Lawyers

[Southpa]

....better, I think. Looks like they are at it again. http://www.olga.net/

A lot of you may have had some assistance in learning songs thru guitar tablature. I can say that I have. And if I were to go out and buy all the tabs I've used as learning aids I would be a very poor man. For that matter, a lot of the tabs I've learned from have NEVER been published and copyrighted in sheet form anyway. Hey, I've bought my fair share of guitar mags, I have boxes of them dating back to the early 80's. And if I want to learn from a transcription that has never been produced in print form then what other options do I have?

I know there are lots of gray areas here, when dealing with the law and how it relates to the music industry's relationship with the internet, copyright infringement, plagiarism, blah, blah, blah. And its all still fairly new. But I've also read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and I see a parallel happening here.

When BMI first attacked OLGA and threatened them with litigation (around 10 years ago) I did a lot of reading in the newsgroups and other sources. OK, they DID have a legal leg to stand on that time. I saw a few instances on OLGA website where tabs were actually scanned right out of Guitar World magazine and submitted in jpg form , Led Zep's Black Mountainside comes to mind. Yeah, thats theft pure and simple.

Now all the posted tabs on OLGA are all being transcribed and submitted by your average schmuck guitar player. They are not copies except in the rare occasion that the transcriber did a good job. I heard a lot of people say, "Don't go to OLGA because most of their stuff is inaccurate". Well, they are right! But it still works for me and I can figure things out the right way once I get the gist of things.

I swear, when there is a buck to be made they sure squeeze it out. Now they are just squeezin' the squeezins! Look how much profit money BMI is bragging about, I think the people MPA represent are doing just as well.

Like I said, there are lots of gray areas here, but the law is the law, however they change it as time passes. "Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer— except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs." How about a little Pink Floyd for background music? Hmmm, better not, might get sued.

Sorry for the rant, and I know this will start something, not trying to set up any flame bait or anything like that. But if it keeps going the way it is, whats the use of even owning a computer?

Edited August 15, 2006 by Southpa

[TenderSurrender]

Hey SouthPA

The same happened to the powertab network a little while ago, they were forced to take down there entire tab library...

However now at http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ it has a complete mirror of the powertab library and has lots of guitar pro and regular text tabs

Im sure OLGA will figure something out to keep alive!

~~ TS ~~

[GuitarGuy]

There will always be tab sites, just not the same ones. Look at Napster, it is no longer free. but now we have bearshare, limewire, shareza etc. Once one site goes down another will pop up. Just keep looking.

[Nitefly SA]

911tabs.com is great, it searches all tab sites so you get the most results.

[Thoughtless 7]

There will always be tab sites, just not the same ones. Look at Napster, it is no longer free. but now we have bearshare, limewire, shareza etc. Once one site goes down another will pop up. Just keep looking.

Its more like when one goes down another 3 pop up in its place...well it does for torrent sites anyway.

I think the music industry is just getting greedy and trying to make a quick buck any way they can. If they keep stopping young artisits they will have no one to represent in years to come.

[Southpa]

We'll just have to watch, wait and see. I've been to the other sites mentioned above and a lot of their "inventory" originally came from OLGA. That is, the match up is spot on. I've been using OLGA from pretty much day one. That was back around 1992 when I logged on to the local Freenet with my 2400 baud modem, visit the OLGA ftp site and arranged to have a particular tab (in MIME format) mailed to my Freenet mailbox. Then I would download it and decode with an archaic UUdecode DOS program. Believe it or not that usually took a couple hours to do.

But MPA et al are trying to milk it for all its worth. They've addressed all the issues in their letters to OLGA and abroad. Its not like somebody is trying to sell someone elses work here. They state that the sites are still making revenues through their online advertising and sponsors, etc. .. just by existing. Before all this crap started up the actual musicians who wrote the songs didn't get a dime for their music being published in paper form so now they've brought them into the game, ie. contract clauses that offer royalties for published tabs along with CD etc. sales. Thats something new and wasn't available to them back in "ye olde dayes".

But it still irks me that they would go after a site that carries potentially inaccurate material that never even existed in tab format in the first place. Its a golden opportunity for a music publisher to just log onto OLGA, download a "home transcribed" tab that was never published before and put it in print and sell it. The transcriber of the tab can't say diddly squat (and neither can OLGA) because by law, the tab doesn't belong to them. Its like if you rent an apartment and decide to paint it. You buy the paint and tools etc. and spend the time and effort to paint the place. As soon as the paint is on the walls and ceiling it belongs to the landlord.

Conversely, if you are really good at transcribing music by ear into accurate tabs its a golden opportunity to approach a music publisher and offer your services. They say transcribing accurate tabs is a "time consuming, expensive process", so why not get in there and grab a piece of the action?