessing an unlicensed copy of (read "have memorized") a song?

Yes.

All your brains are belong to us.

- Music industry

Re:Infuriating

All your brains are belong to us.

- Music industry

When you think about it, the there are a few similarities between the RIAA and a shambling herd of zombies.

• Both believe that they have a right to our brains, when in fact, they have no such right.
• They don't have any brains to speak of, which probably explains the zeal with which they pursue ours.
• As somewhat uncaring entities, both will not hesitate to destroy other people, even the progress of civilization itself in carrying out their vague goals.
• Both are pretty stupid. They are slow to react to external threats and changes, and seem to respond with aggressive action, rather than adapting with inventive and innovative ideas.

Uncanny!

Re:Infuriating

One thing i cant stand is big companies taking "legal" action against free services just so they can charge the user money. Infuriating.

It's not even the money that bothers me, it's that it flies in the face of the whole intent of copyright: that by temporarily granting limited monopolies, society benefits. I imagine the following scenario:

A young guy picks up a guitar and messes around with it. He can't play a thing, and isn't really interested in investing the time to take proper lessons. He discovers OLGA. He downloads a few simple tabs of Nirvana songs. He works his way up to Metallica, Alice in Chains. He eventually realizes his technique could use some improvement. He starts downloading Bach, Beethoven, etc., because they present more of a challenge. Eventually, he is playing complex works like Leyenda and Capricho Arabe.

Eventually, he notices there is something fundamentally different in the approach modern music takes from classical music. It "moves" differently. He starts to pay attention to the notes, chord changes, rhythms, and eventually decides that the IT career that he never really cared for just doesn't compete with the idea of learning and perhaps teaching music. He signs up for music theory at his local college. It turns out his technique is good, and he has a knack for music theory, he has perfect pitch, and has such a knack at piano that he has gone from barely being able to read a staff to playing Bach Preludes and Beethoven. All in all, a promising student. He has a 4.0 GPA and a letter of recommendation to one of the most prestigious music colleges in the US where he will study music theory.

Not so far fetched, that's me. I wouldn't be going for a masters in music theory (or composition, I haven't quite decided) had it not been for OLGA helping me learn that I have quite a knack for music to begin with. If I had to stick to public domain stuff, I probably would have given up. I simply didn't expect it to be anything but a hobby I did when I came home from programming all day. But OLGA got me started enough to realize that, for me at least, it was worth the investment.

Society benefits from the free and open spread of information. Copyright is just a means to that end: provide incentives for artists to continue creating. But IP is not Freedom of Speech or Habaeus Corpus - it is not a fundamental right. The DMCA hurts society, and I hope to God that somebody important pays attention to the fact that it is being used to shut down educational sites.

In fact, now that I think about it, nothing that was copyrighted after I was born will move into the public domain before I die of old age... That goes for me, you, my kids, anybody born within the past 20 years. Do you remember when it came out? Then you will never see it in the public domain. But no, apparently we need even tougher copyright controls, can't have people learning how to make the music that got you rich enough to buy the politicians who keep sponsoring idiotic legislation like the DMCA in the first place. Idiots. /rant

Re:Infuriating

Thank you. The spread of information benefits society in general, while its restriction benefits the inviduals who hold the keys.

Communist countries may forget that society does not function without individuals, but America seems to have forgotten that individuals operating outside of society can bring it down.

BTW, congrats on your new career. I wouldn't call it a common path, but that's besides the point. Nothing like discovering what your true love is.

It's somewhat sad, isn't it?

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.

Re:Infuriating

It's been four years now since I bought any music, if I'm of a mind for some I tune a radio in or browse the many indie sites that offer free or cheap music. Frankly this whole music industry Jihad is pissing me off.

Time was I used to buy albums every couple of weeks, I must have spent thousands. I was so offended by their criminalising kids for doing what kids do, share, recommend stuff to each other, and have a laugh without understanding the 'consequences' (what kid ever does?). Now they're criminals, advised to drop out of college and wreck their futures as an example to others.

Bullshit. Nothing produced by an industry like that is of interest to me.

Make music illegal

If things keep progressing at this rate, and if they do start enforcing these fucking insane laws, it'll only be a matter of a few years before owning music is undesirable as it would be difficult ot prove any music is legit and could have you thrown into jail at any moment.

