Guitartabs.com Suspends Under Legal Pressure [by-ear transcription illegal?]

Slashdot ^ | 6/3/2007 | T-ice

[TChris]

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.

[weegee]

I have a composition calling “ringing in my ears” I want to copyright. Then when a big guitarist complains of tinnitus, I can demand my royalties.

[pgyanke]

If they want it protected to this degree, they shouldn’t broadcast it. What’s next? Will there be lawsuits to stop you from making food at home inspired by restaurants?

[NorthFlaRebel]

This seriously needs to be put to rest by the courts. I can't see how the courts would allow intellectual property to be stretched to individuals' interpetations of the exact notes of riffs or even chord progressions. As someone above wrote, many are off and some are not even close. Now, consider that many of the tabs posted are not available in any format that you could purchase where these publishers would get a fee.

I'm usually with the artists on these copyright issues, but this is just overboard.

[weegee]

There is no way that ‘baby,baby don’t get hooked on me’ is “intellectual” property by any stretch of the term.

Believe it or not the Rivingtons successfully sued the Trashmen for the writing credit to "Surfin Bird" because they claimed the lyric "Pappa oom mow mow pappa oom mow mow..." was intellectual property.

[laotzu]

test

[TChris]

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Are you logged in?

[ReignOfError]

There’s nothing illegal about playing or transcribing someone else’s music. Publishing it or performing it in public without compensation to the author is another matter altogether.

[weegee]

Consider too “maps”. Some map makers will deliberately put false roads in there to detect when their work has been misappropriated.

But few map makers probably survey every town and road themselves.

[t_skoz]

Rock & Roll ping!

[laotzu]

Apparantly so. I'm having some odd problems on-line, and am working through them.

Sorry to interupt your thread.

[Osage Orange]

Just listened to Wild Thing, by Hendrix.

And you are correct......he did it all by ear.

[Red Badger]

Artist: Steam Lyrics
Song: Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye Lyrics
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

He’ll never love you, the way that I love you
‘Cause if he did, no no, he wouldn’t make you cry
He might be thrillin’ baby but a-my love (my love, my love)
So dog-gone willin’
So kiss him (I wanna see you kiss him. Wanna see you kiss him)
Go on and kiss him goodbye, now

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

Listen to me now

He’s never near you to comfort and cheer you
When all those sad tears are fallin’ baby from your eyes
He might be thrillin’ baby but a-my love (my love, my love)
So dog-gone willin’
So kiss him (I wanna see you kiss him. I wanna see you kiss him)
Go on and kiss him goodbye, na-na na-na-na na na

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

[fade in]
Hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
[repeat many times and fade out]

[Liberty Valance]

LOL. Didn’t the Oakridge Boys use that same lyric on one of their tunes?

[ovrtaxt]

Here’s my response to all the ‘intellectual property’ arguments that some are bound to make:

I don’t see how this is the same as downloading music. The tab does you no good if you don’t have the chops to play it anyway, and if you can pull it off, it’s not like you’re going to book a gig at the corner club and play Pink Floyd tunes, and charge $200 a ticket as if it was really Floyd. There’s no comparison to the actual music.

The music industry is digging it’s own grave here.

Do you know of any bands who actually encourage people to learn their songs? Seems like a smart thing to do marketing-wise- much the way the Dead allowed and encouraged bootleg recordings at their events.

[weegee]

There’s nothing illegal about playing or transcribing someone else’s music. Publishing it or performing it in public without compensation to the author is another matter altogether.

Define "public". A summer camp campfire is considered public and everything from Happy Birthday onward has been litigated for royalties when sung there.

And the author will not see the royalties. The collection agency will collect them by pressuring establishments to pay a seasonal protection fee, but it offers them blanket protection and does not require a logging of the actual songs, writers, or publishers involved.

So if you pay BMI or ASCAP, your bar is protected if any musician covers their material or if someone plays a CD of their protected songs. But none of that money BMI or ASCAP collected will go to the artist because they do not have a record of who to pay it to.

[Thinkin' Gal]

Soon you’ll get sued for singing along with a tune.

Ahhh, the real reason behind Digital Angel chip implants!!

[ovrtaxt]

I know guys who make a living in cover bands. It’s been happening for decades. No royalties have ever been demanded or paid by anyone anywhere, as far as I know.

[moreisee]

Someone once asked Dave Van Ronk for permission to post tab of one of his arrangements to which he replied “sure go ahead, I stole them all myself.” Seems like some musicians don’t care and some really fell threatened by tab sites.

[weegee]

In the days of vaudeville, sheet music was where the money was. And there was payola. Payola to get singers to sing their songs on stage AND payola to put shills in the audience (or in the bar up the street) to sing the songs.

The public would see it as a “popular” song and buy the sheet music.

When records first came out, the Supreme Court said that there was no royalty due to the songwriter. That changed.

And when radio came along (and replaced live performers with records), the Supreme Court said that no money was due the artist on the record when the record was played on the air.

The industry has bought and paid for the decisions that have come down for a hundred years.

[atomicpossum]

I have a composition calling “ringing in my ears” I want to copyright. Then when a big guitarist complains of tinnitus, I can demand my royalties.

Imagine the suit that could be brought by the guy who released 'Three Minutes of Silence,' an actual record released to jukeboxes that featured what it promised.

I guess not making noise is infrigement, too.