I am sure this is a touchy issue with many uptight music types. But I have to say this attack on online tablature is pretty absurd.

In most cases, these are interpretations of songs, and by no means, the be all and end all of the musical notation.

Guitar tab (in my humble opinion) is very beneficial to a budding musician until they can train themselves to play by ear.

The music companies attacking guitar tabs DO NOT CARE about the artists, they just want to find a way to make internet tabs profitable as they did MP3's. I did briefly study copyright law, and unless a well versed lawyer can clarify why tabs infringe on copyright laws, I am convinced this is nothing but a money making scheme for music companies. Obviously I am not alone in this thinking because the Music Publisher's Association is being challenged in the courts. I think with there funds, and vulture lawyers, MPA will probably win in the long run. Although I don’t have a vested interest in this since I rarely look at tabs anymore, I just wanted to vent on a topic I find ridiculous. I think young musicians can benefit from tabs and people’s interoperations of music should not be profited on. The harder people try to crack down on the use of the internet for sharing purposes, the bigger the backfire.

Rant over, flame away, I got my fireman's suit on.

Seems like a huge waste of time to go after a demographic that is notoriously broke all the time. In most cases the tabs are incomplete, completely opposite or down right wrong for a lot music.

Unless someone is scanning pages out of published book and posting them for profit. I don't see anything being more than a cease and desist order.

Personally I think tabs are great. I don't think I could have ever got to the level of suck that I am at now without them. Honestly

Yes Brian, this is a current development. I believe OLGA had repealed the original shut down and won, but now it is being taken to a higher court. So they (and other sites) have closed again while litigation continues.

I am not trying to step on toes here, and I agree that if books were stolen and posted on the internet note for note then that is indeed wrong and I am strongly against it. But, when individuals create tabs for private scholarly use, the music industry should have NO say in how people interrupt music. Why are lyrics okay to be posted online but not guitar tabs? Only a tiny fraction of online tabs have published book versions of songs. I just think the whole thing is pretty silly.

Idk where you guys been haha but this is been goin on for about 8 months or so now I believe...

Sadly everythings about money ;(

-Fly on little wing-

Couldn't Stand The Weather...

www.myspace.com/yougottabeshittenme
...add me...

Intellectual property is just that, and making money for it is the greatest incentive for it's creation. My ideas as an architect, for example, are mine to profit on. A "2-3 minute tune", if in demand, is entitled to a market value set by that demand. in other words if you are GOOD then you deserve to profit from your idea/creation/TUNE as much a the market will support that profit.

To say that an artist should limit his/her profit from their creative work is barbarian to say the least, Stalinist in the worse case; and in terms of just basic reality, unsustainable in a capitalist system.

Johnny: How can you limit "how much is enough" profit from one's "2-3 minute tune? again....communism is dead.

The record companies actually behave in a similar stalinist way as you do when you reduce a "2-3 minute tune" to be being unworthy of profit for its creator; The Companies try to limit distribution by force rather than by using the market itself. Many large corporations are too fat and slow to adapt to newer ways of distribution and profit, so they act-out like old fart bullies. The Internet and digital prototyping (copies that are originals) have changed the rules for porift and distrib. and these dino's ahve been slow tp figure it out.

Copyright laws are there to defend those who live from their ideas. Many of us produce "creations" for a living; we produce untangible things that have no direct material value (like a widget would, for example). If I design a building, nobody may replicate THAT design without paying me a royalty. If invent a certain aesthetic or look....I own the right to its use.

It's 100% fair. You have no right to steal my ideas; they are not public domain (YET; eventually they will be; they are MINE (up to a point set by legal interpretation or by statute of limitations).

If you see one of my buildings and like it, you cannot copy it. Not even partially. If I can prove that you copied something totally unique that I have copryrighted first, you will end up paying me for the right to reprodce MY idea. That's quite fair to those of us who have every right to live the American Dream of unrestricted financial growth limited only by our abilities in what we do for a living.

As the author/inventor of an idea, unless I know I can profit safely from my talents and efforts, I would have little or no reason to go on. It's unfair to ask all creative people to become philantropists just because the cro-mag stalin-loving majority out there do not understand the darwinian notion of "I thought about it first". heh

g

DaneBrammage_
JohnnyMosrite:

Do any of you get a future royalty for your day jobs.. royalties in teaching? NO. Royalties for making the cafe latte at Starbucks. NO. How about a royalty for being a sewer worker?? I think not. So..What's so blasted special about a 2-3 minute tune?

Flowmaster_G:

My ideas as an architect, for example, are mine to profit on.

I think it's worth pointing out the distinction between the sewer worker and the architect.

The sewer worker gets no royalties for his sewer because he is just an employee and has given up his rights to his work in return for a salary. If he built his own sewer and you wanted to use it (to dispose of that Starbucks latte), he certainly would have the right to expect payment.

