I heard a song on the radio today that I wanted to learn to play, so when I got home I went to my trusty tablature site to find a huge notice posted on the main page. I think most of you will find it as interesting and infuriating as I did.
http://www.guitartabs.cc/​

Edit: As Xip just pointed out to me, all of their tabs have actually been taken down O_O. I'm literally stunned.

Edit: After a bit of searching I found a single article about it... Here.

 

There isn't just that site been taken down... look here

 

I'm not a serious player by that I mean I'm terriable. This is bull shit of the highest form. Honeslty I don't know how the recording indusrty can claim that tablature violates copyright laws. At this rate soon its going to violate copy right laws to learn the words to a song. Well enough ranting, heres a site thats still up: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

 

You realize that there is hardly any difference between this and fanfiction... Both are deviations of the original work written without the author's express permission most of the time. How long will it be before they decide that the presence of fanfiction disrupts the authors ability to make money off of the book? Will we need to consult the author before starting a fanfiction story, to make sure it meets their standards, in the future?

 

*sneezes*

GUY FAWKES!

Wow... Taken down... I don't play guitar, but this pisses me off as well.

 

I do play the guitar (not very well mine you) and this is outragous. These people are stepping over the line here. Its not like they are making profits off those tabs. All this does is cripple hopeful guitarists.

 

This is a serious issue. Not only that they are over stepping their bounds, but they are also depriving us of information. From where I’m from, tab books are not available, so the internet is the obvious answer.

…
I like to bash this guys head in. Seriously, stealing?

 

Wow. I'm officially pissed off. OLGA was my favorite Tab site...that's where I get my tabs all the time.

This is ridiculous. If I can teach someone how to play a song, is that infringement? Bullshit. If I say "Yeah, to play Knocking on Heaven's Door, the chords are just G, D, C" am I infringing? No. So why is it infringing if I choose to teach more than one person at a time by just posting my advice in the form of a tab online?

Its not like I or any other user is making money by learning how to play the song. And the credit is given to the artist...the song, after all, is filed under the Artist's name. Sure, the website is making money...but so what? They're making money because of random ads, not because people are paying for the privilege of reading/printing guitar tabs.

This is bullshit. Seriously...I can bet you that most Artists themselves will shrug and say "Y'know, tabbing is no big deal to us." Its just these fucking corporations trying to wheedle out an extra buck for everything. I mean, seriously...Music Publisher's Association?

Fuck them. Jesus. If there is any issue of infringement, who the fuck are these people to sue on behalf of the artists that actually MAKE the music? If Columbia records, or a specific band (*cough* Metallica *cough*) or their agent decides to sue, then okay. But this Music Publisher's Association shit is just garbage. They have no reason to get uppity about this...they don't own the rights to the music.

Fucking hell, I'm officially pissed off. >_<

 

I know. I went to find a tab yesterday on mxtabs or whatever it's called and I got pretty much the same message. It's so stupid! Half the time I can't even find the official music when I do go to a music store! And my mom won't let me order online because she's paranoid! Not to mention I'm completely broke. It just makes me want to rip my hair out in frustration.

 

It's one thing after another. Companies just don't like the Internet. Broadcasting corporations want to take over to erase the broad-based participatory medium that we have today so that they can make money off of it, just like they did with radio in radio's early days.

The great thing about the Internet is that it is the free sharing of information, without which society moves slower...in this case, guitarists learn slower. Companies don't see the bigger picture...all they see is another way to fill their pocketbooks.

I don't need tabs, for guitar or violin...I learned to play by sitting in front of my stereo and figuring songs out by ear. Clearly, by their logic, this is copyright infringement, because I'm "depriving the songwriter of the ability to make a living." Like Yarrgh said, passing this knowledge on is obviously a horrible thing to do.

It's just crap.

 

The companies need to get off the copyright infringement shit. maybe if they made something worth paying for, ... they'd be PAID for it more often?

I pay for zero of my music. Why? B/c every album is 15 songs, 2 good ones, 8 interludes, and 5 shitty fillers.

Movies? Cookie cutter crap. I download everything, look at it, if it's worth a fuck I go buy it. To an extent. LOTR was great, then they redid 183873232 versions of it. I paid for the original releases, downloaded the ultra rare, directors plantium collectors limited release etc ones.

 

What a crock of shit! So, now a music student that plays something that he hasn´t authored gets jailtime? By those fuckers standards, I'd say it's a major copyright violation.

What next, will we get busted for singing in the shower?

Those sites only contained the tabs, it's supposed to help people know how to play those songs, how the fuck is that illegal? What are those old fucks afraid of?

I've been using these sites ever since I started playing the guitar, it's extremely disapointing and unfair that they got taken down.

 

Not Happy Jan!!!!!!!

www.mxtabs.net

The biggest tab site on the net I belive. It and one other TAB site were first targeted over 5 months ago by the RIAA and the MPA. They closed their sites because they didn't want to infringe on any laws and have legal action taken against them. They made numerous requests to the RIAA and the MPA for TAB licsening agreements and got NO response. They also pointed out to the RIAA and the MPA that their site MXTABS.net actually increases song books sales as $13000US dollars worth of Sheet Music is bought because of their site each month. They also pointed out that 90% of artists do not release Sheet music for their songs for sale. They came back online about two months ago after no response to their communications, as after all their downtime was only a curtesy. They stayed online for about another month until they were contacted by the MPA and the RIAA to shutdown or face legal charges.

