Recording artists and their affiliates suck!

[crashwg]

The website http://www.olga.net/ (on-line guitar archive) has been threatened with legal proceedings due to copyright infrindgement and has been forced to shut down.

I will now go and download a butload of REAL songs and not pay a cent for them just to stick it to the man!

[Dartful Dodger]

I've seen a lot of tab websites removing songs.

I understand it when they go after people downloading a song, but I'm confused about the tabs.  Most of these tabs aren't even real tabs, it's what someone thinks the tabs are.

[ChadTower]

Please define copywrite infrindgement. 

Thanks.

[Tiger-Heli]

I understand it when they go after people downloading a song, but I'm confused about the tabs.  Most of these tabs aren't even real tabs, it's what someone thinks the tabs are.

Copyrights - If the tabs are online (even if it's just guesswork), it's harder to sell sheet music for the songs.  Thing is I'm not sure how enforceable any of it is.

A few examples - Let's say instead of guitars it's bugle music.  I come up with a really fancy bugle riff and lots of people like it.  I can write out the notes on sheet music and sell it to people.  If you buy my sheet music and give it away to people, it's copyright infringement and I probably can legally make you stop and sue you for what I would have sold it for.  Now if you listen to a recording of my bugle riff and imitate it and think you are pretty close and give away your interpretation of it, I probably can still sue on the basis of lost wages, but it's much less clear-cut.

Similar - I set up "Tiger-Heli's Chocolate Chip Cookies" and sell them.  You find my recipe and make the same cookies and sell them as "Dartful's Cookies" - I can sue since they are the same cookie.  You make a slightly different cookie (less chips so you make more profit), and it's fair trade and nothing I can do - in fact I would probably be in anti-trust violation to stop you.  You try my cookies and say, hmmn, tastes like Tiger used this and this and sell "Dartful's Cookies that taste almost as good as Tiger-Heli's" and the line is much less clear-cut.

[missioncontrol]

damn now I'm hungry and we don't have any cookies....

[ChadTower]

Doesn't matter if it's enforceable or not.

The companies have lawyers.  The websites have no lawyers.

The companies win.

[monkeybomb]

Is it really the artists this time?  Looking at tabs is an important part of learning an instrument.  I know when I fist started I couldn't get enough for a year or two.  If they really go after this it is going to make it that much harder for beginers.  Also, most sheet music isn't available comercially.  It's not that people won't pay, it's often that they can't, like ROMS.

[ChadTower]

How does that make it harder for beginners?  People learned to play just fine before tab websites.

[thebrownshow]

Similar - I set up "Tiger-Heli's Chocolate Chip Cookies" and sell them.  You find my recipe and make the same cookies and sell them as "Dartful's Cookies" - I can sue since they are the same cookie.  You make a slightly different cookie (less chips so you make more profit), and it's fair trade and nothing I can do - in fact I would probably be in anti-trust violation to stop you.  You try my cookies and say, hmmn, tastes like Tiger used this and this and sell "Dartful's Cookies that taste almost as good as Tiger-Heli's" and the line is much less clear-cut.

I understand it was just an example, not trying to derail here, but recipies are a little different.  Just FYI:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

But anything you want to know about the wonderful world of Copyright is here: http://www.copyright.gov/

Ain't the internet wonderful? 

[monkeybomb]

How does that make it harder for beginners?  People learned to play just fine before tab websites.

Very True,  and a lot of players, or maybe even most, never use tab at all.

It's just that a lot of kids who haven't developed an ear yet look to tab to play songs they know.  Mostly, it just keeps them motivated.  It definately had this effect on me.   Had I not struggled to play Primus tunes, I might not have pushed myself as hard.  And without the tab I never would have figured it out.   It's just one tool, but it's a shame to make it harder to get.

[shardian]

Had I not struggled to play Primus tunes, I might not have pushed myself as hard. 

Primus Sucks! 

[ChadTower]

He'll kiss you upside the cranium with an aluminum baseball bat.  His name is Mud.

[shardian]

I was so hooked I even have Miscellaneous Debris. Safe to say its an addiction when you pay full cd price for a cd with 5 songs on it.