Guitartabs.com Suspends Under Legal Pressure 348
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.
Stairway (Score:5, Funny)
WTF??? (Score:4, Funny)
The Music Publishers Association of America???
Isn't the RIAA enough??
You Americans hate music... huh?
Do a rot13 equivalent (Score:3, Funny)
Re:WTF??? (Score:4, Funny)
Nah. We just love Associations.
Re:IP issues. (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, I can't even sign "Happy birthday!" to my kid, I have to use some open-source song such as "Today is the anniversary of your birth!" with similar hooks, but not quite.
Thank you very much, copyright laws. You've made our world a better place!
Copyright (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Stairway (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stairway (Score:3, Funny)