Why not just cut out all the BS and just make any kind of music ownership illegal. Musical instruments could be covered by the DMCA too since they can be used to copy (read play) a tune.

Oh that's we can't skip the BS right, because rich greed assholes can a make profit for a while this way.

Owning/buying music is quickly becoming no different morally to owning/buying blood diamonds. Hell, if they make musical instruments illegal perhaps the penalty for owning one could be that they cut off your hands.

IP law? It's just fucking entertainment. Get a grip!

Re:Make music illegal

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).

Re:Make music illegal

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.

OLGA taught me guitar.

Back in the day. This was a non-commercial use for educational purposes and they killed it, so screw them.

Already Killed

The Harry Fox Agency, which got its rights to "mechanical reproduction of music" by getting monopoly control over the piano roll market a century ago, has already taken down most tablature from the Web on its flimsy pretext to copyright (and its big lawyer and lobbyist payroll).

Tablatures are interpretations of the music as heard by someone. They're not even the public performance of music that whistling your favorite song as you walk down the street would be. But once public places are comprehensively wired for sound and video, Harry Fox will be sending you a bill for every time you do just that.

These insane government monopolies on content already part of folklore, from which folk activity they get nearly all their current value, must end. They are justified in the Constitution as a compromise with 1700s economics only "to promote progress in science and the useful arts". Instead, they now prohibit that progress. Copyrights must end no later than after a human generation of publication, shorter for media other than songs and books, and probably earlier than when 10x their registered production investment is recouped.

Re:Already Killed

Tell that to the OnLine Guitar Archive [olga.net] (OLGA):

OLGA is currently offline while we attempt to resolve legal issues with the archive.

We received a 'take down' letter (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 ) from lawyers representing the NMPA and the MPA.

Re:Already Killed

Lest we forget, it was Harry Fox who also did their best to do a takedown of all "unlicensed" MIDI archives a while back.

Evil bastards.

But we showed them; we learned how to download MP3s.

BooYah!

They're shooting themselves in the foot.

I really wonder if companies that go on the warpath over internet copyright violations really think in their long-term best interest. Look at the RIAA, for instance. For all of the money they've spent and the lawsuits they've threatened, they're back at square one when it comes to halting internet file sharing. Guitar tabs are even easier to redistribute. What makes Hal Leonard think that they'll do any better?

Who's "they"?

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.

Corporations take all the fun out of music...

just pick up your guitar and play.

educational resources DO have exemptions

IANAL but this is a valuable aspect of freedom of use.

I began playing guitar in 1995 and discovered OLGA [wikipedia.org] 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.

Re:educational resources DO have exemptions

I agree! OLGA was a great resource for learning how to play guitar. Art is 99% derivative. Olga was where guitarists spent time transcibing notes by ear in much the same way painters make copies of the Mona Lisa trying to learn their style and method. In my opinion, it is only a further honor to have your work meticulously copied down. Oh well, I'll probably have to tell my kids about the good old days when we were allowed to talk to each other over the internet about how to play riffs.

Re:educational resources DO have exemptions

IMO music is withering, and it started right about the same time a guy named Sonny Bono sponsored legislation to extend copyright terms. Musicians with real talent can't be faked or manufactured. It takes years and years of study, practice, and dedication. Unless you control a society's access to music so much that you can convince the public that utter garbage deserves a gold little trophy called a Grammy, the best music flourishes because ... well, there's yet to be another Bach. With the way things are set up, it's just a system of controlling the public. "We manufacture it. You will buy it." Sorry, I probably better quit posting. This has me pretty upset. (P. S. I'm following in your footsteps in terms of teaching music, hoping to get a Masters, but it's hard work. Cheers.)

Do they have say in this?

Is this not a threat to U.S. Constitutional rights. A person should have the ability to tell others about a way (s)he learned to play something extremely similar to a song. It is not actually the song, as most tabs are not 100% accurate. Therefore it is just a song the themselves made up, but is heavily based on the song they were trying to copy. Even if there isn't enough of a difference to distinguish one from another, the tab is still the fruit of their labor, and thus should be shared at their own will.

Self defeating?

And I wonder what this will do to the next generation of musicians? Back when I began learning how to play guitar, much of my progress was because of the availability of free tab, which allowed me to play along with CDs. It would be grimly appropriate if the industries pushing this kind of litigation were shooting themselves in the foot when the talent pool in 20 years has shrunk down as a result.

