Music industry takes stupidity even further

Looks like online tablature may now be disallowed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4508158.stm

The music industry is to extend its copyright war by taking legal action against websites offering unlicensed song scores and lyrics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Music Publishers' Association (MPA), which represents US sheet music companies, will launch its first campaign against such sites in 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MPA president Lauren Keiser said he wanted site owners to be jailed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He said unlicensed guitar tabs and song scores were widely available on the internet but were "completely illegal".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bitter battles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The move comes after several years of bitter legal battles against unauthorised services allowing users to download recordings for free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publishing companies have taken action against websites in the past, but this will be the first co-ordinated legal campaign by the MPA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The MPA would target "very big sites that people would think are legitimate and very, very popular", Mr Keiser said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Xerox machine was the big usurper of our potential income," he said. "But now the internet is taking more of a bite out of sheet music and printed music sales so we're taking a more proactive stance."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers' Association, added his concerns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing," he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Music publishers and songwriters will consider all tools under the law to stop this illegal behaviour."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandro del Greco, who runs Tabhall.co.uk, said the issue was not serious enough to warrant jail time and sites like his were not necessarily depriving publishers of income.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I play the drums mainly but I play the guitar as well. I run the website and I still buy the [tab] books," he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The tabs online aren't deadly accurate so if someone really wants to know it they'll buy the book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"But most of the bands I listen to don't have tab books to buy so if you get them online, that's the only way you can really learn it unless you work it out yourself."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The campaign comes after lyric-finding software PearLyrics was forced off the internet by a leading music publishing company, Warner Chappell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'No alternative'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PearLyrics worked with Apple's iTunes, searching the internet to find lyrics for songs in a user's collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I just don't see why PearLyrics should infringe the copyright of Warner Chappell because all I'm doing is searching publicly-available websites," PearLyrics developer Walter Ritter said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It would be different if they had an alternative service that also provided lyrics online and also integrated [with iTunes] like PearLyrics did. But they don't offer anything like that at all."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Warner Chappell statement said the company wanted to ensure songwriters were "fairly compensated for their works and that legitimate sites with accurate lyrics are not undermined by unlicensed sites".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We have requested that PearWorks provide us with information regarding the sources of their lyrics, and have further asked that they discontinue the service if these sources are operating without a licence."

What the hell. These kinds of things push piracy and related things more underground.

They don't stop it, it just makes it more impossible for them to shut it down.

And Warner Chappel is full of crap. I know a lot of artists (mainstream and not) which offer NOTHING in regards to lyrics let alone sheets. So for all purposes, they need to have this stuff for "sale" in order to be deprived of income :roll:

What sucks even more is that, to avoid any possible legal action, the site I visit for my tablature (PowerTab Archives) has now had to disable their downloading of tabs unless it is one made and submitted by a user of the website.

That would be way to easy to loophole though. So that kind of restriction is rather trivial.

I read about this on the Register a few weeks ago and posted into darkwebz. Like rick said, it'll only drive it underground. Making criminals out of normal people.

If i buy a CD for ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã12.99 theres a chance it has an un installable rootkit where i cant copy it into a backup cd for my car nor trasnfer to my ipod. I also get a crappy cover which 9 times out of 10 fails to include the lyrics. Alternatively i can go to download the album for free, go to a lyrics site and download the lyrics and tabs so that i can play it with my friends.

These companies are not looking our for the copyrights of the music artists at all. All they care about is money money money. The music industry were last to embrace the internet and now they are paying the price for it. Unfortunatly they are now trying to make up for all this by becoming the police of the internet.

They just want to milk the legit consumer for everyhting they have. They dont want you to buy a song so you can play it anywhere, they want you to buy the CD version to play in your car, the DVD version for home, the ringtone for your mobile phone, the tabulature for the instruments and the lyrics for singing along to. They want to charge you for every medium you want to listen to your music on. DRM has nothing to do with protecting intellectual property, its all about making sure that you can only play a specific type of medium on one thing. Disgraceful

Disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

And pointless to boot. Even if a band/artist sells their scores and tablature in books, I really doubt it would make for more than 1% of their income. It's the music industry that's behind this, not the artists themselves.

*downloads ulimate-guitar's entire tab database*

*downloads ulimate-guitar's entire tab database*

I just downloaded like 50,000 Guitar Pro files. Looks like I'm set.

On the upside, at least some of you little monkeys will be forced to train your ears now.

Wow... How incredibly dumb...

 

*downloads ulimate-guitar's entire tab database*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just downloaded like 50,000 Guitar Pro files. Looks like I'm set.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the upside, at least some of you little monkeys will be forced to train your ears now.

Ohh man... I tried tabbing a Don Ross song "King Street Suite" once with my ears... it took me over an hour to get the first 8 seconds.