Posted on 12/18/2005 5:31:08 PM PST by MetalHeadConservative35
The music industry is to extend its copyright war by taking legal action against websites offering unlicensed song scores and lyrics.
The Music Publishers' Association (MPA), which represents US sheet music companies, will launch its first campaign against such sites in 2006.
MPA president Lauren Keiser said he wanted site owners to be jailed.
He said unlicensed guitar tabs and song scores were widely available on the internet but were "completely illegal".
Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective".
Bitter battles
The move comes after several years of bitter legal battles against unauthorised services allowing users to download recordings for free.
Publishing companies have taken action against websites in the past, but this will be the first co-ordinated legal campaign by the MPA.
The MPA would target "very big sites that people would think are legitimate and very, very popular", Mr Keiser said.
"The Xerox machine was the big usurper of our potential income," he said. "But now the internet is taking more of a bite out of sheet music and printed music sales so we're taking a more proactive stance."
Music publishers and songwriters will consider all tools under the law to stop this illegal behaviour David Israelite National Music Publishers' Association David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers' Association, added his concerns.
"Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing," he said.
"Music publishers and songwriters will consider all tools under the law to stop this illegal behaviour."
Sandro del Greco, who runs Tabhall.co.uk, said the issue was not serious enough to warrant jail time and sites like his were not necessarily depriving publishers of income.
Learn
"I play the drums mainly but I play the guitar as well. I run the website and I still buy the [tab] books," he said.
"The tabs online aren't deadly accurate so if someone really wants to know it they'll buy the book.
"But most of the bands I listen to don't have tab books to buy so if you get them online, that's the only way you can really learn it unless you work it out yourself."
The campaign comes after lyric-finding software PearLyrics was forced off the internet by a leading music publishing company, Warner Chappell.
'No alternative'
PearLyrics worked with Apple's iTunes, searching the internet to find lyrics for songs in a user's collection.
"I just don't see why PearLyrics should infringe the copyright of Warner Chappell because all I'm doing is searching publicly-available websites," PearLyrics developer Walter Ritter said.
"It would be different if they had an alternative service that also provided lyrics online and also integrated [with iTunes] like PearLyrics did. But they don't offer anything like that at all."
A Warner Chappell statement said the company wanted to ensure songwriters were "fairly compensated for their works and that legitimate sites with accurate lyrics are not undermined by unlicensed sites".
"We have requested that PearWorks provide us with information regarding the sources of their lyrics, and have further asked that they discontinue the service if these sources are operating without a licence."
RIAA,MPA,shut up.
Imagine that. The mob wanting to send people to jail.
Discussion at Slashdot.
practice makes you a better musician in general.
Downloading free tabs generally does not.
As a folk singer and player myself , I can assure you that lyrics and tabs online make it far more likely that I will purchase a given artists product.
I have NO mp3's and NO interest in the format. Bring back 33.3 lp's
The good news is that the RIAA is the front group for a dying industry. An industry that packages and pushes no-talent eye candy like Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears while countless thousands of truly talented performers wait in vain to be "noticed" by the cokeheads in charge of the major labels. An industry that blames it's steep decline in sales and revenues not on charging outrageous prices for crappy music by crappy "artists" but instead on people taking advantage of technology and buying only the one or two tracks on a typical CD that are worth listening to and not the other eleven filler (read, garbage) tracks. The major labels are as much dinosaurs as the MSM are, and just like the media it doesn't even occur to them that maybe it's their product, their business practices, that is the problem.
bttt
I've been looking for the chords and lyrics to John Wayne's "El Dorado" for about 10 years. Those that hold the rights have not produced the goods I wish to purchase. Yet they want the right to recieve revenue if I tab it out myself and perform.
Waiting for some ahole to put a 3 chord progression on the Constitution and charge for the lyrics.
The music industry is probably thinking they need to get a handle on illegitimate sheet music before they can market the real stuff. If they don't clamp down on user-created sheet music, then they won't be able to complain when copies of the PDF version show up.
Hey, Apple: in the iTunes music store, add an extra button to download the music for the selected tune.
not true, not only only can you learn different chord formations/progessions from these artists that you can incorperate into your own style, but the scales/solo's as well, it gives you a broader spectrum and more of an idea on writing and composing,
IMHO,
and you can do the same by buying the scores from a store or getting them free as part of a guitar magazine, just like they always used to do.
You just don't want to have to pay for it.
If you want to do it for free, learn to play it by ear. That's a much better way to improve your musicianship.
FB, I'm going to use your just published line, "If you want to do it for free", as an example. Do I pay you, for writing it--- or FR for publishing it--- or do I just thank Leo's Lyrics dot com for pointing out that 778 other people have published that exact line in a song?
Are you prepared to cough up royalties to the 778 every time someone reads your post?
"Are you prepared to cough up royalties to the 778 every time someone reads your post?"
Your post is like you had to pay a fee to use logic and you were broke.
ah, I love the language:
"the leeches in the music mafia"
Usually spouted by someone who wants the property of others without paying for it.
Amazing the kind of mental gymnastics people will go through to justify theft.
"copyright periods are too long! They shouldn't be 75 years! They make too much money! That's why I should have free access to this 6 month old song!"
Pathetic.
You just don't want to have to pay for it.
If you want to do it for free, learn to play it by ear. That's a much better way to improve your musicianship.
yea pay $50.00 for a book that A: has the transcriptions way wrong (which 90% are about as accurate as a liberal news report)B: Isnt even the artist im looking,
you arent gonna find Arch Enemy,Soilwork,Dark Tranquillity,Sonata Arctica tabs anywhere, and plus alot of the bands that ive named above? put tabs on there own official sites for people to learn, i can guarentee that the guitarists in bands dont give a crap about tabs or even mp3's because they have more important things to worry about than who's learning there songs,
Funny, no one objected when the tabs were on the ftp sites 15 years ago. Let's hear it for ftp.nevada.edu!!!
Oops, I'm dating myself again, aren't I?
omg lmao, that site RULED lol
remember OLGA?
I can't wait to be sued by the RIAA for humming a song to myself!
Mark
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