Post #241,488
1/15/06 11:35:38 PM
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MPA says sharing tablature for songs is stealing
According to [link|http://digg.com/music/Say_good-bye_to_tabs_my_fellow_musicians...|digg], popular tablature site [link|http://mxtabs.net|http://mxtabs.net] has been shut down.
"According to the MPA it's now illegal to display your interpretation of a musical score through tabs, or scores. This is getting completely out of hand, looks like we'll have to go underground for tabs now too."
While I get that there is a sheet music business (of sorts) the fact remains that most titles never get printed, most of those that do are "simplified" (mostly they're just wrong) for the home musician and virtually noone publishes in tablature, which is the best notation for guitar.
The tab charts that are out there were produced by people listening, figuring out, and then writing down what they think they heard. I don't see where that is exactly a "copy".
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #241,490
1/15/06 11:44:52 PM
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That's how it started
Copyright used to apply to sheet music before the invention of the phonograph. To this day, writers get better terms than performers. I'm not at all surprised someone's going after them.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #241,500
1/16/06 4:43:45 AM
1/16/06 4:45:02 AM
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I still have some sheet music...
...that forbids me from making Magic Lantern Slides of it. I think it's a pretty safe bet that I will comply.
Edit: typo in subject.
Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Edited by Meerkat
Jan. 16, 2006, 04:45:02 AM EST
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Post #241,508
1/16/06 12:39:52 PM
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Yeah, but there's very little money in it now
Songwriters mostly get paid for "mechanicals" these days - royalties on recorded performances. Some also get paid for specific public performances but to get this implies that you actually sold them decent notation with which to produce said performance along with a license to perform it.
Probably 90% of the tabs on these sites are for songs not published in sheet music form. Most of the stuff is there for instructional use. The only way to learn how to play well is to play a lot of different stuff. If you have to license all this stuff to learn to play an instrument, one day there will be no musicians (heck, we're nearly there now). This law will destroy the final remnants of culture if fully enforced (impossible I know).
In fact, since the beginning, pro musicians have circumvented this kind of nonsense with underground traded "fake books" (a large book of popular songs with lyrics and general cord structures - enough for any reasonably accomplished musician to "fake" his way through the song and get that $20 tip in the lounge for playing some yahoo's request). Fake books were for sold with a nudge and a wink under the counter of most sheet music establishments.
Given that this was the model before, I see no reason why it will change with a bunch of laywers running around threatening skilled people trying to help the younger talent come up.
The whole thing is anti-american.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #241,510
1/16/06 12:57:30 PM
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these people are missing the boat, if you cant see the music
to practice it enough to play in a venue. The royalty check doesnt get cut if you dont play the tune. How much less would Clapton have if no one but him ever played "cocaine".
thanx,
bill
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 50 years. meep
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Post #241,542
1/16/06 5:44:18 PM
1/16/06 5:44:39 PM
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No less than he does now
since Cocaine was written by J. J. Cale.
That said, this sounds like some executrix type is getting kickbacks from a law firm to come up with something plausible that they can bill for.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Edited by jake123
Jan. 16, 2006, 05:44:39 PM EST
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Post #241,501
1/16/06 8:46:16 AM
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SO, I guess I can't admin any systems then...
as I learned through example... and watching and plain old HK School.
But I can't distinguish tween which I used for what. Which means, I cannot do any.
Yeah, frickin' right.
Something in the law about not being able to keep someone from working in the livelyhood they are in. Just can't find it right now.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyFreedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;
0 rows returned.
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Post #241,604
1/17/06 3:01:39 AM
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It is a derivative work
Sorry Todd, but this is a very well-established part of copyright law. There are many kinds of copies, and copies need not be exact. It is quite easy to unintentionally breach copyright. But if someone set out to make a copy, no matter how imperfect the result, you are definitely violating copyright.
To name an important example, it is not exactly copying to make a translation. Yet translations are still covered under the original copyright. (The translator also gets a copyright, recognizing that the resulting document is partly copied, and partly created.)
That case is very similar to this one. Someone sets out to wind up with a work that is in some way the original, but which is very different in detail. (In one case it is sound vs writing, in the other it is one language versus another.) The result, no matter how different, is covered under copyright.
IANAL and all that, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a lawyer who would disagree.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #241,638
1/17/06 11:06:26 AM
1/17/06 11:14:17 AM
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So you might as well outlaw the instruction of music
since it is necessary to learn to play/study existing pieces before moving to original works.
Sorry, I don't agree with this law and it will be violated everywhere. Laws that are routinely violated aren't worth having.
-------
I just had a thought. These tabs notations are clean room reverse engineered implementations of the songs. We don't necessarily *know* how it was played, we are guessing based on the sound of the thing coupled with our experience with our instrument and providing notes on how to achieve an approximation of the same sound based on our experience with the instrument.
IOW, we don't have access to the source code of the song but we've reimplemented it based on our external observations of how it acts. Kind of muddies things a bit - yes?
Just a thought experiment.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #241,646
1/17/06 1:30:24 PM
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But, you bought the music to study/practice. No?
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail ... but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...that was fun!"
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Post #241,654
1/17/06 1:59:53 PM
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Its not for sale
you have to learn popular songs off the radio by ear - maybe grabbing a cassette. By the time they consider publishing them (if at all), they are old news and off the charts.
Public performance, BTW is compensated at the venue level by ASCAP or BMI memberships.
The venue owners are expected (threatened) to join one of these publishing orgs and their membership money is distributed among the songwriters. So its not like they're not getting paid at all. They just want another income stream I think.
I remain adamant that only paid performances are worthy of compensation and use of charts for study and personal pleasure ought to be free. Performances include mechanical performances (playing a CD) in a place of business (like a coffee house).
Good artists copy, great artists steal. All artists are outlaws it seems. Well - so be it.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #241,657
1/17/06 2:05:58 PM
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Historical accident
Once Upon a Time, entertainment was done on a much smaller scale than we're used to. Like one house at a time. The only way to recover money from the people doing this was to get it when they bought the sheet music.
Today, it's the opposite. You're much more likely to get your entertainment via recorded music, or at a public venue. Either of which already gets your money for the "artist". (Chyeah, you mean for the label.)
So yes, they're shooting themselves in the foot for a short term gain.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #241,665
1/17/06 6:09:20 PM
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You are grotesquely exaggerating.
Neither the law nor the RIAA say that copies cannot be made. They are saying that copies should only be made by those who are legally authorized to make them. In other words it is a legal monopoly, not an outright ban.
In theory if there exists a large enough demand for this music in written form, then it will be worth people's while to provide that. For personal reasons some musicians may not want to cooperate, but there is still a large body of legal written work available to learn from. Perhaps the music that you want to learn is not there, but other music is.
Heck, I am not a musician but I happen to own several books of legally published music. It is easy to find other books from a variety of genres. I'm sure that your employer would be able to sell you some. So it is not just in theory that this legal market exists. As I said, not everything that you want will be available. But it is available, at an inconvenient but doable cost.
Whether you agree with this law or not is a different issue. Plenty of people disagree with copyright and it has always been widely violated. (In fact there is even a legal doctrine on when it is OK to violate copyright.) My point is that under the law, the RIAA is clearly in the right here. And it isn't "under the law because they got an absurd bill passed." It is a pretty basic and well-established part of the law.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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