Now being a serious guitar player of 4 years you can guess that I'm fucking really pissed off by this. I sent mass emails to member of the RIAA and MPA, I signed petitions, I contacted recording companies to do something about it. I did everything I could think of.
I would not even be at half the skill level I am today without tabs available on the internet. What those fuckers have got to realise is that TAB cannot not truly copy an artists song, its a persons version, not a cover, a version of what they hear, then they put it down in an electronic format which is just numbers and symbols, WHICH CANNOT BE COPYWRITED. Lets see some copywrite the sequence qwerty, so that each time someone types that or looks at it, they have to pay royalties to the person who copywrited it.
They reckon the artists were losing out on hard worked profits. I say bullshit. The artists get a measly 5%, 10% if they're lucky from the total earnings from their work. THEY OWN THE WORK, NOT YOU FAGGOT BIG WIG COMPANIES. Oh I forgot, all these new-age fiddy-cent wanna be ganster, emo, whoring sluts of artists are actually not writing their material as is said, you get writers to write it all, put in millions of effects, over dub the stuff to shit, and the actual person who is in the spotlight is just they're because its a fucking trend?! GO AND GET FUCKED! You company bosses need a bullet, no a fucking fence post jammed up your arsses whilst listening to Brittany spears from the 90's with the veronicas and rhiana trying to sing along without the effects put on their voices with no makeup on.

Okay....

Now, theres a site out there which has a huge list of MPA and RIAA employee's and bosses emails and some even have phone numbers. Go find it, mass spam the fuckers in a polite way, sign petitions, keep copying tabs which are existent and whored them on your computer and post them on sites which are still up or are new. I nearly have all of 20 bands songs tabs from www.ultimate-guitar.com (which is still up and has always been up, great tabs and great music news updated when stories come in, and it actually reports about ACTUAL music, not that SHIT which dominates the charts)

PM me if you want more info or would like to talk about this matter more, as I have ALOT to say about it and I'm willing to spill blood to get the fucking point across to those fucking old fuckers that the music industry isn't something which should run on fads and profit to fucking companies who do jack shit with the REAL artists.

 

Wow, that's quite a rant, OEM. And I must say that I agree. It may just be paranoia on my part, but I foresee in the near future that we won't even be able to record our favorite TV shows simply because it "infringes copyright".

I think that last year the RIAA submitted a bill to the Senate that would prevent all use of something if that particular use hadn't been done before. "Customary Historic Usage", I believe it was called. The EFF still has a page about it at http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004340.php, and so does Ars Technica at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060121-6025.html.

 

Oh, that's just shite.

Tabrobot is still up, which might lead you to some of the more obscure tab sites, which might not shut down ... for a while, at least.

 

Ultimate Guitar Article

UG LIVES ON!!!!!!!!!!!!

Omg, I'm so elated atm, stick that up your fucking ass fucking MPA!!!!!

 

I have to say I see it from both sides. I'm a semi-professional musician and I HAVE published a song (not that it will ever see the light of day), so I can understand why there exists organizations like the RIAA. They exist to protect artists' rights, such as being an anti-plagiarist agent.

That being said, I learned to do what I do by playing by ear, copying the greats of jazz - which, in its essence, is exactly the same as tablature. Music is, has been, and always will be an art form whose survival is dependent on the sharing of itself. The problem lies in the attitude of the RIAA, who, for the most part have become a cheap imitation of the US government [/editorial slant]. They are not there to serve the musicians anymore; they are there to indiscriminately attack anybody who commits the RIAA definition of sin. This means that not only listeners have many difficulties with them, but also musicians. No longer may we share our work freely with others - we MUST be protected.

As a musician of such notoriety (specifically, the 'none' category), I am all for the pirating of my works. Not only does it mean that people are listening to me, it means that my work is available easily for people to enjoy. It means that my message is out there, and that - god forbid, if I were to ever release an album, someone might buy it. I would not own nearly so many Pat Metheny albums if I hadn't heard him playing 'Autumn Leaves' from a ripped CD first.

And yet the RIAA does actions like these. I can understand how they want to prevent everyone from downloading all their music right off the bat, but they pursue with a vengeance that is only suitable to Eminem, Brittany Spears, and Paris Hilton. I make no money off of album sales; the little bit of money I do make as a musician is usually from playing gigs with the odd band that needs a trumpet player for a show or two. The more pirating of my works that goes on at this point in my career means the more gigs I'll get. And that is what I'm all for.

So to the RIAA, quit acting like a government. Listening to a song is not stealing it. Attempting to play along with it is not stealing. Making money off of someone else's song is not stealing - If I bought toilet paper from the grocery store, and then gave it away for free - would that be stealing? Your job is to protect musicians - and that means ALL musicians, not just those who make millions a year. Yes, Dick Cheney may be a major Halliburton stockholder, but damned if we need an organization to protect him. If anything, we need an organization to protect us from him. Get your priorities straight; President Spears doesn't need to be richer. Instead, how about focusing on promoting the average artist who makes less than the poverty line per year? I can't make a living as a Jazz musician anymore. Let's have some help here.

To the RIAA, I say: go shove it up your AA.