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(@nroberts)
Reputable Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 305
 

Intellectual property rights are probably the single most important thing we can protect. Otherwise, not only songs and movies, but software, pharmaceuticals and all technical inventions would be left unprotected. Then there'd be little or no motivation to create such developments.

Well first I have to attack your premise. Lot's of people claim that there would be no motivation to be creative if there was no reward. No software, no innovation, etc...

http://www.linux.org/

And it is far from the only example...I have also spent many hours on computer software for which I would see no monetary benefit and which I released to the public for free. I also spend much of my time writing music that I release to the public for free and without restriction.

About IP "rights" being the most important thing we can protect I definately have to differ with you there. There are a LOT more important things than IP and in fact current IP laws are endangering those things:

* The right of a person to choose their own software - DMCA makes any Linux DVD player illegal.

* The right of an individual to purchase a product at the best price available - by sneaking Region Encoding into the CSS algorithm, which is protected by the DMCA, the media companies have effectively created an illegal, yet legally protected price fixing scheme.

* The right of society to make use of the information it helped to create - Current copyright terms that outlast the creator by several decades and the trend to continue extending that term every time Mickey Mouse comes up for PD makes this impossible.

* The creation of new ideas based on knowledge gained. Without this ability science and creativity are impossible. ALL works are based on previous works. - Current copyright laws and the monopolies they grant and the periods of time these restrictions on the use, by members of society, of previously gained information makes this very difficult and in some cases impossible.

There was at one time a good balance but it has been lost for ages. We don't need to have copy"rights" that have terms of 70 years beyond the death of the creator in order to promote science and creativity. The current form of copyright is a HINDERANCE to science and creativity on a massive scale. It has gotten completely out of hand.

A must read:
http://www.open-spaces.com/article-v2n1-loren.php
It seems unlikely that a creative individual, in determining how to spend her limited time and resources thinks, "ah, now that my copyright lasts for seventy years after my death I will invest more in creating more works."

Our founding fathers were very weary of copyright and for good reason. We are now in a state that they feared all along; a state where the freedom of expression and creativity are hampered by government sactioned monopolies on information. In their view the monopoly of copyright would be tollerated for a short term to promote science and creativity. Current popular view on copyright is that it is a *right* that must be protected from society.

The original copyright law was a good balance. Interestingly, tab would have been totally legal as would the public performance of cover tunes - which are currently against the law unless you pay royalties.

I think many people actually fail to realize just how restrictive copyright is because nobody really follows it. Copyright as it is today is a major obstacle to the advancement of the human race.


   
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(@pearlthekat)
Noble Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 1468
 

hello.....

i so totally agree...

people should open their minds and envision the world without copyright laws....


   
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 Taso
(@taso)
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Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 2811
 

I think it's different when a person makes a living by writing songs, selling songs. It's easy for us to say "Well I put my song on the hear here, so everyone could hear it for free", but I'm not a professional musician, that's not how I make my money. If I devoted my whole life to making music, and didn't get paid for it, I wouldn't be able to live anywhere but on the street.

http://taso.dmusic.com/music/


   
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(@slydog)
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Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 243
 

The original copyright law was a good balance. Interestingly, tab would have been totally legal as would the public performance of cover tunes - which are currently against the law unless you pay royalties.

From a bio of Stephen Foster, of Oh Susanna, My Old Kentucky Home and Swannee River fame:

"In any part of the 20th century, he would have been a millionaire at least twice over, but in the 1850s, he was never compensated remotely that well. Foster never fully caught up with his debts and was always writing new songs to keep his income flowing in."

Interestingly, others did make money off his music, so it wasn't the economics of the time, but the lack of protection for the creator of the work. And, yes, lack of copyright didn't stop the creative process - but the creator certainly paid the price.

I'll agree that recent laws are taking certain aspects of protection too far and that certain copyright holders are being short-sighted in their desire to retain absolute control (the recent mess with Sony CDs that placed malicious software on computers that tried to play them is a good example). And I certainly don't like the thought of losing access to free tabs. But I also think a lot of the complaining we're all doing is a bit self serving. We got used to something for nothing and don't want to lose it.

There will always be people willing to work for nothing, and if they want to give their stuff away for free, they are more than welcome to do so. But if someone wants to retain rights, they should be able to.

Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down.


   
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(@shortbus_bully)
Active Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 7
 

If we are going to start quoting US code here is food for thought:

§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Release date: 2005-08-01

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A (these are stating the rights given to the owner of a copyright), the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Tabs are considered (at least by most people) of educational use and therefore are NOT copyright infringement.

Also as stated above when determining the fair use of copyrighted material one must look at the ENTIRE potential market (so breaking it into three users ie. artist publisher and distributer as someone said above is not valid.) Tabs have a positive effect on the potential market of a copyrighted material...period (maybe not the publishers as a single entity but total potential market).