Re:Self defeating?

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.

Nothing New Here...

Lots of the larger tabs sites have had takedown messages sent to them (example here [guitartabs.com]), which, quite frankly, sucks if you're trying to learn to play.

Re:Nothing New Here...

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.

How long will this go on?

Nine years ago, I was interviewed for this article [augusta.com] 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 [google.com].

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.

torrents

so this means to get tabs i go to piratebay and snatch a massive .RAR or every song i could possibly want to play, right?

Why shouldn't I share my efforts ??

If I have spent my own time trying to figure out the tabs/sheet music of a song, why shouldn't I share it with millions of others who may want that song's tabs?? Just because it takes business away from some other people doesn't mean they can put restrictions on my freedom and willingness to share my effort. Its not as if I have stolen the tabs from someplace where they were being legally sold. Its my time that I've spent. So whats the solution to such a problem? Or does this end up as a stalemate? These people are curbing the free flow of information and knowledge. I myself have learned guitar by looking at countless tabs from OLGA and other sites.

Paging Larry Flynt ....

Wait, you mean these sites Musicnotes and MXTabs feature BARELY LEGAL examples of rubbing and stroking and vibrating TIGHT thin little stringy things, all in a series of Web pages that have been deemed TOO REVEALING and EXPLICIT by the leading moral authorities?

And we can get all this too-racy-for-the-Web content for free right now for a limited time only in the privacy of our own homes, and it will help us learn to "play" like rock stars?

Hott.

Wait, what were talking about again?

Silly

All of OLGA can be zipped into like a 40mb file.

The music industry can't stop me from downloading a 300mb album.

The movie studios can't stop me from downloading an 1.4gb XviD.

The software industry can't stop me from downloading an 8gb ISO.

Who are these people kidding?

IP landgrab

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.

As a tin-eared wannabe, I despise them!

I can't play guitar by ear, so I am totally fucked if I want to learn to play a song that I can't get the tabs for legally. And the best part is?... I CANNOT BUY THE DAMN TABS EVEN THOUGH I'D PAY GOOD MONEY FOR THEM!!!

Part of the copyright law should be full sheet music and tablature for all music submitted to the library of Congress. That wouldn't hurt the songwriters, who'd probably be able to make even more money because all you'd have to do to get their work is go to the Library of Congress, download it and pay them their royalty. It'd only hurt the companies that selectively publish tablature.

And it would also benefit bands because it would encourage them to do cover songs, which would be yet another stream of revenue.

But no, a songwriter and band really benefits by shutting down the only way I could have gotten tabs for their music, without providing me any legal way to do it.

Morons. I hope the welfare office runs out of money for them and their families when they go bankrupt.

the tabs must be accurate enough...

Hal Leonard claimed that the tabs are inaccurate, made by kids. If the tabs are really inaccurate, then I would think that the users of the tabs wouldn't be happy with them, and this alleged tab black market would disappear.

The tabs must, on the contrary, be reasonably accurate for Hal Leonard to be noticing any loss of business, which, as TFA explains, they probably aren't.

Greed is Blind

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.

Interesting move from this company

Considering this company is capitalizing on the old Real Book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Book [wikipedia.org] 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.

Libel?

IANAL.

It looks to me like MxTabs would have a good chance of winning a libel suit over this (and possibly other stuff like 'interfering with a business relationship' or something.) The letter repeatedly claims they are publishing illegal music, when in fact it is all authorized. Indeed, the letter is trying to convince people not to grant permission to MxTabs, which would be utterly pointless if MxTabs were illegally ignoring permissions. (Other bits might also be libelous, but this is the stand-out obvious one.)

However, the likelihood of winning in court does not guarantee that there is a good business case for suing.

Is there a lawyer in the house who might like to comment?

Feeling the Pain

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.

Re:Feeling the Pain

Okay. You are losing access to guitar tab transcriptions because of the activities of Hal Leonard Inc. Your response would be to burn the books from that place that you already own and lose access to even more guitar tabs?
Be sensible. Post the contents of your Hal Leonard books on your website (preferably behind password guards) or on the Pirate Bay, where anyone with technical skills can find them. Surely that would be more fitting a punishment.

