Tabulature = Copyright Infringement

[Mabs2]

As some of you may know, I'm a beginning guitarist...

It's just come to my attention that one of my favorite tabulature (sheet music for dummies, kind of) (www.mxtabs.net/index.html" target="_blank">MXTabs) websites has been shut down by the National Music Publisher's Association (NMPA)...

Come to find out, another of my favorite sites (www.guitartabs.cc/" target="_blank">Guitar Tab Universe) is currently under attack by the NMPA...
This is very disheartening for me, as I don't have the ability yet to learn songs by ear...so this has basically put a halt to my learning.
I didn't think this belonged in THR's Legal and Political, so I figured I'd just post it here and ask everyone's opinion.

My opinion as a musician is this:  Music is for everyone.  If I were in the position where I thought others wanted to play my music, I would put the tabulature up myself (as many bands and musicians do on their own websites...heck, most of the tabulature you'd see on those two sites were from the official artist's site).

The only restriction I believe there should be on tabulature is that a person can't go out and claim the music as his creation and make records/etc....and that really has nothing to do with tabulature, as a person can do this without it.

Maybe my views are flawed, I dunno.  I'd like some other opinions.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

This really chafes my chaps.
More domination and control from those who are rapidly losing their grip on the wallets of the creative process.  

Bastards.

[crt360]

I hear you, man.  When I started learning how to play guitar, PCs and Internet stuff didn't exist yet.  Good tab was rare and hard to get.  A few magazines had a little and there were some books, but most of them were pretty crappy and oversimplified stuff.  I fortunately already had years of piano and violin training, so learning by ear was not too difficult for me, but 24 hr access to tab for songs I wanted to learn would have been awesome.  There is no good argument for NMPA's effort to shut down guitar tab sites.  It's not like the music publishers provide an alternative, accurate, official product that you could buy.  Not to mention that there are enough musicians who can pick most works apart by ear that it really only discriminates against newer musicians who need all the encouragement they can get to keep playing.

[cosine]

My beliefs on tab sharing:

If the tab is copied verbatim from a book of tab I can buy at any music store and is copyrighted (something the artist is probably receiving royalties for), it shouldn't be shared. If it  is a transcription done by any regular Joe and put up on the Internet it should be perfectly legal share. What's the difference then as if I transcribed it myself or had a buddy transcribe it for me or just took a copy of a transcription my friend did for himself?

[Mabs2]

My beliefs on tab sharing:

If the tab is copied verbatim from a book of tab I can buy at any music store and is copyrighted (something the artist is probably receiving royalties for), it shouldn't be shared. If it  is a transcription done by any regular Joe and put up on the Internet it should be perfectly legal share. What's the difference then as if I transcribed it myself or had a buddy transcribe it for me or just took a copy of a transcription my friend did for himself?

Most of the tabulature around is either, as I said, taken from official websites (Cat Steven's website comes to mind, tabulature for nearly every song, and is the same character by character on most tab sites), or done by some Joe Schmoe (often times there will be comments along the lines as "I'm a bit fuzzy on this part.").

[cosine]

My beliefs on tab sharing:

If the tab is copied verbatim from a book of tab I can buy at any music store and is copyrighted (something the artist is probably receiving royalties for), it shouldn't be shared. If it  is a transcription done by any regular Joe and put up on the Internet it should be perfectly legal share. What's the difference then as if I transcribed it myself or had a buddy transcribe it for me or just took a copy of a transcription my friend did for himself?

Most of the tabulature around is either, as I said, taken from official websites (Cat Steven's website comes to mind, tabulature for nearly every song, and is the same character by character on most tab sites), or done by some Joe Schmoe (often times there will be comments along the lines as "I'm a bit fuzzy on this part.").

Yep, I read that, and if that's the case nobody should have any problem with tab sharing.

[m1911owner]

The author of a work of music owns the rights to that music, no matter what form it is expressed in.  A hand-transcribed tablature is just as much an infringement of the author's copyright as copy of a CD of his music.

[Strings]

>A hand-transcribed tablature is just as much an infringement of the author's copyright as copy of a CD of his music.<

How? Unless there's some form of gain, how is it an infringement?

[m1911owner]

How? Unless there's some form of gain, how is it an infringement?

Perhaps because there is no requirement that there be a gain in order for there to be infringement?

[Matthew Carberry]

I would assume the loss is that, were unlicensed tab not available for free, you'd have to pay for licensed sheet music (or tab) and the artist would get their cut.

By a third party giving it away the artist (or label) loses music sales.  You doing it for yourself is no big deal, you giving it to me, who can't do it myself, is a loss.

[m1911owner]

You doing it for yourself is no big deal...