Ps as a little personal aside, if it were possible to find a tab book with accurate tabs for every artist with every song i would ever want to learn, i would gladly pay for the licensing (at a reasonable price, as previously stated 5 bucks for one song is absurd) of the material in an official book form. But since this is hardly the case (unless i really wanted to learn the latest My Chemical Romance song on the radio) i have no other recourse than online tabs. 99.9% of the songs i would want to learn to play are not in any book (you ever looked for a heavy metal tab book? unless you are a fan of *cough*Metallica or *hack*Guns 'n Roses you will not find them i guarantee).

PPs thank the gods some artists (like Darkane and others) post their own tabs, tabbed by themselves, on their personal websites....hopefully this will become a trend!


   
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(@slydog)
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Posts: 243
 

Nice job on your first-ever post, shortbus. You make good points, both legal and logical. You are right about the lack of legitimate tabs out there. And it's much like the argument with recorded music - no one wants to buy an entire book just to get the tab for one or two songs.

Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down.


   
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(@noteboat)
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Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 4921
 

I think I'd quoted from that section in another thread. It won't fly... and you didn't read the footnotes, did you? Can't blame you... there are a lot of them. Don't worry, I'll give you the good parts.

When that current section was drafted, it was accompanied by a report, House Report 94-1476, which lays out the rationale of Congress in making changes to this section. These reports also contain the rationale for prior revisions, and this particular one goes into great depth on the 1976 changes that added the educational clause to this section.

Prior to 1976, copyright owners were hauling teachers into court on a nearly wholesale basis. The committee drafting the 1976 revisions called on teachers, authors, and publishers for testimony, and created guidelines that publishers agreed to for educators (and the courts) to use.

Once they had done that, the music publishers weighed in. Here are some parts of fair use for music publishing defined in that agreement, which is what the courts are going to use:

A. Permissible Uses

2. (a) For academic purposes other than performance, multiple
copies of excerpts of works may be made, provided that the
excerpts do not comprise a part of the whole which would
constitute a performable unit such as a section, movement or
aria, but in no case more than 10% of the whole work
. The number
of copies shall not exceed one copy per pupil.
(b) For academic purposes other than performance, a single copy
of an entire performable unit (section, movement, aria, etc.)
that is, (1) confirmed by the copyright proprietor to be out of
print or (2) unavailable except in a larger work, may be made by
or for a teacher solely for the purpose of his or her scholarly
research or in preparation to teach a class.

Tab sites lose here... tabs are generally more than 10% of a song, and the argument that it's teachers using tab sites for research falls flat because most of the works are still in print.

But enough about what it allows - it also defines what isn't allowed:

B. Prohibitions

1. Copying to create or replace or substitute for anthologies,
compilations or collective works.

2. Copying of or from works intended to be ''consumable'' in
the course of study or of teaching such as workbooks, exercises,
standardized tests and answer sheets and like material.
3. Copying for the purpose of performance, except as in A(1)
above.
4. Copying for the purpose of substituting for the purchase of
music, except as in A(1) and A(2) above.
5. Copying without inclusion of the copyright notice which
appears on the printed copy.

Tab sites lose here too - they're clearly anthologies. Those were defined in the agreement with the print publishers - if you've got more than one piece by the same author, or more than nine pieces total, it's an anthology. Free tab is a direct substitute for the purchase of music, and most tabs do not include copyright notices.

Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL


   
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(@slydog)
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Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 243
 

So what is the solution? Here are the challenges I see:

1) There are limited legitimate tabs available for purchase.
2) Most are parts of larger books, which are expensive (like buying a CD for one song)
3) They are frequently more complex or in different keys than many people need or want.
4) Professional book tabs or sheet music with standard notation often take 3, 4 or more pages, which are cumbersome to use.

Would publishers have any inclination to make individual tabs available for download for a nominal fee (I'd say it should be much lower than the cost of the actual recording)?

Would they be willing to set up a "For Pay" site with a subscrition fee where people can post tabs for free, but one has to pay the subscription to download (kind of like Napster's monthly all-you-can-eat song buffet?

Since I tend to like a lot of obscure music, it's often not tabbed anywhere on-line, so I've had to try to figure them out myself. I've found that to be a pretty good exercise, so while this would be a pain, it might help with some skills in the long run (Trying to see the glass as half full).

Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down.


   
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(@paulhackett)
Prominent Member Admin
Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 794
 

In a way I wish I'd never seen tab before. I know I'd be a much better guitarist if I hadn't.

I'm more concerned about seeing websites I visit being closed. If I can't get free tab I'll inevitably become a better musician. I'd think twice about ever buying sheet music ever again. Let's face it, if the free tab is gone and we all get better at ear training, we won't need to buy the books either. I don't see music publishers coming out of this any stronger or any richer. The MPA will have a lot of people hating them that didn't even now they existed a few months ago. It will suck if ever there is a day we can't quickly google a song to find out the lyrics.

