Since the early days of the net, guitarists have shared tabs for their favourite songs, online. While tab is officially published in books, to be bought, from which a royalty goes to the songwriter, the selection is limited - most songs are never formally transcribed. But online, just about any artist, from Boyzone to Big Bill Broonzy, has had their work written into tab - free to view, no registration required. Most sites, however, claim their tabs are not ripped off from official sources - rather they represent the "interpretation" of a song. Skilled musicians can transcribe a guitar riff, chord sequence or solo after just a few listens. But that doesn't wash with the music industry, which says even adaptations of songs are covered by copyright law. For the full unbelievable stupidity click here. Seriously now, this is taking the piss way too far, and judging by the comments posted so far on BBC about 99% of readers agree. Well done NMPA/MPA/RIAA/MPAA/and all you other stupid assholes I love you guys.
Its pure greed and completely ridiculous! I wonder what the actual figures are? I mean, when they started saying that music sales were affected by illegal dowloading, music sales were the highest they had ever been, some say sparked by the fact that downloading songs was giving listeners access to music they'd have never listened to before. I wonder if its similar in the case of tabs? ie, there's actually more music sold as people want to play along with it? I also wonder what the artists think of it all? I'm willing to bet the majority of them don't agree with what the recording industry is doing 'on their behalf'.
My brother best friend from highschool (was the schools webmaster) created www.guitartabs.com right out of highschool. He has ran the site for over 10 years without a problem. Infact, the guitartabs servers is where I host all my images and what not for the various forums a belong to. Pete has recived a letter informing him to remove all the tabs. And hes not going to. Why should he?
If he gets threats of legal action etc, don't the digital fronteir foundation (or something like that) help with legal cases like these? Anyway, I tip my hat to Pete and hope he tells them to eff off.
This is bollocks. How are people supposed to learn an instrument and pay a tribute to their favourite bands, if you're expected to pay at least £10 for a book of songs, if the album has a tab-book out. That doesn't even cover all the live music and stuff like that. The chances of this actually working are slim, I for one will not be submitting to such a ridiculous idea. Money doesn't grow on trees, despite what the RIAA/MPAA/whichever asshats say.
This is why I want the music industry to die folks. The sooner people fully stop supporting them the sooner they can die and something better can rise up outta the ashes.
This happened quite a while ago, and mxtabs was shut down for a while because of it. Hopefully they'll realise their stupidity and stop pursuing musicians who just want to play music.
because you know that when I have the tabs I won't buy the CD. What next, you need to pay the RIAA because someone has his Ipod too loud and you can hear what he's listening to? I've stopped buying along time ago, I've got all my dad LPs and the whole internet of people who want people to listen to their music for free.
I am learning the guitar and this makes me so bad, sheet music should be available to play, next thing you know they'll arrest people for humming or singing their favorite songs in public...its going way to far now.
It burns, but I found a torrent for 30,000 guitar tabs, so that'll keep me going for a while.... If something is banned on te net, there's ALWAYS a way to find it somewhere...just gotta know where to look
future news: pay for liscense to learn to play other peoples music. How stupid is this. If anything they are harming the industry if you ask me.
I bet that was a webmaster for one of the major tab sites just zipped the entire folder on his server and made it a torrent just to piss off the RIAA etc... Good on 'em IMO!
Literally every comment on that article is a negative reaction to this. There isn't a single person who thinks this is a good idea.
The jerk offs shut down http://www.powertabs.net/ for a while, but they came back as a member service... which is free to join. Man do I hate asshole people with to much power. Speaking of which.. were do these people get there power anyway? It's not like the people are supporting them, obviously. -CollinstheClown
They get their power by stealthing their true intentions what everyone who turned bad ever did. You could try and get thousands of people to mirror the tabs on their own servers to piss ever government agency off. They wouldn't have the man power to shut down that many mirrors. We could be all stealthy about it. Shh be quiet.
ultimate-guitar.com is based in russia and had a rather funny response to this a few weeks ago - I can't find it now though. Basically a rather large banner on the main page stating that "Downloading from UG.com is downloading COMMUNISM!"
