Yes, what a great idea: shut down guitar tablature sites where music students practice learning songs. You'd think the copyright thugs would be smarter about attacking their customers, but apparently not.
E-Commerce Report: Now the Music Industry Wants Guitarists to Stop Sharing
In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites.The Internet put the music industry and many of its listeners at odds thanks to the popularity of services like Napster and Grokster. Now the industry is squaring off against a surprising new opponent: musicians.
In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “Highway to Hell” and thousands of others.
The battle shares many similarities with the war between Napster and the music recording industry, but this time it involves free sites like Olga.net, GuitarTabs.com and MyGuitarTabs.com and even discussion boards on the Google Groups service like alt.guitar.tab and rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature, where amateur musicians trade “tabs” — music notation especially for guitar — for songs they have figured out or have copied from music books.
I've been using Olga.net and similar companies for years, most of the songs transcribed are not from music books, they are from musicians listening to songs closely, and making educated guesses as to chord progressions. Copyright thugs are ruining music (which has always, always been a collaborative effort).
Russia has looser rules, apparently:
Doug Osborn, an executive vice president with Ultimate-Guitar.com said his site violated no laws because its headquarters were in Russia, and the site’s practices complied with Russian laws.Jacqueline C. Charlesworth, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Music Publishers’ Association, would not comment on the legality of specific sites, including Ultimate-Guitar, but she said she had seen no international licensing agreements that might make free United States distribution of guitar tablature legal.
and here's the dirty truth: plenty of these transcribed songs aren't even available for purchase anyway
The free tablature sites often host vibrant communities of musicians, who rate each other’s tablature and trade ideas and commentary, and Musicnotes would have to find a way to replicate that environment on its site. Furthermore, these communities often create tablature for songs that have little or no commercial value, he said.“Less than 25 percent of the music out there ends up in sheet music because sometimes it just doesn’t pay to do it,” Mr. Reiland said. “So the fact that someone comes up with a transcription themselves just because they love that song and want to share it with people, there’s some value to that.”
