Online guitar ‘tabs’ strike sour note with music publishers

In the past few months, trade groups that represent music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,’ ‘Highway to Hell’ and thousands of others. The battle has many similarities to the war between Napster and the music recording industry, but this time it involves free sites like Olga.net, GuitarTabs.com and MyGuitarTabs.com and even discussion boards on the Google Groups service like alt.guitar.tab and rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature, where amateur musicians trade ‘tabs’ - music notation especially for guitar - for songs they have figured out or have copied from music books. On the other side are music publishers like Sony/ATV and EMI. So far, the Music Publishers’ Association and the National Music Publishers’ Association have shut down several websites or pressured them to remove all of their tabs, but users have quickly migrated to other sites. The publishers, who share royalties with composers each time customers buy sheet music or books of guitar tablature, maintain that tablature postings, even inaccurate ones, are protected by copyright laws because the postings represent ‘derivative works’ related to the original compositions. The tablature sites argue that they are merely conduits for an online discussion about guitar techniques and that their services help the industry. (The New York Times, International Herald Tribune,August 22, 2006)

6 Comments »

1. “TAB” is not quite music, and is designed to show how the music is played, more than to show what the music “is”. In fact, even proper music is irrelevant these days, and recordings have been more important than publishing for 40 years now.
   TAB does describe and disclose a proprietary sequence of notes in time, but usually it shows mere snippets, and one would still need the recording or the sheets to understand the whole composition. What is next? Personally,I don’t think ideas should be patented and copyrighted. On the whole it makes more business for lawyers and rich people than enything else. What if music could not be copyrighted? What would be the effect? Singers and musicians would only earn money from performing. This would mean that they could not earn millions of dollars, just say, the same as everyone else. Would that be a terrible thing?

   Comment by Steve Weeks — August 22, 2006 @ 10:13 pm

2. Hi Steve and thanks for your comment. I agree with you that TABs are not music or a reproduction of the original work but a help for musicians to learn to play without knowing the regular note system. Every guitar player downloads TABs and learns to play the idols music that way. I can’t imagine any musician and copyrigthholder would find that it is bad thing.

   Comment by Hans Henrik Lichtenberg — August 22, 2006 @ 10:50 pm

3. Hi there,

   If you go to http://www.olga.net/ the first tab site on earth… it has just closed, again … but whats really interesting is that it has uploaded the letter from the MPA lawyers for us to read.. it even lists which songs are illegal.

   I own a tab site and I think its all a bit mental.. just waiting to see how things progress…

   Cheers,
   Sir P
   GuitarTabBlog.com

   Comment by Sir P — August 31, 2006 @ 5:18 pm

4. Hello,

   This is a greedy, monopolistic, and un-ethical thing for publishing companies and lawyers for these publishers and organizations representing them to do. I would like to hear what any famous musician of any genre has to say about how much money they actually make off of these publicated music books as opposed to how much money these publishing companies make. and how the popularity of their songs being perpetuated by local musicians ” covering ” there songs in local clubs around the country impact their fame and fortune, or have these hypocritical, blood-sucking, con- artists put this activity next on there list of making things illegal in order to save musicians ((aka) the publishing company billionair executives) from losing money.

   very frustrated musician,
   Jimmy

   Comment by jimmy bain — September 13, 2006 @ 2:16 am

5. I agree with Jimmy Bain one hundred percent! Shame on these greedys!Whats next wanted posters for music teachers?

   Comment by Billy Haner — November 5, 2006 @ 12:51 am

6. You know what this is going to do? P2P TABS. they cant shut down the individual.

   Comment by Sean — May 31, 2007 @ 9:39 am

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