Guitar Noises Newsletter


   
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(@shortbus_bully)
Active Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 7
 

The copy of US code i was referencing did not have any of these addendums, hence the reason i did not read them hehe, so i went and found a new annotated copy. You are right about tab sites not having the upper hand but a crafty representative could probably make a good argument against any laws being broken. In fact, I really don't see anything in guidelines 1 and 2 that would be permissable in this argument as they are specifically aimed at institutional scholarship. The prohibitions stated here are also not necessarily permissable. It is directly referring to copying a printed material so that you can only purchase, for example, one book and give it to all your students. Since tablature, in most cases, is not meant to replace anthologies (remember that tab books, in terms of tab books:published music, are essentially non existant) but to provide a source of reference for personal study. Whether tablature really is illegal is a question of semantics and since their is no precedence we can only make guesses and conjecture as to the outcome of these precedings.


   
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(@shortbus_bully)
Active Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 7
 

I agree with you Paul on everything you said. I don't think the the bureaucrats at the MPA realize that it's a two way street. In order to exploit a consumable there must a be a consumer. By alienating their consumers, by shutting down our favorite sites and vehemently villifying our practices, they are doing nothing but eliminating their own potential sources of capital.

Maybe iTunes will get into the tab business.....hell i hope they do


   
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(@paulhackett)
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Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 794
 

Hopefully iTunes won't get more expensive. With music industry sales apparently slowing down there have been ruminuations on forcing Apple to increase prices. Apple makes very little off each downlaod, but they are doing great business with sales of iPods. I'm happy to have a Canadian iTunes account because the exchange rate makes Canadian downloads cheaper than average. Here's a strange business model: because the music is cheaper I buy more!

Guitar Noises Newsletter


   
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 klim
(@klim)
Reputable Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 269
 

I totally agree with you Paul, about buyng more music when it's cheaper.

I buy lot's of used CD's and DVD's, and rarely have a problem with them.

The truth is, that if a album, song, movie is usually a year or older. The Music Industry should charge a lot less for them. Why??? They've already done all the marketing at that point (so pressing a new CD and with liner pages, cost a whole whopping 0.70 cents to them), and in most cases, the CD or DVD is probably selling a lot less at that point.

Why should I have to pay $30.00 -$ 37.00 CDN for Physicall Graffitti, when the album isn't really relevant any more. That one copy that HMV has on the shelf will probably sit there for a long time before anyone will buy iit. But if it was priced at say $10 - $15, sure I'll buy it. Haw many really want to plunk down $24.00 for an album with "Hey Ya" (Outkast)??? Does anyone else know of any other hits of that album?

Plus all this new so called music, these days are just crap. So much filler that the one song is barely worth the price.

The MPA can't handle the fact music sales are down, due to the amount of really shitty bands out there now. So they have to blame someone and that's you and me.


   
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(@josh363)
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Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 1
 

what i don't understand is why foreign people can't host the websites? i have read the guy from dylandchords' biography and he talked about the australian laws on copyright, but can the MPA take action against non-Americans? they should shift the contents of mxtabs.net to an mxtabs.co.uk or something.

also, what kind of effect this is having on the development of modern guitar music? until recently, we've had kids learning the guitar from the internet, which i should think really helps reduce the learning curve (i mean, access to the collective knowledge of millions of guitarists worldwide should help you along, at least a bit, if you're teaching yourself). Moreover, downloading from the old (illegal) mp3 peer to peer programs really helped my playing - i would do what other people did, read up on an artist, download a couple of songs, if i liked i went out to buy the album and then would probably end up learning to play their songs. having access to less mainstream artists via the P2P programs really helped expand my mind when it comes to music. If it was working like this for me, then it must have been for other people. I now have many and varied influences in my playing because of the internet. If i didn't have access to the tabs and mp3s, then my influences would probably be a lot less varied and numerous. but if it's doing this for my playing, it must be doing it for others' too, and it may be that it influences the style of future guitar music.

but maybe not, seeing as how "the man" is putting an end to all this.


   
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(@noteboat)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 4921
 

Going international just makes it worse, in a way.

The US is a party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works... one of several international copyright treaties. Lots of folks think there might be loopholes in US law that would allow tab sites to operate. The international treaty isn't so fuzzy:

Article 9
(1) Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall have the exclusive right of authorizing the reproduction of these works, in any manner or form.

Within the US, US law rules. Outside the US, US based publishers could potentially enforce the Berne provisions.

As far as the effect on the development of guiitar players, I'd say it's none at all. I learned back in the day when tab was extremely rare. Most of the 'all time great guitar players' are a product of that era, not this one. More people do play guitar today, and tab may be one reason... but there's a difference between developing a lot of guitar players and developing a lot of good guitarists. I don't see tab as an essential to musicianship.

Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL


   
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