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Auntie Maria
Ha`aha`a
USA
1918 Posts |
 Posted - 03/30/2007 : 05:35:27 AM
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from Keola Donaghy's wonderfully informative nahenahe.net:
Guitar Tab Archive Forced Offline
Wednesday, March 28th 2007, 05:53
This feature on the previously mentioned Wired Listening Post site talks about how the Online Guitar Archive, or (OLGA) received a “cease and desist” letter from the Music Publishers Association and National Music Publishers Association last August. OLGA was a guitar tablature (an easy-to-learn system of notation for guitarists) archive where you could find help in learning thousands of songs. The archive has been off-line, however, there was an announcement on the MXTabs site regarding an ageement with the Harry Fox Agency to allow for sharing of guitar tabs on their site. Owners of copyrighted songs, however, must give their permission for the tabs to appear. Implications for Hawaiian music? You betcha.
(his post includes link to the MXT website)
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Auntie Maria
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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 07:14:43 AM
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| Is this being presented as a good thing or a bad thing? I personally see any effort to enforce copyright law as a good thing. |
Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
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Fingerpickin
Lokahi
117 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 07:25:20 AM
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quote:
Is this being presented as a good thing or a bad thing? I personally see any effort to enforce copyright law as a good thing.
Aye, there's the rub, as Hamlet would say.
The question here is not quite as simple as one might think. First of all, exactly what is copywritten when a song obtains a copywright? Is it the music itself? The song? The lyrics? All of the above? If I listen to a song and then >>I<< create a tablature which is my "best guess" (often wrong, by the way) as to how to play the song, who has created something here? The origional author or myself? Am I infringing on the origional authors right to sell tab if its just for me? What if I give it to a friend?
If I produce a song, and then refuse to release the musical notation to that song, or the tab to that song (happens all the time) then do I truly have a right to prevent others from doing so?
These are very complex issues best figured out by copywright lawyers. I can tell you, having grown up in the pre-tab era and struggling to learn guitar for years, tab is nothing short of a Godsend for most of us.
My personal feeling is that if performers want to limit such sites and information, and sue to collect, they should give us guitarists a legitimate alternative...such as publishing authorized tablature. They earn a profit off of it, and we get to learn the songs. Everyone wins.
Just my 2 cents.
-Lance |
"Hey Lance, try watch." -Ozzie |
Edited by - Fingerpickin on 03/30/2007 3:40:47 PM |
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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 09:18:24 AM
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Copyright law is fairly straightforward in most cases, and is made complicated primarily by the fact that most people who try to argue in defense of breaking it have never read the laws in the first place. (I'm not directing this statement at you Lance.) The music and lyrics to a song are both copywritten (although different entities may hold the two copyrights independently) when a song is published. If you tab out a song for your own use then there's no problem. If you start distributing that tab or performing it for others then you start running into problems from a strictly legal standpoint. (The "fair use" arguments that most people offer about distributing tab are usually invalid unless you're applying them to a controlled classroom environment in an educational institution.)
Copyright holders are under no obligation to publish tablature or sheet music for their songs. Just because you create something of value and choose to distribute it in a limited way does not give other people the right to distribute it in other ways. |
Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
Edited by - cpatch on 03/30/2007 09:18:46 AM |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 09:22:36 AM
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Its kind of like "Love isn't love til you give it away"...or if a tree falls in the forest....
CD sales are way down. I've heard that on the news so frequently this week. It is blamed on the iPod thing and the Napster thing. So I guess, somehow, those who try to make a profit from professionally published, recorded and distributed music are trying to hold on to every penny they can. No different from selling widgets and then trying to make them cheaper to either increase or at least maintain your profit level. However, you don't put your blue print and specs out there for anyone to manufacture the identical widget to yours. You patent it. Pretty darn similar to copyrighting.
But, music is supposed to be shared, right? So how do you do that in the face of all this legal, financial kine pilikia? I don't even know.
I think Paul's dulcimer club was afraid to play in front of people or maybe it was to get paid for playing in front of people because they were worried about the royalty issue. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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keoladonaghy
Lokahi
257 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 10:28:56 AM
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Craig is right that the law is pretty straightfoward, but as they say the devil is in the details. In regard and earlier post, if I create an arrangement of "Kawaipunahele" for slack key, I've created a derivative work. Keali'i still owns the copyright to the song, and I'd have to get a license from him in order to publish, either for sale or to post for free, my arrangement. The copyright covers both lyric and music. Peter Medeiros posted a comment about instrumental arrangements of copyrighted songs on my site a few weeks ago, I'll have to dig it up.
I look at this development as having both good and bad points. Good in that perhaps it will result in more tabs, hopefully better quality ones, being published commercially, both in print and from online sources. I've gotten a few free online tabs from my subscription to Guitar Player (forget the name of the company), and they were certainly higher in quality and more accurate than the tabs I found in some of the free archives.
The downside is that there will probably be less access to tabs of less popular and commercially viable music forms, like Hawaiian, at least for songs still under copyright.
My comment about implications for Hawaiian music go beyond tab. It would probably take only a single complaint to the MPA or NMPA for everyone's favorite Hawaiian lyrics archive to get a cease and desist letter as well. And as anyone involved in the local industry can tell you, determining what traditional songs are still under copyright and which are in public domain is a challenge. |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 11:56:29 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by keoladonaghy
My comment about implications for Hawaiian music go beyond tab. It would probably take only a single complaint to the MPA or NMPA for everyone's favorite Hawaiian lyrics archive to get a cease and desist letter as well. And as anyone involved in the local industry can tell you, determining what traditional songs are still under copyright and which are in public domain is a challenge.
Keola, that's a scary scenario for sure, but absolutely on the mark. (No, Mark, not you - even though you are "the" Mark to many of us here - you know what I mean. I hope.)
Your last sentence identifies a problem I face on a daily basis at work, as we deal with licensing from publishers, songwriters and record companies. There is constant debate over who holds the rights to many Hawaiian songs in all of these areas, preventing us from being able to strike deals and pay the correct parties their due. Keeping our operation fully legal and above board means, if we can't find out who to pay - we can't use the song. Everyone loses out. |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 12:20:34 PM
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| Same dynamic obtained when phonograph became popular. Before that, there was concern over piano roles and sheet music. There was a line in a Waylon Jennings song about how music would be made by lawyers and machines. |
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`Ilio Nui
`Olu`olu
USA
826 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 12:52:03 PM
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John Phillip Sousa actually lobbied before Congress not to allow the production of Player Pianos, for all the same reasons.
Dog |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 1:08:45 PM
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Much of what was on OLGA was junk anyway--poorly written, incorrect lyrics and only partial guitar licks or intros for pop and country songs. But most of us start our research of a Hawaiian song with www.huapala.org (which so many rush to say it's about as reliable as wikipedia), which is the best place to start. Many of us use tropicalstorm.com, too. Hopefully, these will continue to help us out without stepping on the rights of the composers. Our interest in Hawaiian music also is, I believe, an overall boon to the Hawaiian music musician and composer.
Jesse Tinsley |
Edited by - hapakid on 03/30/2007 1:09:20 PM |
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