what will guitarists do? tab outlawed

[shattered existence]

This whole thing really isn't a debate on whether or not the free sharing of tablature over the internet is legal or illegal. Anyone should be able to see that legally it is copyright infringement. I think the real debate is whether or not the outlawing of free tablature is necessary.

I don't see how the majority of the tabs online are hurting anyone. The only ones that I see as a legitimate problem are the tabs allready being offered for sale by publishing companies such as Hal Leonard for example. I think the claim for these tabs to be taken off line is completely reasonable. But the majority of tabs on the internet are on songs that can't be found in print, and as stated before most of them are not completely accurate and a lot of them are just plain sh*t.

In my opinion this whole thing is just about greed. The people behind this whole thing are probably rich beyond my wildest dreams and are just looking for a way to make more money. A lot of signed bands don't even own the copyright to the songs that they wrote. They had to give that up to the untalented, unoriginal, creatively handicapped jackasses who run the record labels.

I would like to know why this is all of a sudden an issue. Free tabs have been available for several years, and there is no possible way that the record companies just found out about it. If someone came to your house and stole your cookies right in front of you, you would get your damn cookies back. You wouldn't let them come over and steal your cookies every single day for 15 years, and then all of a sudden say, "Hey why are takin my cookies, give em back."

If you ask me this whole thing is just as ridiculous as the jackass who spilled his coffee on himself at McDonlad's and then sued them for millions of dollars.

What the f**k?

[sevesd93]

All this talk about stealing cookies is making me forking hungry.

[shattered existence]

You can come over to my house and steal my cookies. But if you do you'd better watch your ass in 2022!!!!!!!!

[Grindspine]

Your argument that damage needs to be proven is a straw man. Nobody needs to prove to you that there is any actual damage. Copyright gives the holder the right to decide how their work is distributed.

A straw man argument is actually attacking the messenger instead of the actual message if I'm not mistaken... (no really, am I?)

I don't think anyone is asking if copywrite DOES make tab/notation illegal. By the letter of the law, it DOES.

The question, rather, is SHOULD notation be made illegal? Does it actually cause damage or hurt sales for the musicians who wrote and/or got the copywrite or the record company who bought the rights to the music?

The legal question is null at this point. We all know it IS illegal. However, should it ethically be wrong?

If a young guitar player wants to build confidence at the new instrument, he might want to test his ability attempting to play a song he has heard (much in the same way a child emulates words to learn language).

Music cannot be learned by hearing alone. One must play to master music creation.

So, is it ethically write or wrong to USE tab/notation (for non-public, non-profit use)? I'd say no, it's not.

Is it ethically wrong to distribute the tab/notation that you have copied from a book? Definitely...that is theft of someone else's work.

Is it wrong to distribute tab/notation that you have figured out by listening to the song...?

This is the question that has me stumped. Anyone want to tackle that particular question?

[Garr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it. It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy or a scarecrow argument.

[Garr]

Well, the law allows a person to make notations for their own personal use and it is not an infringement of copyright law. As soon as that medium enters negligible distribution, it is an infraction. If you listen to a song and tab it out, then hand your interpretation to a band mate or friend so that they can learn it also, you have not entered negligible distro. If you put it on the internet, you have crossed the line especially if the website has sponsors, which means you are in fact making money off of that intellectual property because you get paid for clicks that are brought to your site by the content of protected media.

@ Silencio, in America, the prosecution has the burden of proof. Just because someone is accused of breaking a law does not make them guilty. The prosecutor or plantiff has the burden of proving that the defendant broke a law or is negligible for damages. (i.e. lost royalties for distribution) If you'd like it the other way, I'm sure we can find some dictatorship for you to be hauled off to.

[Jeff]

..

[Garr]

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

That makes it clear that it's unclear.

[quote]The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.â€

[Garr]

The real problem is that there have been no court decisions on this issue. No one can yet prove what is or is not legal.

There is no decision to be made here. Tablature is no different than taking a copy of the recorded performance and distributing it. It's no different than typing out the lyrics and distributing those. It is a derivative replication of the original work and is, as such, protected by copyright law.

Consider this:

You write a song and record it and put out an album and copyright the material and register with ASCAP or BMI or another agency. Someone comes along and transcribes your album note for note, puts it in a book, and gives it out for free, but on the covers and pages there are adverts placed throughout. Now, the person who replicated your protected work is not selling the tablature itself, but they did make tons of money by selling advertising space in the book. They are profiting from your intellectual property and it's against the law.

Note that in the U.S. Copyright Office's examples of "Fair Use" it does not include and instance of an entire work being replicated AND the reasons for replication do not include distribution for profit.

[luki]

Download winamp and the winamp pacemaker plugin. Both are free.

Slow the mofo down without changing the pitch.

Learn the song, and train your ear in the process.

I've used it for years and couldn't be happier.