Tabs aren't going anywhere

Ok, so published tabs are under fire. People will do what they have always done: learn popular songs and teach other people and maybe put the tabs online. Seriously: apart from guitar mags, who buys tabs? I think I bought two tab books during my teenage days (one for Metallica and one for Soundgarden Superunknown). That's not much.

The real problem is that sites like olga.net get taken down because of OCILLA [wikipedia.org], which is ridiculous. I mean, how is posting tabs to popular songs bad? It's no different than what people did before the net, that is, teach other people how to play songs. It's not as though anyone learning songs from TAB is going to put the original musicians out of business (it's TAB!!! for goodness sake!). Besides, one of the biggest honors a band/songwriter can have is legions of cover bands playing their music.

OCILLA is just another example of the GREEDY MAFIAA stepping on musicians, both professional and amateur. I am sure you could count on your hand the musicians who oppose kids/cover bands playing their music, so this is obviously the suits. Sad. Don't they have more no-talent losers to ink deals with like Britney and Jesse McCartney?

Hal Leonard writes CRAP Music

These Hal Leonard folks are pretty music illiterate. I have used their junk. How can you copyright crap?
 
I will post a guitar B Sharp cord (B# = C) lol. I dare almighty Hal 9000 to censor it!
 
  Censor This HAL!

_______________
  E A D G C E
  | | | | O |
  | | O | | |
  | O | | | |
  | | | | | |

Why are TABs not clean room?

I've always believed that TABs should be treated just like clean room design. Unless you can prove that the person who detailed out his way to play a song did so using unlicensed means (something like took official tab book and published it as his own). I really don't know how even a misinterpreted TAB could be property of the label who owns the song recording. I guess this is just one more piece of evidence that the whole patent/copyright system needs to be re-looked at, because it's just completely fucked up as-is.

ABC format is another threatened format

In addition to TAB, the ABC [plus.com] format is also being threatened by Hal Leonard Publishing. ABC is probably more of a threat to their revenue stream because it can easily be translated into midi and into sheet music. A lot of traditional musicians use this format and the many ABC readers that are available online. Many prefer this to published books not just because it is free, but because the music is closer to the way the songs are really played.

Potentially

There are potentially too many potentialities in the summary.

It doesn't run on Linux! Bad site design!

I'm running Kubuntu 7.04 and Firefox 2.0.0.3 and I tried to access a song on MusicNotes.

"We're sorry, but we are unable to show you this digital sheet music. That would require our Viewer plugin, which is not yet available for your current web browser and/or operating system."

They ought to consider using open formats like MusicXML [wikipedia.org] and running the picture||PDF generator for the browser to show on the server-end.

Beyond that, why do web authors continually insist on fixed width pages where upped font sizes will never work and plus it looks bad? My Firefox is set to 12 pt minimum so it messes up that page. Ever since I really started looking into web accessibility like a year ago, I have stemmed away from using invisible tables for page layout and fixed width for my designs.

Oblig Simpsons Reference

This reminds me so much of the ep where the Simpsons are Christmas caroling to various neighbours, and they come across Burns's lawyer. He informs that they can't sing certain carols due to copyright by Disney. Homer promptly goes "D'oh!", as he does. The lawyer says "That was D flat, also copyright Disney. You may use any other note you like. "D'oh!" in C#. It would be funny if it wasn't so completely ridiculous.

Re:Oblig Simpsons Reference

That reminds me of this site: http://everything2.com/?node_id=1029506 [everything2.com]

He talks about a court case that determined only 4 notes had to be in common to violate copyright. With that logic, he determined that there are only 46,656 distinct melodies.

Assume that all songs use a Western musical scale and that such a scale contains twelve distinct intervals. Assume that a judge (not a musician but a judge) will distinguish three distinct note durations (which roughly correspond to eighth, quarter, and half notes, or through a trivial change in time signature, to quarter, half, and whole notes, or to sixteenth, eighth, and quarter notes). Thus, there are 36 possible distance vectors from one note to the next, and 36^(n - 1) melodies of n notes.

And not all of those would be worth listening to... so pretty much any 4-notes you play probably violate someone's copyright.

That noise you hear...

... is Woody Guthrie spinning in his grave so fast it's affecting the Earth's orbit.

