A Requim for Music

Well, the MPA has found yet another way to make a buck, and this time, severely piss me off.

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

The US Music Publishers' Association (MPA), which represents 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".

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BBC News

The site that I mourn the death of is the former mxtabs.net. It was a brilliant and inspired website where musicians could discuss music and post self-interpreted tablature of songs ranging anywhere from Eagle's - Hotel California to theme music from popular TV shows.

These weren't actual copywritten tablatures, and every single tab placed had a disclaimer stating how they were not the workings of the original artist, etc. They were a musician's interperatation that they tabbed out so others could learn. Some of them were dead-on correct, many were abhorantly incorrect. Apparently either is illegal regardless of accuracy.

So this is telling me that I can listen to a song and attempt to play it to my fullest ability, but if I share that with anyone I am now a pirate/theif/criminal? If I'm in a car with friends listening to a song, can I no longer tell them what a lyric was if they didn't hear it correctly? WTF??!!! Does this mean I can only play or sing a song in seclusion because (god forbid) if anyone were to hear me I would be attempting to reproduce copywritten material?! Hell, we might as well jail anyone who listens to a song on the radio and memorizes a chorus, or recognizes a chord, because they no longer need to purchase material in order to recreate that song to some menial extent!

Mxtabs was a brilliant resource that is critically responsible for my development as a guitarist, drummer, and musician in general. I have referenced it from the very first song I learned, to the most recent (right before it went down mid Dec). Now, it's effectively dead, and soon many other sites and software of learning will be to. God bless the MPA.

Hey Relyt Happy New Year old chap! :)

This is a rather strange one to me. Obviously we do things differently over here, but I would probably have to travel 20 or 30 miles to buy sheet music. In fact I have not seen it used in bars or pubs for years now.

What we have is the Performing Rights Society and "Music Licences"..............places that use music for public entertainment have to pay these and the money gets doled out to the artists. I can remember the 1950's (yes...........I really am that old!) when dance halls had to file returns of what they had played...........days long gone now, we just have these "bucket charges" today.

My point is that having the words and knowing how to play the music is pretty much irrelevant, it is only when you perform that the artist is entitled to compensation?

:)

:)

Hey Nihil and a Happy New Year to You and Yours!

I used a pretty sharp sword with the lad earlier on this topic. It just hit top dead center on the target nerve. My appoligies to all. It boils down to copyrights, infringements, priacy, etc. And both sides are very vocal :)

In the early years, the battle line was the 4-track tapes and reel-to-reel machines. Now it is modern electronics and the Interent. We have yet, after all these years, to settle this in a manner which is beneficial to all parties.

Any artist when he/she performs should be compensated. But what about the guy/gal who originally wrote and still owns the lyric/tunes? Does any Joe or Jane Smo have the right to use his/her material, for a profit, without compensating the writer/owner?

cheers

Hi Relyt ,

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But what about the guy/gal who originally wrote and still owns the lyric/tunes? Does any Joe or Jane Smo have the right to use his/her material without compensating the writer/owner?

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This is what our Performing Rights Society and Music Licences attempt to address. There is compensation for using someone's pre-recorded material, but also for original performances of someone else's material (musical/lyrical).

:)

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Originally posted here by Relyt
So you would go to the site, download the tabs for some of my songs, you and your band rehearse, then off to the gig. You get paid for the gig, but you used my material and I didn’t receive any compensation. That’s wrong. That’s what this is all about. I wrote it you didn’t. You pilfered it and made a profit.

You have no reason to be pissed, pay your dues by purchasing the sheet music so I can feed my family.

cheers


Edit:

The correct way: Relyt writes and composes > industry publishes > consumer purchases > industry compensates Relyt > Relyt feeds family.

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Not quite. The vast majority of guitarists, bassists, and drummers never play gigs. I've been playing for 4 years and have only played gigs in my own material. Any time I performed something that wasn't mine was unpaid on an open mic night, or simular for fun an amusement. If anyone does play covers, it's like a $200 gig in some dive bar that will amount to nothing and get paid close to that.

These tabs arn't official tablature. They're people whom tab them out after listening them. People go and read the scores as they would lyrics to a song. Most are very wrong, rarely is one close to perfect. Have you ever read lyrics from anywhere other than an offical transcription that you purchased? I'm 99% sure you have. Does this mean you performed and/or profited from it? Absolutely not.

This doesn't anywhere near equate to theft. I would have to learn every piece, get an equivalent vocalist, and record it perfectly before it even became on par with simply downloading the song.

By shutting down self-transcribed tablature sites, you're telling me that I don't have the right to share my own knowledge with other people. I don't have the right to communicate apparently. Now you're making anyone whom remembers a lyric or understand a chord into a criminal if they communicate them to any degree what-so-ever. Lets throw the 12 year-olds in jail every time they sing a song with their friends out in public. Let's demonize every guitarist that plays a song outside of seclusion.

You're censoring the masses to inhibit the exceedingly small group of ameatur high school students playing worthless gigs. I think I have every right to be angry.

Evil Moo,

You're lumping too much together. It has never been about children and their garage bands making only reputations and developing their talents. It's about who owns it and who can use it to make a profit. It is that simple.

cheers

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It's about who owns it and who can use it to make a profit. It is that simple.

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That is reasonable, I can actually look at music and lyrics for free in my local library............I can memorise and/or copy it? borrow it? et cetera.

It is the for profit that counts?

:)

I think... based upon what is happening a lot these days, is groups or bands made up of local kids who do what is called (geez the word escapes me ) anyway they do covers and I think most likely they obtain the original artists permission for this, maybe for a nominal fee or there abouts.

I like to believe that most bona fide artists take this artform as a sign of flattery, as opposed to thievery, I think David Bowie even encourages up and coming artists to use his library in the pursuit of trying to forge a career in what is probably a very dog eat dog world for most, young kids trying to strike out.

Even those who came before wether they were writers or singers or painters, must realise that future generations of artists will always take some (geez another word is escaping me ) no got it "liberties" with copyrighted material, someone had to be first, but if we stopped at the original where would we get to, as far as individualism.......

There is one group from Australia (cant think of the name) who do a really bang up job of covering Pink Floyd, to the point that they sell out wherever they go (may change now that David Gilmour is going back on the road...yeah) so they must have gotten the nod from PF.

I don't think the majority of the recording artists out there are that concerned with young artists using their sheet music or whatever to try and get ahead, I think they are more concerned with the Big Recording companies, who sign them up to ridicilous contracts, and get hosed by the middlemen and marketers, and of course the downloading of their songs.

Geez get a few beer into me and I ramble.......hey nihil, must be midnight there by now eh!



:drink: time for another one.....

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Originally posted here by nihil

It is the for profit that counts?

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Without the owner's consent, that's the major dividing line. The rest is like navigating in the fog. Things go well until you run aground.
:)

cheers

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Without the owner's consent

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Exactly!...........that is why I like our system. If I go to a gig and play 20 numbers, I don't have to worry about it, because the people hosting the gig have had to pay into the central fund.

Otherwise things would get very complex? After all, the material has been published for gain? all that is at issue is who makes money out of it?

It seems to me that the MPA need dragging kicking and screaming into the 19th. Century :D

I know that all industries have their backwoodsmen, but it seems that in the USA you have some neanderthals emerging from the primaeval forests, blinking at the sunlight?

There has to be a way to manage things in the best interests of the copyright holders, I just feel that no-one is really looking for it?

:)

How do we assign AP's to your creaters of the central fund? :D

cheers