Sorry, that theory doesn't play.  The music is the property of the author.  He controls who makes copies of it, in any form, and who can perform it, and under what conditions.  Whether he suffers a loss is irrelevant to the fact of infringement of his copyright.  (It can, however, play a part in the award of damages.)

[280plus]

Ever hear of ASCAP? http://www.ascap.com/index.html

A friend of mine opened a little coffee shop and planned to have live music. ASCAP got wind of it and immediately started a legalistic terror campaign against him until he paid what THEY deemed the proper amount for the use of any of the songs played there that were on their list of properties. ASCAP determines how much you should pay by the size of your venue. The artists whose music is covered by ASCAP all get a cut based on the probabilities that their particular music will be played. He told them he would allow nothing but originals to be played. THEY told HIM that "Originals never work" and that sooner or later someone would play an ASCAP owned song and he would be fined accordingly. They told him the would have "agents" covertly enter his place of business and listen for these violations and list them as they occured. Then the lawyers would come out. Each song played was a separate violation. We did a little investigation of our own. Turns out ASCAP RARELY LOSES. Also turns out ASCAP owns damn near EVERYTHING worth playing. Something like 5 different versions of  "Happy Birthday" fer crying out loud! He paid the $650 for the year.

[Mabs2]

Wow....and people say that Microsoft is evil.

[280plus]

The music or entertainment industry has a lock on EVERYTHING. For instance, if a college music dept wants to do any broadway tunes. (we did stuff from uhhh,,,Oklahoma, they made me put MAKEUP on! ) they in essence "rent" the scripts from the publishing company and this pays the royalties. They can't DO the production without facing legal liability unless they get the script directly from the publisher.

[Strings]

>Sorry, that theory doesn't play.  The music is the property of the author.  He controls who makes copies of it, in any form, and who can perform it, and under what conditions.  Whether he suffers a loss is irrelevant to the fact of infringement of his copyright.  (It can, however, play a part in the award of damages.)<

Nice corporate line you've got yourself there...

You're talking about something that would be unenforceable: EVERY guitar and bass teacher in the country figures out tabs for students: these sites just take the direct contact with the teacher out of the equation. Honestly, by clamping down so hard on tab sites, they're actually hurting the industry: fewer kids will learn instruments if they can't learn covers, thereby cutting down on the number of musicians coming into the pool...

 This stuff isn't the same as Napster, man: there is NO damage to the intellectual property rights of the original artist...

[280plus]

Yea, that's why I brought up ASCAP, the way it works out is the individual cover artist doesn't pay the royalties the venue he or she performs at does. Like Hunter said trying to enforce royalty payments from millions of individual cover type artists is like chasing a ghost. They're here one minute, gone the next. But the VENUES, they KNOW where to find THEM. So don't worry, I don't think the copyright police are after you.

ASCAP is one of the reasons ratings matter so much. If you happen to have the #1 song for the moment or even in the top ten your probability of being played is way up there so you get the biggest cuts. But every time you hear some old one hit wonder's song on the radio again, somewhere somehow SOMEONE is getting a royalty check out of it. Makes you want to write a few legendary rock and roll tunes or something, doesn't it?

[m1911owner]

Nice corporate line you've got yourself there...

You're talking about something that would be unenforceable: EVERY guitar and bass teacher in the country figures out tabs for students: these sites just take the direct contact with the teacher out of the equation. Honestly, by clamping down so hard on tab sites, they're actually hurting the industry: fewer kids will learn instruments if they can't learn covers, thereby cutting down on the number of musicians coming into the pool...

Thanks for the implied promotion, but I do not control the Congress of the United States, nor do I sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.  If you have issue with the copyright laws, they are the ones you need to take it up with, not me.

[280plus]

Or practice them drums and guitars a little harder.

[richyoung]

Thers the law, and there's practicality.  Say someone patents a carburator that gets 100 MPG on a 75 shevy pickup with a 350 v-8.  Say he wants $2000 to sell you one.  Say you have a mahine shop in your basement.  You can build your own copy of the carburator, put it on your car, and as long as you don't SELL copies to tother people, there isn't  a darn thing they can do.  Yes, technically they can take you to court, and win, for patent infringement, but since you aren't selling it, the maximum damages are the PROFIT they *would* have made selling you one - and thats not enough to recover the costs of going to court.  Plus most of these songs repeat chord progressions that have been used thousands of time - ask George Harrison about "He's So Fine", err, I mean, "My Sweet Lord".  Not to mention the use of weasel words like, "in the style of..." or "similar to ...."

Practicaly, there is no way to stop tabulature form being created and exchanged...and in the long run, it can be argued it generates revenue for those who own the publishing rights, as it can increase the number of times cover bands play the songs in ASCAP and BMI licensed venues.  Not to mention there is a "education" exception for copyright use.