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.
IP issues. (Score:5, Interesting)
But if a song is IP, why does it matter how it was copied? Copying it by looking at the paper, or copying by listening... It only takes a more talented individual.
It's like saying that it's legal to copy DVDs, but only if you're talented enough to crack the encryption yourself, with no help.
It either IS or IS NOT legal to copy it, there should be no 'only if by this method' BS.
Appropriate response (Score:5, Interesting)
I have not yet decided what response is appropriate.
Don't give in to bullies.. the law is on your side.
Evolving definitions (Score:5, Interesting)
Reverse Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Insanity (Score:3, Interesting)
Good Luck (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is it their property (Score:2, Interesting)
That doesn't make too much sense. I mean, if instead of photocopying an electronics schematic I manually draw a new one, with the original right there for reference, is that "my work"?
Why is republisher's greed ok? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is a misrepresentation, a straw man. Transcribing is not the issue. Publishing the transcription, in effect republishing the original artist's work, is the issue.
hmmm... perhaps Greed?
Who's greed? The greed of the owner of the copyrighted work who wishes to control publication or the greed of the web site operator who wants ad revenue?
Re:Appropriate response (Score:3, Interesting)
When they do, file the appropriate DMCA response outlining why the material isn't infringing.
Except that it clearly is. You can create sheet music based on copyrighted material and publish it, either. Sheet music publishing rights and performance recording rights are separate animals, but both have clear copyright protection.
Even some anti-copyright people recognize that taking a book, making copies of it, and selling the copies is not really appropriate. This is exactly the same thing. Guitartabs.com is making money (via advertising) from other people's published work.
Re:Is it their property (Score:2, Interesting)
3 chords (Score:5, Interesting)
1-1-4-1-5-4-1-5
Three chords that are the base, in that very same order, of at least one third of every rock'n'roll and blues tunes known by human.
Guitar tabs are not the tune. The tune is the combination of the melody, the lyrics, the chords, the arrangements and the feeling of the band. Finally, this story is all again a try to patent the wheel.
Re:IP issues. (Score:3, Interesting)
Guitar tabs aren't copying. It's a transcription and summary created by someone who knows the notation and can ascertain an approximation of what happened.
So what about Cliff's Notes? Outlines? Chord charts? Sentence diagrams? Sitting down and listening to the record over and over to figure out the lyric?
The record company has copyrighted the recording. The songwriter has copyrighted the melody and lyrics. The publisher has control over sheet music. Is the arrangement copyrightable? Nope. The 16 bar blues progression? Nope. How about whether the rhythm guitarist used open D tuning or played barre chords? Nope. Seems to me a map of fingering -- which may not be strictly correct -- is more like Cliff's notes than photocopying the sheet music, a clear infringement. I suppose the concept of derivative work may be applied and maybe this means the commercial exploitation of guitar tab formatted transcriptions would be infringement. Sounds pretty gray to this non-lawyer.
But these nastygrams are an aggressive expansion of copyright practice on behalf of the music publishers, who would prefer to get a share of nothing to having no share in something. Sounds like the legal department needed a reason to keep employed.
Very simple fix (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Stairway (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stairway (Score:5, Interesting)
I had so much sympathy for the guitar shop employee. Imagine every wanna-be rocker coming in to try to play Stairway, butchering it every single time. The whole idea of a single note being enough to identify the song was at the same time good for a laugh, and scary to think that American copyright law kept the film makers from using more than a one note before violating the law.
the AC
Re:Reverse Engineering (Score:3, Interesting)
What if.... (Score:3, Interesting)
A web site allows anonimous upload of a track, and returns a computed tablature for this track. Is chord computing illegal in the USA?
That's simply foolish, please someone set up such a web site to show how ridiculous is to forbid musical notations.
Re:Copyright delenda est (Score:3, Interesting)
In the 19th Century, authors and producers of popular musical entertainment (such as, at the time, Gilbert & Sullivan) had to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent "entrepreneurial" productions of their works appearing on the American stage within weeks of the London production as a result of transcribers busily noting down the entire work in the audience - the Victorian equivalent of a "screener".
You can reasonably debate whether copyright is a "good thing" and how long it should last, but if there is to be copyright, then being able to transcribe by ear is just as much a copyright infringement as photocopying the sheet music.