Tablature accuracy

The damn tabs are usually wrong anyway I've found! But I would hate to see these disappear! What's next? Banning audacity so that guitarists/bassists like myself won't be able to slow down songs while preserving pitch to find out what the musicians were doing?

So what doesn't infringe?

If I was to write down, for example, the button sequences you press in guitar hero to perform a song from the game, would that infringe artist copyright?

e.g. does:

'green green yellow red green green green green green green green green green green green yellow green red green' infringe an artist's copyright? If so, whose? and why?

and, if i wrote down:E E G B E E E E E E E E E E E B G A# F#, does that infringe an artist's copyright? If so, whose? and why?

and if i wrote down:

------2------------------------2---1---
0-0-3---0 -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0---3---2

does that infringe an artist's copyright? If so, whose, and why?

And if i was to assign a number to each note, who's copyright does:

001001003026001001001001001001001001001001026004 0025002 infringe?

I just don't see where the infringement comes from? Who am I copying here? Am I copying at all, or did I just make that riff up?

A songbook publisher doesn't like this...

A songbook publisher doesn't like the idea of guitar tabs made available free.

No kidding.

In related news, Turkeys are said to be very concerned about the celebration of Christmas and US-based turkeys have expressed concern over thanksgiving.

Furthermore, the Pope shits in the woods and bears are generally catholic.

Porn? No. Tab!

The very first thing I did when I got online was not rummaging around for porn (there would be plenty of time for that!), it was a search for all of the Primus bass tab that I could get my hands on. It was the reason I wanted to get the 'net. I was at a friend's place and he went to WebCrawler and did a search for me. I was awed that there was such a resource potentially at my disposal. I was surfing the net within a week of that day.

Alternatives to tab

Tab websites getting harrassed by corporate interests really angers me. But, there are alternatives too. The best way to learn a song on your own (next to tab) is to slow the song down in Windows Media Player or Guitar & Drum Trainer freeware. You can slow it down to half speed or more, loop it, and pick out the notes yourself. This is usually more accurate than tab. I would never never never pay for tablature, so I say stop harrassing people who share guitar knowledge online. Corporations do not own the internet or should be allowed to police free speech.

Are cheat codes and walkthroughs next?

This whole thing makes me wonder if it's going to be illegal to post cheat codes, walkthoughs, game FAQs, etc, online now. After all, the companies which publish the game hint books have to be galled at the fact that people are putting online for free the same kind of information which goes into those ultra-expensive to publish game strategy guides and hint manuals. While people might derive it from independent sources (like actually playing the game), it might not matter to the copyright gestapo... This does raise another question: Are gamers going to start using code to post game FAQs online? So, instead of "Go to the well, talk to the purple elf and when the three orcs attack, kill them and take their amulets," it'll be: "Move legs by drinky-drinky, move mouth near the 420nm wavelength reflecting object which may be IP of the Tolkien estate, non-Gandhi the 4 minus 1 525nm wavelength reflecting objects which are IP of the Tolkien estate, remove neckline apparel."

Quality...

They do have a good point on the quality side of things...

Very, very few tabs on sites like Olga come even close to the quality of a decent tab book.

F5, A#5, G5, C5 may well be the chords to the main part of Teen Spirit but tells me nothing about strum patterns, rhythm, which strings I should be missing on certain strums, etc. It tells me nothing about C and F notes that chime out afterwards.

Ironically, for all the claims of "I'm not good enough to figure out how to play a song by ear..." - to use most online tabs, aside from getting pointed in the right direction, you really do need to have an ear for rhythm, an ear for when exactly the chord changes happen, what the strum patterns are, when to use up vs. downstrokes, etc.

There is a major problem in the printed music world that only better known artists merit the expense of producing a good tab book and that most of those books are only available via special order. Still, when they do exist, when you can find them (this is starting to sound like the A-Team), the world of difference between them and the average tab is astronomical.

I'm caught in the middle: I'd hate to see high quality publishing disappear but I also don't see low quality, text based tabs (that often have five different, all disagreeing, version) really being that much of a threat.

