Powertabs illegal!

So, in theory, using Music books I have Purchased, I could post tabs of the music in them IF I stated the site was a Library and IF I did not accept advertising so that the site was truly Non-profit, then the Fair use exemption should apply to me and I should have the same exemptions university and public libraries have for putting content online. I would imagine I would have to store hardcopies of all the books as proof of purchase.

Not necessarily!

According to The Music Library Association (yes, there is such a thing!), the "fair use" section of copyright law takes into consideration "The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of the copyrighted work. Criteria used to determine adverse market effect include (a) accessibility of the work, (b) date of its creation or publication, (c) economic life of the work, (d) price, and (e) evidence of abandonment. "

So the MPA would probably argue that an online library's broad dissemination of the copyrighted material could have an adverse effect on the market value of published songbooks (effectively reducing that value to zero.)

http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/mla/guidelines/accepted%20guidelines/Copyright%20and%20Fair%20Use.asp?node=2

I'm sure sites like Guitar Tab Universe do pretty well in terms of advertising, but I doubt it comes anywhere close to millions. It seems most tab sites get run of network ads, which pay a lot less. It would be hard to convince me that any guitar tab or lyrics site owner is making lots of money. You could make a living at it, but it won't make you rich.

Now, I think copying tabs straight from books is wrong. But attacking user submitted tabs is a whole gray area. We all know that most tabs on the Internet are wrong, or highly inaccurate and incomplete. Suing over someone's interpretation of a song, especially if it's wrong is dodgy. But they are going to push ahead and do it anyway. I got an email from musicnotes.com saying that even by linking to a site that offers tabs could get me in legal trouble. I hope I don't see anyone's right to free speech encroached on in that way. Linking to other sites is what the Internet is about.

The fair use argument has been used before. I think in this case whoever has the most money to spend on a legal team is going to prove what fair use is. It will be tough to argue fair use, even if a site is registered as a non-profit organization, for reasons mentioned by slejhamer.

Personally, I think the MPA is blowing a lot of smokescreen. They say they are standing up to protect the songwriters, allowing them to keep working. Well, how much money does a songwriter receive for a songbook assuming they wrote all the songs inside? If it is anything like the CD model probably $1 per sale. Most songbooks seem to cost around $19.95. Taking into account production costs, marketing and all that - it is still the publisher that stands to lose the most by fewer sales. And to say that they are standing up for songwriters is an argument that most people will see as false.

Sales of sheet music are not going to increase when these web sites get shut down. The negative impact will have lasting effects, as website visitors are for the most part,very loyal to the sites they visit. They won't forget what's been done, or who did it.

You're right about run of network ads paying less, but it's not necessarily a lot less. On a CPM basis, the cost to the advertiser for run of network is in the $3-5 range, while dedicated banners run $4-7. Most tab sites are serving Google ads, so there's a middleman taking a cut - but GTU looked like they were hosting a dedicated banner, so I'm guessing their take is higher.

I'm fairly certain their gross is (or should be) in the millions; the site gets over 2 billion page hits per year. In other words, about 1/30th the traffic Yahoo gets... and Yahoo makes about $2.5 billion per year, 80% of that from advertising. On a per-hit basis, that means I'm figuring Yahoo generates roughly 120-150 times as much money as GTU.

I think user submitted tabs aren't really a gray area; in fact, they face one more big hurdle, and you said it yourself: someone's 'interpretation' of a song. Interpretations can easily be seen as 'derivative works', and you must have the permission of the original artist to publish one.

So in a way, if a tab is dead-on accurate, the only argument is over financial rights. If a tab is an 'interpretation', there are both financial and artistic rights at stake, and the law is pretty clear about who owns the artistic rights (and it ain't the tabber!)

If they're really making that much money they won't have to worry about being shut down. They can afford to move their servers from country to country to stay ahead of the law. If they're grossing in the millions they are definitely doing something right. If a web-entrepreneaur makes 1 million it becomes big news (see CNN today: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/12/29/student.homepage.reut/index.html )

If only Alexa rankings were helpful. I don't think there are any guitar lesson sites with higher Alexa ranking than this one, and I still have to supplement my income from other sources. If there are sites making millions of dollars off tabs and lyrics I would have to revise my opinion on the matter. I kind of figured these sites were maintained by music fans like me. If they live in mansions they're nothing like me.

I am confused about this.....who is the legal action on behalf of? The artists shouldn't care if someone is learning their songs unless they want to go after all the bar bands playing other people's music since those bands are making money. I thought if you record and sell music written by someone else without the consent of the original artist then thats wrong. I think maybe there's too many lawyers trying to create more income

The legal action is on behalf of the copyright owners.

When an artist writes a song, they typically have a contract with a music publisher. That publisher's job is to exploit the music rights, and they usually split the take 50-50 with the artist. Very little music is recorded without a publishing agreement - and if a major label signs an artist that doesn't already have a publisher, the labels does their best to make the publishing rights part of the contract.

It's actually perfectly legal to record and sell someone else's music without permission... but you have to pay a royalty for its use. That's called 'statuatory' royalty, and the rate is fixed by law. Most people get permission, because you can often negotiate a better rate than the statuatory one, but plenty of folks skip that and simply pay the rate.

Thanks i'm a bit ignorant of all the in's and out's, I think it an overreaction. Lawyers...the tail wagging the dog, or is it the other way round

I thought it was entirely legal to post your interpretation of the music as long as it wasn't copied from a copyrighted source(tab book). Mostly because of the right to free speech. It seems constitutionally wrong to prevent someone from sharing an interpretation of something. I think the companies are trying to stop tab sites but really they have no legal basis except for some of the tabs are copied from copyrighted material.

I was looking around on Limewire and found all 40,000 GP tabs in one file for download. Didn't look for power tabs yet but they may be there

Dave

mysongbook.com has reopened it's doors.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ has all PTA power tabs for downloading.....

I thought it was entirely legal to post your interpretation of the music as long as it wasn't copied from a copyrighted source(tab book). Mostly because of the right to free speech. It seems constitutionally wrong to prevent someone from sharing an interpretation of something. I think the companies are trying to stop tab sites but really they have no legal basis except for some of the tabs are copied from copyrighted material.

The right of 'free speech' just means you aren't going to be thrown in jail for simply speaking your mind. It doesn't mean you can reproduce the words (or notes) of somebody else anytime you want... depending on the circumstances, that's plagarism/copyright infringement etc.

You can share your opinions, your criticisms, or anything else about a song that's clearly yours - but the song ain't yours, so the 'interpretation' isn't either.

A good analogy would be checking out a books-on-tape cassette from the library, and typing up the words you hear for posting on a website. It's "your work" in making the transcription, and it might even be an 'interpretation' if you mis-hear or mis-spell some words; but it's still someone else's creation.

Ok I didn't bother to read 3 pages full of posts. Yes I'm lazy. I just wanted to know what's going on now? Any new information?

So what this all boils do to is this.

You can learn to make a nuclear devise from various places on the web (or so I've heard), but soon it might be illegal to download a partially acurate tab for John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance.

Gentlemen, you may start the Revolution.

When I'm elected Dictator for Life the lawyers will be the first to go.

Michael