OLGA offline

You know there is an argument to be made that if we don't protect the intellectual property rights of others there will be no incentive to create new work.

It's pretty easy for those who've never created a valuable piece of IP to argue that everything should be free.

I know it's easy for me. :D

But there must be a middle ground somewhere.

People, we are not protecting the "intellectual property" of the artists, we are protecting the income stream from the intellectual property.

I must say that I do agree with the statements about tab on the net... in most cases they are the interpretation of the users and not the exact song. But who's to say that the tab wasn't transcribed directly from a licensed songbook? Many books have tab now... how would the world know if the tab online is just a copy of what is in a book that someone bought? I have to think that is the crux of the legal issue.

And protecting the income stream is different than protecting that property how?

What value is it that IP has if it has no value?

The popular artists whose tab we are looking for have done alright by the record companies.

It's certainly nice to think the world is altruistic and that people will do things simply for the pleasure of doing them. I know you don't think that is true.

I mean I'll take the time to show you anything I can play for free, but I charge for guitar lessons. Gotta pay the bills.

Nick, to a point I think you are correct, but Idon't think the issue here is actual intellectual property. The issue here is royalties off a product, not the actual product itself. The purpose of IP for artists is to protect them from other people duplicating the item and making money off of it. The point of this particular lawsuit is to stop people from getting the tab/notes for music for free. The big companies don't care if people play their songs, they just want people to pay for the music in order to learn how to play it. In this case they are protecting the income stream, not the actual product.

IP for IP's sake is protecting the song itself so some shmoe doesn't come along and alter 5 notes and start making money on the song as HIS SONG.

Maybe.....

But they are really protecting the revenue stream, whatever their motive.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not even playing devils advocate. I see the sharing of tab over the internet as a group of guitarists sitting around the worldwide basement or garage jamming, trading licks and teaching each other what they know. I don't download tab for profit. And even if I do eventually profit by being paid by a bar, the bar pays for the privilege of me playing the song.

So by learning and playing for profit I actually help the artist's and record company's revenue stream.

To preface what I am writing, I hate that OLGA and other tab sites are being pressured to shut down, but at the danger of being accused of thinking like a lawyer...

Here is the point of view from the other side of the fence.

Let us say you are in the roofing business. (Being in Florida it is an easy simile for me to make). You make money by installing roofs for people. You need a ladder to get up on the roofs. People do not pay you for the ladder. If you own the ladder there is no problem. What if you didn't own a ladder. You could buy one, you could rent one, or you could borrow one from another roofing company or you could steal one. On the surface borrowing and stealing seem the cheapest way to go. You don't have to pay for the ladder out of the fee charged to replace the roof, your profit is maximized. Your not giving the ladder to the customer and at the end of the day you can return the ladder from the company you borrowed it from. Of course the other roofing company is not going to just let you just borrow a ladder from them. If you don't have a ladder you can't do the work and maybe the company with the ladder can take your client, and make the money for doing the work themselves. Stealing the ladder is of course stealing and against the law.

SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH TAB SITES??????

Tab sites sell advertising. They deliver you to advertisers on their sites. The advertising pays for the sites, for the bandwith, for the upkeep. At the end of the day, maybe something is left over for the site owner. The TAB is the ladder. It is the tool that brings people to the site where they see the advertising. You can't sell advertising without the tool that brings the people. This ladder (whether it is a good ladder or a rickety ladder) is being borrowed or stolen. The site owner is not paying for or renting the tool from its rightful owners. Some might argue that tab site owners don't make much money, probably lose money, and do it out of love and devotion to the guitar community. Go back to the roofer, whether or not he turns a profit, it is doubtful that he will get free use of a ladder, unless he steals it which I remind you is against the law.

Just my two cents.

Michael

I don't think anyone has a problem intellectual property rites. Its just that the length of copy rites are WAY to long :twisted: I think thats most of the problem here. I can't see why any copy rite should last longer than 20 years :!: --the dog

i don't like to think this, but i do think that the law is on the side of whoever owns the copyright to the music. As long as they own the copyright, they own the tab. We can sit around and think they should do this or that with it, give it away or sell it to us, but it's up to them. I don't think they have a problem with people wanting or using their tab, they just want people to pay for it,

The thing about whether or not the tab is an exact copy of the song or just someone's interpretation...the song is identified as being whatever song it is by it's name. you always search for a song by name.

Nick, to a point I think you are correct, but Idon't think the issue here is actual intellectual property. The issue here is royalties off a product, not the actual product itself

Hmmm - projecting Royalties is the way you value the Intellectual Property rights.

A :-)

Nick, to a point I think you are correct, but Idon't think the issue here is actual intellectual property. The issue here is royalties off a product, not the actual product itself

Hmmm - projecting Royalties is the way you value the Intellectual Property rights.

A :-)

Pretty much the case ... and allowing some free use of IP devalues it -- especially if that use becomes uncontrolled. Soon everybody who doesn't have it for free, believes they have a no-fee right to it. The next logical extension is that anything of a similar nature ought to be free for everybody's use. Lack of enforcement by the owner can be construed by law as "encouraging" this process.

TAB seems fairly innocuous, and -- without knowing the legal ins/outs -- I would guess it could be difficult to demonstrate that it is stealing someone's IP if carefully ambiguous in some dimensions -- and, also because an arrangement or performance of an existing piece is itself IP. But a lawyer might argue that TAB decreases the (future) value of the source song by giving people who wish to learn the song, and would otherwise purchase the score to do so, a way to obtain the essential information for free. But legally right or wrong is often irrelevant. If the big guys cans create a few percent point uptick in sales by simply threatening, it's still a few percent of a big number, and they will go after it.

According to an NPR story this morning, they are going after sites with 100s of tabs listed that operate for profit. I don't think we qualify.

Yep, it also says "the law is friendlier to a non-profit community of musicians educating each other." Should GN consider becoming GN.org?

You can listen to the story here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5622879

What about using servers in countries like Bulgaria or Albania? How successful will
law firms in NYC have shutting them down?

That didn't work so well for Kazaa.