Then again, in a world where record companies are trying to shore up CD sales, about about including a DVD with video files of exactly what the artists' hands did when playing the songs, lyrics and scores included? Given the choice between iTunes' $0.99 a limited song and $1.29 an unlocked one, I'd rather drop $15 on an album that'll teach me how to play its content as well. Sure, on a one-off basis, those costs would be huge but if it were done for every album, economies of scale could turn it in to a day's filming, a quick editing job and a day or two of a cheap person transcribing it.

Breaking the DMCA?

So if I figure out the chords to a song, could that be legally construed as decrypting some publisher's IP? I listen to the song, and reverse engineer it so that I can duplicate it.......... IANAL but I could imagine some scenario where an over-the-top executive decided to go after those chord pirates!

Insane!!

Grass roots movement anyone???

So, I've read through a lot of the posts here and RTFA. One poster made an excellent suggestion. That suggestion would be to try to get the artists themselves behind this to an end that would hopefully return OLGA to the world.

I discovered OLGA well after I started to learn guitar and in some cases, OLGA taught me what I thought I heard was flat out WRONG!!! I've got a couple of tabs posted in OLGA and around the internet at other tab sites and there is a notice that it's my interpretation of the song. I just found it a few minutes ago.

Getting back to my point, I fully support the notion of bringing this to the attention of artists that may very well care about this issue and the lack of future learning and influence that will occur without the tab community. If any folks are interested please email me privately and we'll see if we can get together online and get something off the ground. We could draft some kind of letter and send it out to artists and groups that care about music and the learning process of music.

Some examples of contact of those that might care about this and possibly help...

Pearl Jam
Queensryche
Metallica (I'm going to get shot for this one)
Black Label Society
Ozzy
Cheryl Crow
Rush
VH-1's Save the Music Foundation (maybe???)

I've personally had it with this attitude of "revenue through litigation". Tabs are our (read the common person's) interpretation of how we hear a song played. I miss OLGA and it's time to bring it back.

I hope to hear from some folks a maybe this can become something that gets noticed.

simply insane

What I find the most disturbing is that most of such sites like olga.net which host individual guitarists interpritations of popular songs. There is a difference between postin the actual notes and what a person thinks is the actual notes. In most cases the submitted works are derivitives and are not completely accurate. Which is not illegal since musical notes themselves can not be copyrighted, only melodies can be. Artists use what's called sampling in their songs which are actual soundbits from other songs which ARE copyrighted and are not royality free. However, if you change the notes abit or add additional notes throughout, then you are actually changing the song, thus not the same song and not copyrighted material. Also most copyrighted materials may be used for personal entertainment such as viewed at home or the like. This whole thing is one step away from making it illegal to borrow your friends dvd's to watch in the privacy of your own home and then later return.

One major problem

is the whole public domain migration process..
At what point does the transcription of a song, or knowledge of how to play it become common knowledge.

Is there anyone who plays guitar who doesn't know how to play or know the key riff of:
smells like teen spirit
stairway to heaven
enter sandman

etc.

what's next a crackdown on wikipedia by encyclopedia makers and people who want to sell you that knowledge?
It almost goes without saying that they will target gamefaqs.com next.

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty. Shouldn't they have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you deliberately went out and copied or enetered via hand the tab from their book or one of their publications. How else could I be infringing on their copyright.

If there is no publicly availble (via sale) tab book for an album could I even possibly infringe on it by posting a tab. Or wouldn't I then have the tab and now the publisher would infringing on my copyright?

Are they going to target how-to guide on the internet next saying you should by the instruction manual?

Much as VCR was excluded for its degrade of quality compared to live broadcast and dvd back in the day, shouldn't a text file containing nothing but fret numbers and such (aka not a pdf) recieve the same safety.

Why don't i just quickly write a program to generate all the 4 note patterns of notes, and post that.
Yes I understand there is a serious issue that they have some claim too in regards to people copying the stuff straight out of the tab books and then posting it, but to me it seems like the manner in which they are restricting is going beyond their rights. Instead of preventing me from doing that, they are now preventing me from legitimate activity.

Furthermore any band that allows taping at concerts shouldn't be allowed to do this because you could just record what they do and write a tab from that...

Re:And copyright law says...

(Score:0, Offtopic)

Is not [lyrics007.com] Come out and fight like a man!* What are ya? Chicken?

*That is, when you're done exchanging...er...fluids.

Re:Drum Tabs

At least when MXTabs re-launches as a legal service, drum tabs will be included as well.