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Guitartabs.com Suspends Under Legal Pressure [by-ear transcription illegal?]
Slashdot ^ | 6/3/2007 | T-ice

Posted on 06/04/2007 6:49:17 AM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: copyright; guitartabs; tablature
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To: ByDesign
We ARE close to being sued for humming a song unless we pay a fee.

Already being done. Check out Happy Birthday To You © ^ 'owned' by Time-Warner.

61 posted on 06/04/2007 8:29:46 AM PDT by brityank (The more I learn about the Constitution, the more I realise this Government is UNconstitutional !!)
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To: TChris
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

 

Well at least it used to be.

Personally, I would be flattered if someone else wanted to imitate my playing style.  But that is highly unlikely. 

62 posted on 06/04/2007 8:44:21 AM PDT by bird4four4 (Behead those who suggest Islam is violent!)
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To: stockpirate

The RIAA never seemed to care when the record companies sold us:

1. LPs that were virtually impossible to keep clean
2. 8-Tracks that were horrible in quality and would break songs in half if it was close to the end of a program
3. Cassette tapes that squealed when you played them
4. CDs that were marketed as skip-proof, but sure did skip when a scratch happened

Now they want to tell us that downloading a rough tab is illegal. They need to give it a break...


63 posted on 06/04/2007 8:54:34 AM PDT by sal222
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To: TChris

It sounds like a derivative work.

Except for simple chord progressions that are common to many songs (certain blues progressions, for instance), and thus not original, it seems like a clear case of copyright infringement.


64 posted on 06/04/2007 9:00:11 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed (Your FRiendly FReeper Patent Attorney (...and another "Constitution-bot"))
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To: sal222

You are talking about different issues.


65 posted on 06/04/2007 9:02:57 AM PDT by stockpirate (All American taxpayers should claim to be illigal aliens and get forgiven for not paying taxes.)
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To: 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.

Either the bars where they play are paying ASCAP and BMI fees, which is not unusual for places that regularly book live bands, or they've been lucky enough not to get caught.

66 posted on 06/04/2007 9:07:45 AM PDT by ReignOfError (`)
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To: relictele

Steely Dan proved just how bad tabs are. When they reformed for the Citizen tour neither Don or Walter could find their original sheets so they went out and bought a bunch of tabs, started playing them and got a definite “that ain’t right” feeling, wrong rhythms wrong keys wrong everything. So then they went and got copies of the albums and did their own tabbing.


67 posted on 06/04/2007 9:12:24 AM PDT by discostu (only things a western savage understands are whiskey and rifles and an unarmed)
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To: TChris
How many of these same musicians cut their teeth doing covers of other artists' music, learning by copying the "intellectual property" of others?

That's just how my youngest son has taught himself to play guitar. He has no formal music training, yet he gives a pretty decent performance. He certainly has a good sense of rhythm and the manual dexterity.

I purchased many music books when I was young. Most of it was written for the trumpet so I could play works from Herb Alpert or Chicago. There wasn't an internet in those days.

68 posted on 06/04/2007 9:13:28 AM PDT by Myrddin
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To: weegee
Define "public". A summer camp campfire is considered public and everything from Happy Birthday onward has been litigated for royalties when sung there.

There's probably a more precise legal definition, but pretty much anything big enough to get noticed. An impromptu bonfire on the beach is unlikely to attract any attention. But a summer camp, where parents pay to send their kids -- and campfire sing-alongs are part of the experience they're paying for -- is a whole 'nother thing.

The Boy and Girl scouts have dodged this by putting together official songbooks of original and public-domain material, and some summer camps do the same -- my sister always used to come home from camp having learned a lot of new songs unfamiliar to anyone who didn't go to that camp.

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.

ASCAP conducts surveys to see who's getting played, and allocates royalties accordingly in cases (like most bar bands) when no set list is provided. I assume BMI does the same. The money doesn't just disappear into a slush fund.

69 posted on 06/04/2007 9:29:19 AM PDT by ReignOfError (`)
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To: AnnaZ
LOL. Only the RIAA could be behind something so nefarious.

The RIAA has nothing to do with this. It licenses recordings, not songs.

70 posted on 06/04/2007 9:31:39 AM PDT by ReignOfError (`)
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To: ByDesign
It’s not a performance. It’s not a recording.

No one's saying it is. The rights at issue are those of the songwriter, not the performer. They're not always the same people.

An interesting test case would be a transcription of, say, Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" -- the song itself is not protected material.

71 posted on 06/04/2007 9:38:18 AM PDT by ReignOfError (`)
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To: navyguy
One of the main Guitar Pro sites moved their server from France to Russia so they’re out of anyones jurisdiction now.

URL?

72 posted on 06/04/2007 9:40:46 AM PDT by montag813 (No More Bushes. Ever. Put it in the Constitution.)
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To: Frumanchu

Well, wasn’t that special.


73 posted on 06/04/2007 9:40:46 AM PDT by gcruse
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To: ReignOfError
It was just a stupid joke. Sorry.
74 posted on 06/04/2007 9:56:05 AM PDT by AnnaZ (I keep 2 magnums in my desk.One's a gun and I keep it loaded.Other's a bottle and it keeps me loaded)
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To: montag813

www.gprotab.net

Pretty sure that’s the Ruskie site. Its the entire archive from the old MySongBook.com site. Can be a little slow at times but as far as I know its the biggest Guitar Pro site out there. I’ve never erally had any problems with it. Works good, lasts long time.


75 posted on 06/04/2007 9:56:51 AM PDT by navyguy (We don't need more youth. What we need is a fountain of SMART.)
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To: weegee
"John Cale has a composition called 4’ 33” that is 4:33 minutes of silence."

Well, sorta. It was John Cage, and he's been dead for awhile. But that didn't stop his estate from suing a modern artist for copyright infringement when he put a similar "composition" on a CD a couple of years ago.

See here.

76 posted on 06/04/2007 10:08:58 AM PDT by DJ Frisat (SPAM: best in the can and in sammiches -- not for use on computers.)
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To: dmz
"clubs that are licensed for live music pay some kind of fees, if I understand the situation correctly"

They're supposed to. BMI and ASCAP require yearly licence fees for playing the music of artists and composers that they represent.

And they have a pretty extensive enforcement network, too, stopping in bars, clubs and restaurants, looking for not only live acts, but places where a radio station is being played for entertainment. I've heard stories of owners of the tiniest open mic venues in the smallest of towns receiving 'cease and desist or pay up' notices.

77 posted on 06/04/2007 10:15:32 AM PDT by DJ Frisat (SPAM: best in the can and in sammiches -- not for use on computers.)
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To: weegee

MAN I JUST LOVE TAB MUSIC.
I HAVE BECOME A VERY GOOD PLAYER USING TABS.
DANG LAWYERS, NO WONDER EVERY ONE LAUGHS AT LAWYER
MISFORTUNE JOKES.


78 posted on 06/04/2007 10:18:25 AM PDT by 537cant be wrong (vampires stole my lunch money !)
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To: L98Fiero

I was a Kiss Army brat too! I bought Double Platinum in the 4th grade.


79 posted on 06/04/2007 1:42:26 PM PDT by ovrtaxt (I would rather vote for Lindsay Lohan than Lindsey Graham.)
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To: TChris

Next in line: parodies.


80 posted on 06/04/2007 1:45:17 PM PDT by azhenfud (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.)
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