Hi.
I know Al, Hank and quite a few other LFSers here are some sort of
muscians . I guess I am too. LOL I'm a "Guitar virtuoso" Cause I ain't in a band..

Seriously, I go to guitar tab sites quite often and usually try to learn 1 or two
songs a week (desperately looking for a decent tab of the TV show Sanford & Son)
well I been seeing where on some sites that they've removed tabs due to threat of lawsuits. It seems the recording industry lawyers, just ain't making enough $$$ going after song sharing, they want a piece of the guitar market.
I've read the letters that these lawyers (are they called solicitors in the UK?)
sent these sites.

So far its all it is Threats and indirect threats to the ISPs that they have the webspace from, but sooner or later it's going to go to court
I dunno I think that just plain sucks

Music publishers are "claiming" these sites are making them lose money
The reason I never used published tabs is simply the lack of choices and
the hassle involved in getting something even halfway accurate (yeah paying for tabs doesn't guarantee accuracy) isn't worth what they want
for it.

I mean where are the music and movie people going to draw the line on this???
Will a bar band that plays on friday nights after working real jobs have to pay a fee for all the cover tunes they play?

Where would Jimi Hendrix be if as a kid he could only learn songs from paid in full music?

oh well, I guess they wasn't satisfied with shooting themselves in the foot, They wanna cut the both legs off.

I can almost visualize a world where you have to register a guitar (some of the more "knee jerk reaction places would ban them) and sign a waiver
not to use the thing illegally or getting lessons from an instructor that's not certified.

It's not the recording industry, it's the sheet music industry. They pay record companies to get the rights to make sheet music, and people putting tabs up on sites destroys their business. I'll bet about 3 people actually bought sheet music last year.

I'd rather see the tab sites stay up, but they've got so big that the sheet music industry has finally had enough. Anyway, there will always be other tab sites to find. Tabcrawler is Ok, and bassmasta for bass.

Sheet music is a dinosaur. They should accept this and embrace the future. Who wants to buy a whole collection of songs from an artist when they only want to do the one hit cover in their band? Maybe if they released accurate tab abd charged for download per song, there would be a decent system. Failing that, it's great practice for your ears, your playing and your analytical techniques to work out the songs for yourself from just listening, only it takes training and a lot of chord knowledge.

I'm really a bit confused about it all, really. Are tab sites putting up scanned copies of tabs published by the sheet music industry? If that's the case, I can see a case of breach of copyright.

However, if the tabs are produced by "reverse engineering" the song, I can't see any actual breach of copyright. There is no content that has, definitively, been reproduced. If someone listens to a song, and then works out the tab, and then writes it down, and then publishes his "findings", then that's not really covered (in my rather traditional understanding of/) by copyright law. I know copyright laws are changing, and I've not exactly got my finger on the pulse these days, but it would be a pretty fundamental change to an existing law, to make this kind of prosecution stick.

In the UK, though, we have two different kinds of law. One is criminal, the other is civil. You can be sued for a civil offence, and you can be arrested and prosecuted for a criminal offence, but you can't be arrested for a breach of civil law. In my understanding, criminal law in the UK doesn't extend to copyright law. It's a civil law, and the cops can't come and get you.

It all squares down to the fact that the big tab sites were commercial and made profit with ads.

who needs to buy the song when you can learn it and play it yourself!

Quote from Jakg :

who needs to buy the song when you can learn it and play it yourself!

huh?

Yeah, I been playing long enough to be able to listen to the song and play that way, But alot of times, I don't have any sort of access to whatever song, (LOL should I tape Sanford & Son, if it still comes on here, and drive the rest of the family nuts with it?)
Some times I just hear something on the radio while driving and want to learn it. It's usually something I hadn't heard in years and won't again for a few more. If I'm lucky, a publisher might think the song could sell well enough to justify printing it... halfway right. And after months of searching, I might find a copy.
Anyways.....
As far as the tab sites goes, they are "interpretations" mostly and sometimes you have to piece 3 or 4 of these "interpretations" together
to get the song right.


Wait a minute... If I bought a piece of tabbed music, think I can sue
for discrimination? Cause I'm left-handed and the notes on the tabs are bass ackwards to me?

Quote from Racer Y :

huh?

they seem to think that by people getting the tabs online their not gonna buy the song, i mean, who would buy the song when they could learn the guitar and play it themselves

Duh. It's nothing to do with people not buying the song, its the copyright and sheet music sales they are concerned about.

Quote from Jakg :

they seem to think that by people getting the tabs online their not gonna buy the song, i mean, who would buy the song when they could learn the guitar and play it themselves

LOL Now I get it

You know, Al?
I was thinking, How many of those tabs on the tab sites do you think even has a "copyrighted and published" version out? and how many of those are readily available?

I mean How many pieces of sheet music/tabs are out there for i dunno... The J. Geil's Band? Or April Wine?

Yeah, they can hardly lose money on tabs that have never been published, which is probably the bulk of what the tab sites provide illepall