The architect retains the rights to his work and can expect those rights to be protected by law. His greater potential reward is offset by the risk that nobody will be interested in his design and he will starve to death.

In the musical world, the sewer worker is the studio musician who gives up his future rights in return for immediate payment, thereby "limiting his profit." The architect is the songwriter or musician who retains ownership of his work and can expect to receive royalties for future uses of that work, e.g. CD sales, MP3 downloads, or tab books.

If you create your own tab interpretation of a song, that might be considered a "derivative work" under copyright law, giving you some rights. Then again, it might not. And so OLGA goes to court.

Well said, indeed.
g

IronMaiden
Wouldnt the Architech analogy be that if you are an architech and you go visit some cool building and you make blueprints of said building using your own knowledge and best approximations of how the building was built and you then come up with a blueprint of the building and then give it to somebody. Now if the person uses the blueprint to build the building thats not your problem. Isnt it the same for tab? Its just a 'blueprint' for a song, and unless you or someone records the song then nobody needs to pay anybody any money right?

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. What little I know of intellectual property law is from the point of view of an engineer with a few patents to his name. (Signed away to my employer, so I guess I'm the sewer worker in the example above. 8O)

If you go visit some cool building and take a photo of it, that's fine. If you write a description of it, that's fine. If you draw a sketch and hang it on your wall, that's fine. If you make blueprints of it for your own use in learning architecture, that's probably ok too. If you give the blueprints to somebody else, you're on shaky ground. If he uses them to build a copy of the building, then he's going to be in trouble and you might well be.

The photo, the description and the sketch are all derivative works and allowed under the law. Blueprints for study are not a derivative, they're a copy of the work itself, but the law gives you certain rights under the heading of "fair use." Fair use is vaguely defined, so maybe you get away with it, maybe not. (This is why lawyers have enough money to buy vintage guitars and amps and I don't.) Building from the blueprints directly infringes on the architect's right to the fruits of his labours, and is going to get you in trouble.

So, back to "The United States of America VS The Guy Who Tabbed Yngwie Malmsteem's 'Black Star'".

If I try to tab the song, but do a really lousy job and post something that is not even recognizable as "Black Star", that's an acceptable derivative work.

If I post my arrangement of "Black Star" for slide trombone and jaw harp, that's also an acceptable derivative work.

If I post a couple of snippets of correct tab, that's probably ok under "fair use". But you'll notice that whenever Guitar Player magazine does this as part of a lesson, they always change it a bit and say "this is a lick in the style of YM's Black Star." They could almost certainly publish the original, but it's easier for them to change a few notes and avoid the legal hassle.

If I tab out the whole song correctly and keep it to my self for my own use, that's fine. If I post it on the internet, then we're into a legal gray zone where I am potentially infringing on Yngwie's right to profit from his work. Enter the lawyers.

I hope you are all thoroughly confused now.

DaneBrammage_

IronMaiden
Wouldnt the Architech analogy be that if you are an architech and you go visit some cool building and you make blueprints of said building using your own knowledge and best approximations of how the building was built and you then come up with a blueprint of the building and then give it to somebody. Now if the person uses the blueprint to build the building thats not your problem. Isnt it the same for tab? Its just a 'blueprint' for a song, and unless you or someone records the song then nobody needs to pay anybody any money right?

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. What little I know of intellectual property law is from the point of view of an engineer with a few patents to his name. (Signed away to my employer, so I guess I'm the sewer worker in the example above. 8O)

If you go visit some cool building and take a photo of it, that's fine. If you write a description of it, that's fine. If you draw a sketch and hang it on your wall, that's fine. If you make blueprints of it for your own use in learning architecture, that's probably ok too. If you give the blueprints to somebody else, you're on shaky ground. If he uses them to build a copy of the building, then he's going to be in trouble and you might well be.

The photo, the description and the sketch are all derivative works and allowed under the law. Blueprints for study are not a derivative, they're a copy of the work itself, but the law gives you certain rights under the heading of "fair use." Fair use is vaguely defined, so maybe you get away with it, maybe not. (This is why lawyers have enough money to buy vintage guitars and amps and I don't.) Building from the blueprints directly infringes on the architect's right to the fruits of his labours, and is going to get you in trouble.

So, back to "The United States of America VS The Guy Who Tabbed Yngwie Malmsteem's 'Black Star'".

If I try to tab the song, but do a really lousy job and post something that is not even recognizable as "Black Star", that's an acceptable derivative work.

If I post my arrangement of "Black Star" for slide trombone and jaw harp, that's also an acceptable derivative work.

