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.
Is it their property (Score:2, Insightful)
Copyright delenda est (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Fair use. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
MPA win anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IP issues. (Score:5, Insightful)
Shall we outlaw whistling next?
Fair use is not republishing (Score:4, Insightful)
"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. It probably includes looking at your tablature and performing it in a public venue with the appropriate payments made to whatever organization "collects" the performance royalties. However publishing that tablature on the web (distribution) is something entirely different. I *am not* saying it is something bad, just that it is something that is not fair use.
This is simply Asinine. (Score:2, Insightful)
Culture Growth (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is it their property (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Reverse Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
In and of itself, for an in-house project? Sure. If it's patented it needs to be in the patent description, so fuddling around to better understand that patent (so you can use it the day it expires) is fine. If it's just copyritten, the ideas therein aren't protected.
But by and large, writing down the fingerings of a song isn't going after ideas -- it's going after the specific collection of them. It's like, as I say elsewhere, writing down the script of a play. Or to be
Take a running Jump.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why?
If the write down just TWO Notes then there will most likely be some other works of music that uses those same two notes in that sequence. If that piece of music is copyrighted then tough luck, you are in violation of the prior art's copyright which will pprobably be in violation of a previous piece of work. Repeat this back in time until the legal period of copyright has expired.
IMHO, Any TWO notes is a sequence can pretty well be regarded as a SAMPLE of a previous work. If so then it can be regarded in the strictest opinion of the law a breach of copyright.
As an alternative, think of what this could mean to journalism
There you are at a press conference and you write down in shorthand, the words of the person speaking. Those words are thier copyright buy by writting them down, you have then violated that copyright. Gtanted, your copy might not me 100% accurate but shouldn't the same law apply?
After all, aren't you writing down the sounds you have heard? What is the differenct between the spoke word and music? They are after all, just vibrations in the atmosphere.
IANAL etc
Re:How is that different than my book review examp (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Copyright delenda est (Score:4, Insightful)
Transcribing a song for your own study and private performance is covered under the Fair Use exception. Publishing it is not.
The rights owner can prevent others from publishing an exact copy or a derivative work. That's what makes a copyright valuable. Publishing a composition in a different notation style is still publishing the composition.
Sure it's sad that there isn't another source for these tablatures. Maybe the publishers are thinking of getting into the tablature business. Maybe they are just really short-sighted and think that they can force people to buy the standard notation versions. Maybe the publishing companies will suffer by doing this. But that is their prerogative.
Re:Says who? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure how that is relevant. Reviews contain excerpts not the entire work, and guitartabs was publishing neither reviews nor parodies. It essentially publishes a form of sheet music.
Re:Tab books? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IP issues. (Score:4, Insightful)
So to expand on my last post, be careful what you whistle. Some day soon, someone may come along and tell you that you that you owe them a royalty for that performance of their intellectual property.
Re:Fair use. (Score:4, Insightful)
"It is bleedingly obvious that tablature is made and distributed for scholarship. In fact, I was attempting to teach my self how to play bass guitar. I got relatively good at it until the tab sites started shutting down. Now I haven't practiced in months."
While you make some good points, I think you go too far in inferring that the copyright holders' defending of their rights is to blame for your not practicing.
I learned to play guitar in the days before the Internet. I did so using books of songs. I had a Beatles songbook that probably cost all of $10, and similar collections. They did just fine in giving me songs to learn to play. On occasion I would buy the sheet music for one particular song -- at two or three bucks, it was not a bargain compared to the collections -- but it was not a financial hardship.
"The sheet music publishers need to get over themselves. People who want to casually learn to play an instrument aren't going to go and pay hundreds of dollars for lessons and buy the sheet music of their favorite artists."
Paying for lessons and buying sheet music aren't linked. One can do one, the other, or both. Sheet music is readily available pretty cheaply; this is unrelated to the cost of lessons.
"The really sad thing is that these lawsuits are killing what copyright was designed to protect, promotion of the arts."
The music publishers are doing this because they want to launch their own ad-supported sites with tabs, lyrics, and sheet music. Keep in mind that music publishers are very often the composers and lyricists themselves; with few exceptions, composers and lyricists get a much bigger piece of the pie vs. CD sales, and the revenue stream for music publishing typically bypasses the record company altogether -- and this is a good thing. We talk about ways to support the artists without supporting the record companies... this is a great way to do it.
Here's how it works out for supporting the composers and lyricists for the various methods of getting your sheet music and tabs:
Now, back to guitartabs. Here we have the situation of a third party (the webmaster) making money off of somebody else's work even though they were not part of the creative process. This is exactly why we hate the record companies, because they do something very similar.
