http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5305520.stm


Discord over guitar sites
By Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Magazine

Guitarist
Guitar sales are at an all time high, according to figures last week
With the fight against illegal downloading of songs starting to pay off, the music business has set its sights on a new enemy on the internet - websites which transcribe pop songs into musical notation.

The guitar may be enjoying a comeback among schoolboys and dad rockers alike, but beginners hoping to strum along with their favourite bands are finding dissonance online.

Having seen off some of the biggest networks that enabled free downloading of songs over the net, the music business is now calling the tune for websites aimed at guitarists.

Music publishers in the US say the guitar "tab" sites illegally infringe songwriters' copyright, and have issued "take down" orders to some of the biggest.

Tab, or guitar tablature, is a simple form of musical notation for the guitar - far easier to learn than traditional musical notation. Notes are depicted on a staff that represents six strings across a fret board.

Some of the sites targeted have all but closed down, provoking an angry reaction on guitar blogs.

Illegal adaptations

Since the early days of the net, guitarists have shared tabs for their favourite songs, online.


WHAT IS GUITAR TAB?
Tab example
Form of musical notation that tells players where to place fingers on fret board
Six horizontal lines represent six strings of the guitar
Numbers show where each string is fretted

Guitar sales double in 7 years
While tab is officially published in books, to be bought, from which a royalty goes to the songwriter, the selection is limited - most songs are never formally transcribed.

But online, just about any artist, from Boyzone to Big Bill Broonzy, has had their work written into tab - free to view, no registration required.

Most sites, however, claim their tabs are not ripped off from official sources - rather they represent the "interpretation" of a song. Skilled musicians can transcribe a guitar riff, chord sequence or solo after just a few listens.

But that doesn't wash with the music industry, which says even adaptations of songs are covered by copyright law.

Cathal Woods, who runs Olga.net - Online Guitar Archive - has removed all 34,000 tablatures in the site's archive after getting a "take down" letter from lawyers representing two US groups: the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and the Music Publishers Association of the United States (MPA).

"Obviously the law is on their side and obviously these are copyright infringements," he says, frankly. But he plans to fight the order along with other sites.

"They're forcing everyone off the net but as far as I know they don't have anything [an iTunes-style equivalent] that would fill the need for guitar tab online.

"My other objection is that for the music publishing companies, it's as if the internet never happened. The internet changes everything and we need to think about what's permissible in the context of the internet."

'Unprofitable' site

Olga, which claimed 1.9 million users a month before going offline, is the mother of all guitar tab sites, dating back to 1992. So why has the crackdown come now?

Olga grab
Olga, which started as a Usenet group, has been shut
"Some people say it's because the business is looking for a new target after MP3 sites. But almost all tab sites use very basic, text-only tabs. They are low-level, low information sites whereas with MP3 sharing sites you were getting something that is qualitatively identical to the original song."

Mr Woods says that Olga was not a profit-making site. Its advertising covered its cost, but it kept a community feel.

"[The lawyers] say we're making money out of these sites but I've never been paid for it. It's a hobby. I've got a full-time job," he says.

Speaking last year, the president of the NMPA, David Israelite, said unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature "deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing. The US MPA says it has the support of sister organisation around the world, including its UK counterpart.

Lawyer and editor of Out-law.com Struan Robertson says under British law, there is little doubt that tab sites are, technically, breaking copyright laws. But he is "disappointed" with how the US music industry is going about it.

"In the UK a few years ago, the British music industry didn't go after MP3 sites because at the time there was no legal source of reasonably priced music on the internet. Then iTunes [Apple's legal music download site] came along and only then did the British industry step in and threaten to sue the illegal sites."


I mean WTF, I think it's plain ridiculous.

There seem to be gaping holes in the music publishers' stance here.

For one thing, I can sit down right now, and say "I think the chord progression to I Want it That Way by the Backstreet Boys is blah blah blah", and I can write that down and put it on the Internet. If I was totally making up the chords, am I responsible for copyright infringement? How about if the chords are sort of close, but not right on? How about if I'm lucky and they are ALMOST perfect, but still just off the top of my head?

OLGA was not publishing THE music as written by THE artist. They were publishing some interpretation by Joe Schmoe who thought he could sit down and listen to it and tab it. Is the ATTEMPT to do so illegal? Or only the successful attempt? Furthermore, how many songs are C-D-G? A lot of tabs on OLGA only listed the chords, with no actual tablature. You can interchange song titles for a lot of that stuff, so I'm guessing the crime is only that you can't put a song title on the webpage?

Say hello to invite only tab sites.

This is a joke, right?

this is soooo stupid in so many levels.

have all musicians turned into robert johnson?

i'm surprised 911tabs and ultimate-guitar are still up, those are way more elaborate than Olga

ultimate guitar gave an explanation,about how they are not based in the us or uk.so they cant be touched.

I have been playing guitar for almost 16 years and I have about 2000 store bought cds and about 5000 concert, all legal soundboard or taper-friendly bands, music is my life but if this record company keeps this shit up I am seriously going to think twice about buying cds, even from artist I love. I don't understand why the music industry goes after the people they need to make money from.

I stopped getting my tabs from the OLGA a while ago. I thought they were starting to go way down in quality and the variety of artists wasn't very good. There were a million beatles tabs, but only 3 or 4 my morning jacket.

still it's like watching the old mom and pop store down the road close, they have been online since al gore created the internet.

True 'nuff. There are several binders full of OLGA tabs collecting dust at my parents place.