If I post a couple of snippets of correct tab, that's probably ok under "fair use". But you'll notice that whenever Guitar Player magazine does this as part of a lesson, they always change it a bit and say "this is a lick in the style of YM's Black Star." They could almost certainly publish the original, but it's easier for them to change a few notes and avoid the legal hassle.

If I tab out the whole song correctly and keep it to my self for my own use, that's fine. If I post it on the internet, then we're into a legal gray zone where I am potentially infringing on Yngwie's right to profit from his work. Enter the lawyers.

I hope you are all thoroughly confused now.

Dane:
You are quite correct except in the case of the photograph!
You can photograph any building froma public place (sidewalk, etc) but you may not use the photo in any commercial way without permission from the building's owner and architect. Also...you cannot photograph ANY building on-site AT ALL without express permission from the architect. In other words, I have full control over the use of the IMAGES derrived from my design.
Many high-profile PUBLIC buildings do not allow the use of tripods on the poperty. They do this to keep anyone from producing high-quality professional photographs. This is true of most historic buildings as well, where the owners and the architect's estate profit from the right of use of such photographs.

Even more: It's even illegal for one to photograph ANYONE ELSE in the public way without permission! A well known, high-profile street photographer in NYC has a technique of shooting passerby using hiddien strobe lights and a long telephoto lens. He shoots randome faces and creates cool exhibits about the "face" of cities. Anyway, a hassidic jew who's face poppe'd upmin one of his installation sued him for violation of freedome to excericise religion freely, saying that the unauthorized pic was transgressed this guy's right to religious privacy. It stuck and is still being going through the legal system. It was not thrown out.

So copying tabs, distributing tabs, reprinting them are all risky and not worth paying a lawyer to prove that you have a right to public domain material. You would have to PROVE it and that would cost money.
g

FlowmasterG_
You are quite correct except in the case of the photograph!
You can photograph any building froma public place (sidewalk, etc) but you may not use the photo in any commercial way without permission from the building's owner and architect.

That's really startling. How does that work in the case of a photo like the one in this news article? http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/01/05/bc-dome.html There must be a thousand buildings in that photo. Is there some kind of licensing agency that sells a bulk license?

DannySnyder
So if you made plans for a building, and then thousands of students made models of that building with no intent on using them in a commercial way, than that should be cool.

I think you're into another legal grey area there. If I were the architect, I'd argue that those students might have bought plans from me. In patent law, it's ok for me to use your patented invention for my own personal use, but not to make it and give it away to anybody else.

The law was framed at a time when nobody conceived that it would be possible for somebody to make thousands of copies of photos, printed matter, recordings, etc. for essentially zero cost. Now we're in a period where the law is slowly catching up to technology.

Homework assignment: go look up rapid prototyping and imagine what's going to happen in ten or twenty years when you can just "print out" a new reverb tank.

Wow.. I really stirred up the pot..Great! things were getting a bit tame here on SG101.

So let's see..
To Flowmaster..
"Johnny: How can you limit "how much is enough" profit from one's "2-3 minute tune? again....communism is dead."

Thanks for that enlightening heads up on communism being dead. But a BTW - I'm not limiting what some sacrosant artist can make.. society and MARKET FORCES will do that just fine, thank you.

To the rest..
Do any of you guys remember "FAKE BOOKS" - the pre-internet black market on copied music? They were typically written by some musician - listening to the radio on a Sunday afternoon and writing out what he heard.
The books were a mainstay of the musicians u-n-i-o-n because:
1. They were CHEAP!
2. they often had tunes that were unavailable (as in not published)

So - I copy a tune and pass it along to someone - free, for a few $$, or a pack of smokes. So now the internet does it - IN BULK. Any of you who doth protest too much merely need to come up with a number (and how you got it) of when and where it crosses the line into "Intellectual Property" infringement herein refrred to as I.P.

Many tunes from thr last century are classified as traditional - ie. public domain. I don't think Old Folks at Home or Swannee River are generating royalties for Steven Foster. This I.P. "concept" is an invention of this past 20th century. I don't recall it being one of the ten commandments.

So, in general, Mr Artist.. whoever you may be, you'll actually maybe have to get up off your ass and TOUR to get that "artistic" $$. Last time I looked there was more $$ (if that be your 'artistic' (ahem) aim) in touring than in recorded music. And, hey, maybe be unselfish and happy that someone wants to learn how to play your music!

So yeah..Try enforce this growingly MOOT concept of what is I.P.? here and there.. kind of like enforcing not spitting on the sidewalk. You have your finger in the dike.
Seems to me that PRESENT and FUTURE society- and hence Market Forces - may just not value your I.P. as you have been conditioned to by PAST society. So produce your art - back it up by grinding out a living (gee, like most people) with a tour. Sorry, to all the John Lennons out there. The world has changed. To those who attempt to SUPPRESS information on a grand scale (like the internet), I say - GOOD LUCK!