If you want to support artists, that's great -- I agree with you 100%. Why not buy the sheet music and tabs you want, or wait and use the tab/lyric sites operated by the publishers themselves? That way, you support the artists, not some guy who's making a living by making unauthorized copies of others' work.
Your support of guitartabs sounds similar to the common rationale for P2Ping music -- sure, the artist doesn't make any money, but you are "supporting" the artist by reproducing their work. I think a majority of artists would agree that financial support is better.
Re:Is it their property (Score:4, Insightful)
This is getting ridiculous... (Score:2, Insightful)
Our species thirsts for knowledge, striving for ever greater understanding of all the facets of the organic and the inorganic, as well as thought and form, including music.
We've progressed by sharing information for thousands of years and that included songs and music for worship, history, mythology, and just plain fun. Anyone who would restrinct that geneticly instilled curiosity, regardless of their claims of "protection" actually does far more harm than good.
Simply put, it's unnatural for us to not share information. Musicians understand it, they (borrow) are influenced by other musicians and their music so why can't the people that represent those same artists get with the program?
Re:Fair use. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the sheet music and tabs I want aren't available for purchase anywhere, yet they're still subject to takedown notices on every tab site I know. So please tell exactly what am I to do in this situation?
Re:Reverse Engineering (Score:4, Insightful)
The brain is identifying the tonal root, rhythm, chords, and the relations between chords. Is this illegal also? Is it illegal to tell your band buddy: Hey did you hear that? That was an awesome change to the parallel key when they went from the A to the C chord? Silly stuff.
Re:Fair use. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pray tell, how does that promote the useful arts and sciences?
Re:Stairway (Score:4, Insightful)
This was in no way making us money, or losing any money for the record companies. We weren't choosing to listen to Midis over buying CDs or anything like that. Oh sure, you can argue maybe we were abstaining from buying sheet music over using the tabs, but at the same time - most of what we played did not have sheet music transcriptions for all instruments.
And being able to have your song in tab notation, sheet music notation and have it playable as a Midi (for all instruments) is a lot more useful than just having the sheet music for one instrument in a book.
With mysongbook.com down, not only are tabs a lot harder to find, but it's harder to find the higher quality ones, or ones that include all instruments (instead of just guitars+bass).
This is nothing but greed - record companies trying to work out if they can make money off tabs...and until they can work that out, banning any other distributions all together.
~Jarik
Re:Reverse Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine going to an artist's gallery, and you see a well-done drawing and decide to sit there and draw it yourself. The artist would probably yell at you, and the legality of copying it like that is probably in a sort of grey-area, depending on how you intend to use it. However, you can't go and make copies then go selling them to people or places... He solely has copyright on the work and chooses how and where to distribute it. You have no right to sell copies of his drawing.
But say you wrote notes on where he drew certain lines and how he used shading for an interesting effect, and interpreted what sort of style he was going for. Basically you're writing a review of the work. To me that's what guitar tabs are. Sort of like reverse engineering, but it's mostly like a guideline of what the music sounds like.
I'm guessing that to have a situation like the one in the gallery, you would have to break into an artist's house and copy his personal tabs or sheet music that he wrote for the music, then distribute copies of that. It's very different that listening to a song and guessing how it's played.
I can't see at all how guitar tabs infringe on copyrights, lessen the value of the music, or prevent the sales of albums. And those would seem to be the only reasons for taking them down, to me at least.
re: I disagree... it's not a zero sum game.... (Score:3, Insightful)
For starters, a lot of tab out there is really poor. Very inaccurate, or only partial tabs - made by some kid who wanted to share the fact that he "finally figured out the guitar chords for the first chorus" or what-not. If I can choose between one of these "unofficial" tab collection sites, or a real, "authorized" one that's still free to use (ad-supported), guess which one I'll pick?
But pissing off all the practicing/budding musicians who are currently trying to learn using whatever they can get, from sites like guitartabs.com, doesn't make any sense. "Hey, come use us now! We're the ones that forced legal shutdowns of all the sites you knew and loved before, so you KNOW we're a friendly, helpful bunch!"
This isn't Fair Use (Score:1, Insightful)
1) They typically publish the entire guitar part, not just chord progressions or a portion of the entire song. (Fair use would generally require a portion)
2) Users of tabs might be using them for "study" but Guitartabs.com certainly isn't, and that's who's being sued. They're making other people's IP available for free and getting paid with advertising.
3) There's a huge market for guitar tabs (via songbooks) that are properly licensed via publishing deals between artists, their publishing companies, and agents like Hal Leonard. Guitartabs.com is circumventing that and claims of Fair Use generally need to respect (or at least not threaten significantly) existing markets.
This isn't to stop anyone from making their own transcriptions -- just don't build a web site and make money from it unless you've got permission.