That is awesome news. Thanks to the staff at Guitar Noise for their hard work.

Check this link for more info http://www.guitarnoise.com/easy/

More songs are on the way and I’ll be making an announcement in the coming days to let you know what’s going on.

- Paul

1. “The easiest thing in the world would have been to simply throw up our hands and rant about the unfairness of corporations and greed and what have you, but Paul has taken the best step.”

thank you paul, and david and everyone else working hard on this. Besides yourselves, it means a lot to a lot of people and I know you guys understand that. It’s not always easy to work for something that is important and i hope you realize that we appreciate all your efforts. It might sound a little silly to think that a bunch of tab and theory is important to somebody, but it’s more than that, it’s being taught by people with a passion, who aren’t looking simply to sell product, but rather have the intention of Doing Something Great for people that many recognize. that’s special. who does that anymore? It is a beautifully crafted site that has enriched many people’s lives with music. I love learning from you guys. A big reason is because the following statement shows:

“Anyone who has seriously read any of the lessons at Guitar Noise knows that our core philosophy is all about making the world a better place through the sharing of music.”

I can see your top priorities are to teach, share and give something great to people.

You guys are a unique breed and freakin’ rock. Thank you.

Creating a “membership” or pay per view area for the tablatures was one option Paul and I considered. But Guitar Noise has always been a free site and we both would like to have it stay that way. Make no mistake, getting the rights to use songs is going to cost money. Anyone who’s interested in helping Paul defer some of the cost involved is always welcome to make a donation to Guitar Noise. The donation page can be found here. We probably don’t make enough of a fuss about this as we should, but I doubt we’re going to change all that much in our behaviour at this point!

Anyway, the short answer is that when we (hopefully soon now) get the tablatures back, you won’t be paying for it unless you’d like to. In other words, Guitar Noise business as usual. We appreciate your willingness, Mike. Just remember that you can always contribute something – whatever and whenever the mood strikes you. We appreciate your support regardless! Not to mention your patience in this matter.

Peace

I didn’t read all the threads, but I would be able to pay a nominal fee to download the guitar tabs for lessons.

Mike

Again, my idea of presenting the lessons as a promotion for the songs must have already crossed your minds, I only mentioned it just in case.

Thanks for the good news
and for everything else
ESTAMBRE

And please call me “David.” (I’m getting to the point where that may become a signature line, too!)

Peace

Over the past year, I’ve had this feeling that, behind the public scene of this blog, Guitar Noise’s senior staff had been hard at work with the goal of achieving peaceful, reasonable arrangements with the many representatives of the music publishing business and authors. I figured that taking the high road on such issues would not be easy nor quick. (“Herding cats” could be an apt analogy, but I digress.)

Your cogent posting confirmed my hunches and I dearly hope that it goes a long way towards assuaging GN fans’ worries — and, at times, impatience.

Plagiarizing your signature closing line without fear of reprisal:

Peace

Regardless of what we use as a disclaimer, we use too much of the full song in order to fall under the “fair use” clause of copyright law. That’s the fact of this situation that we’re dealing with. While we can use (and have used) all the arguments (and more) that have been posted here, the bottom line is that under the existing laws we have to do something different.

And we are. For the better part of the past year, Paul has been spending a lot of time working on negotiations with numerous publishers on reaching an agreement to both bring the song lessons back and, just if not more important, to give us the legal permission to create new ones. “Numerous” publishers because our lessons belong to a number of them. And sometimes, the publishers also need to get special permission from the songwriters. The whole process has been taking more time than one could imagine possible.

You might see that they’re still not up and think “no improvements,” but behind the scene a lot has been going on in order to restore the lessons. As I write this, we are hoping to get word soon and as soon as we do, we’ll be putting things back and also creating new lessons for everyone.

And we cannot express enough how much we have appreciated the patience and support of our readers. The easiest thing in the world would have been to simply throw up our hands and rant about the unfairness of corporations and greed and what have you, but Paul has taken the best step. Going this route, even though it’s taking longer than hoped to do so, is the best possible solution. Not to mention the most fair when it comes to the many talented songwriters and musicians that we admire so much that we want to learn how to recreate their art.

We also (hopefully!) have to thank the publishers for working with us to reach a workable solution that benefits everyone.

Anyone who has seriously read any of the lessons at Guitar Noise knows that our core philosophy is all about making the world a better place through the sharing of music. Every song lesson is about working with the artist’s vision and then adding your own take on it to make the music even more special. When we put the music ahead of our own desires, ambitions and needs, it tends to take care of us. I know that sounds silly and sentimental, but it is true. Working together we will always be able to create something better and beautiful. More so than any of us possibly can on our own.

So keep your fingers crossed and wish us well. We’ll hopefully have some good news to share very soon.

Peace

What would happen if an explicit statement is added to each of the lessons declaring them to be aimed solely at publicizing the song and the work of its authors? That would imply that every lesson advertises the corresponding song and promotes its sales. Since the main purpose of a song’s copyright is to guarantee that the owner achieves economic profit in the global market, the lesson (whose declared goal is now to advertise the song) is by no means hurting those rights but promoting them. It would then make no sense forbidding detailed lessons with tab or notation based on that song, such as the ones formerly found on GuitarNoise. Transcriptions would cease to be a theft and become a promotion tool (which they are!!!)
Any thoughts?

Thanks for everything (especially to David Hodge)

Result? – everyone loses.

I know if the music industry could hear me play they would not be afraid of me learning a song from David’s great lessons then going out and earning my fortune on the back of it. But they seem to think there are lots of people who are going to do that.

People with commercial ambitions don’t come to sites like Guitar Noise in order to make them into stars. I would guess that over 90% of us are simply bedroom guitarists who want some help to play the songs we like.

But I think it will be a long time before the music industry realises that the threats they see under every bed are figments of their own imagination, and will continue to do damage to themselves by taking such a hard-nosed and bully-boy attitude.

FWIW
Terry

I understand your point but your argument is flawed in a few ways.

Tablature is not the score that a songwriter writes. It is a listeners interpretation of what he hears transcribed into a shorthand that, unlike sheet music, is useless without prior knowledge of the song.

Tab is as much like a recorded song as someone telling you the plot of a movie is like the movie itself.

Secondly, I understand the beef the RIAA has with internet piracy. However as you yourself noted the sale of printed music is extremely low. Since at it’s worst tab would only compete against printed music (marginally) it would be in competition against a product that has almost no income as it is. Doesn’t seem like much of a loss in comparison with the goodwill the music industry could gain. Believe me your industry needs it, as a native Texan I assure you there is a very strong Anti-Nashville sentiment both among artists and fans.

1) mechanical royalties (from sound recordings)–since 90% of all recordings are ilegally downloaded that income stream is very small.
2) publishing royalties:
a) from printed music–almost non-existint income stream at this point
b) from synchronization (movies and TV uses)–still veyr healthy if you are lucky enough to be one of the very, very few who has their songs used in movie and TV soundtracks.
c) from radio airplay–shiringing but okay if you happen to be one of the few with a huge hit song.

I would only ask that you try to mock up some scenarios that you can relate to and see how you would feel is the tables were turned. For example, if you devoted yourself to being an author, and finally got a big break and a publsiher was going to publish your novel. How would youl feel to find out that they can’t sell any, because everyone who wanted it got it for free on the interent? Actually a much more realalistic example, and this is exaclty what is happining, is that if you were that author, the publsher would not be able to publsh your book because the industry is shrinking so fast they no longer receive enough sales to justify the expense. The same is true in all related fields.

Am I allowed to sing a “copyrighted” song as I´m walking ALONE down the street?
Am I allowed to sing the same song if someone is LISTENING?
Can I play the same NOTES in my guitar solo, at my gig, as Kirk Hammet does in one of HIS solos, or would that be a “copyright infringement” because Kirk-ol-boy OWNES theses notes, when played in this particular SUCCESSION?
What about a common chord progression – who “ownes” that – the one who played it first?

Excuse me but this is B-S and the GREEDINESS of the music industry has gone too far! An artist sells records, videos, he tours and he gets radio airplay money – now, if he can´t survive of off that – he should probably find SOMETHING ELSE to do, because obviously his music isn´t very GOOD!

The “business” side of the music industry absolutely STINKS – and it is down to the greedy companies, make no mistake about it, trying to cash in on EVERY LITTLE ASPECT that they can think of!

Also, it´s not the “poor struggeling” artist’s music that gets tabbed now is it? No, it´s the big groups/artists stuff, so don´t come crying about the artist not making enough money!

Music used to be an artform that was shared for pleasure – now it´s just like any other boring commodity, like a brick or a piece of meat and only shared for profit.

You´d darn well have to PAY just because you happened to be born with EARS if the music industry could have their way!

(This is not meant as a disrespect to the GN-crew at all – I know you´re in a tough situation – this is just a frustrated rant about the state of the world today.)

Here’s what I think will happen. Some of the songs we had in the past we won’t be able to use. It’s not all because of the publishers, in some cases the artists (that is, the actual songwriters) don’t want their songs used in this manner. A lot of the other songs we taught before we’ll be able to use again if we come to an agreement with the different publishers. I’m currently in the late stages of trying to make these deals.

We’re also looking to strike a deal where we’ll be adding new song lessons every month. I wish things were happening faster, but there are no shortcuts if we are going to do this right the first time.

- Paul Hackett

The issue of (easily) obtaining a blanket license has been indirectly covered in this long thread. If you read all the posts, especially the ones by GN founder Mr. Paul Hackett, you will:

1. Likely wear out the scroll wheel on your mouse;
2. Understand that there simply is no single clearinghouse providing a “blanket” license for for all music, notation or tab if only because the artists have signed up with many, many labels. (And that’s the easy part to “get”.)

Lastly, with all due respect, I fail to see how “commission based” fits into this equation from hell :) I, for one, am certain that the staff at GN is still pursuing some sort of arrangement(s) and that fans of this site will show patience until the matter is resolved.