The New York Times


August 21, 2006
E-Commerce Report
Now the Music Industry Wants Guitarists to Stop Sharing
By BOB TEDESCHI

The Internet put the music industry and many of its listeners at odds thanks to the popularity of services like Napster and Grokster. Now the industry is squaring off against a surprising new opponent: musicians.

In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “Highway to Hell” and thousands of others.

The battle shares many similarities with the war between Napster and the music recording industry, but this time it involves free sites like Olga.net, GuitarTabs.com and MyGuitarTabs.com and even discussion boards on the Google Groups service like alt.guitar.tab and rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature, where amateur musicians trade “tabs” — music notation especially for guitar — for songs they have figured out or have copied from music books.

On the other side are music publishers like Sony/ATV, which holds the rights to the songs of John Mayer, and EMI, which publishes Christina Aguilera’s music.

“People can get it for free on the Internet, and it’s hurting the songwriters,” said Lauren Keiser, who is president of the Music Publishers’ Association and chief executive of Carl Fischer, a music publisher in New York.

So far, the Music Publishers’ Association and the National Music Publishers’ Association have shut down several Web sites, or have pressured them to remove all of their tabs, but users have quickly migrated to other sites. According to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet statistics service, Ultimate-Guitar.com had 1.4 million visitors in July, twice the number from a year earlier.

The publishers, who share royalties with composers each time customers buy sheet music or books of guitar tablature, maintain that tablature postings, even inaccurate ones, are protected by copyright laws because the postings represent “derivative works” related to the original compositions, to use the industry jargon.

The publishers told the sites that if they did not remove the tablatures, they could face legal action or their Internet service providers would be pressured to shut down their sites. All of the sites have taken down their tabs voluntarily, but grudgingly.

The tablature sites argue that they are merely conduits for an online discussion about guitar techniques, and that their services help the industry.

“The publishers can’t dispute the fact that the popularity of playing guitar has exploded because of sites like mine,” said Robert Balch, the publisher of Guitar Tab Universe (guitartabs.cc), in Los Angeles. “And any person that buys a guitar book during their lifetime, that money goes to the publishers.”

Mr. Balch, who took down guitar tabs from his site in late July at the behest of the music publishers, added that, “I’d think the music publishers would be happy to have sites that get people interested in becoming one of their customers.”

Cathal Woods, who manages Olga.net, one of the pioneer free tablature sites, said he had run the site for 14 years with the help of a systems administrator, “and we’ve never taken a penny.” Mr. Woods, who teaches philosophy at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, said Olga.net had earned an undisclosed amount of money by posting ads on Google’s behalf, but he said that money had paid for bandwidth and a legal defense fund.

Anthony DeGidio, a lawyer for Olga.net, said he was still formulating a legal strategy, while also helping decide whether the site could pay licensing fees “in the event that that’s required.” For now, though, the site remains unavailable to users.

Because the music tablature sites are privately held, they do not disclose sales figures, and because industry analysts generally do not closely follow tablature sites, it is unclear how much revenue they generate. But with the Internet advertising market surging, almost any Web site with significant traffic can generate revenue.

Google also dabbles in tablature through its Google Groups discussion board service, in which guitar players trade tabs they have figured out by listening to the songs, or by copying tabs found elsewhere. A Google spokesman, Steve Langdon, said Google would take down music tablature from its Groups service if publishers claimed the materials violated copyright agreements and if Google determined that infringement was likely. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Web hosts may review, case by case, a publisher’s claims regarding instances of copyright infringement.

To hear music publishers tell it, though, the tablature sites are getting away with mass theft. Mr. Keiser, of the Music Publishers’ Association, said that before these sites started operating in the early ‘90s, the most popular printed tablatures typically sold 25,000 copies in a year. Now the most popular sell 5,000 copies at most.

But Mike Happoldt, who was a member of the ’90’s band Sublime and whose music is sold in sheet music books, said he sympathized with the tablature sites.

“I think this is greed on the publishers’ parts,” said Mr. Happoldt, who played guitar on Sublime’s hit “What I Got.”

“I guess in a way I might be losing money from these sites, but as a musician I look at it more as a service,” said Mr. Happoldt, who now owns an independent record company, Skunk Records. “And really, those books just don’t sell that much for most people.”

Assuming a tablature site musters the legal resources to challenge the publishers in court, some legal scholars say they believe publishers may have difficulty arguing their complaints successfully. Jonathan Zittrain, the professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said “it isn’t at all clear” that the publishers’ claim would succeed because no court doctrine has been written on guitar tablature.

Mr. Zittrain said the tablature sites could well have a free speech defense. But because the Supreme Court, in a 2003 case involving the extension of copyright terms, declined to determine when overenforcement or interpretation of copyright might raise a free speech problem, the success of that argument was questionable. “It’s possible, though, that this is one reason why guitar tabs generated by people would be found to fit fair use,” Mr. Zittrain said, “or would be found not to be a derivative work to begin with.”

Doug Osborn, an executive vice president with Ultimate-Guitar.com said his site violated no laws because its headquarters were in Russia, and the site’s practices complied with Russian laws.

Jacqueline C. Charlesworth, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Music Publishers’ Association, would not comment on the legality of specific sites, including Ultimate-Guitar, but she said she had seen no international licensing agreements that might make free United States distribution of guitar tablature legal.

Online discussion boards have been thick with comments from guitar tablature fans, looking for sites that are still operating and lamenting the fate of sites they frequented. One user of the guitarnoise.com forums, who calls himself “the dali lima,” said he had no doubt that the music publishers would win the battle.

“Hopefully we will get to a place where the sheet music/tab will be available online just like music — $0.99 a song. The ironic thing might be that a service like that — with fully licensed music/tab offered at a low per song rate — might actually benefit guitar players by providing the correct music/tab and not the garbage that we currently sift through.”

A small handful of sheet music sites now sell guitar tablature. Mr. Keiser, of the Music Publishers’ Association, estimated that, including overhead costs, tablature could cost about $800 per song to produce, license and format for downloading.

Musicnotes, an online sheet music business based in Madison, Wis., is considering a deeper push into guitar tablature, said Tim Reiland, the company’s chairman and chief financial officer. The site has a limited array of tablature available now for about $5 a song, and it also offers tablature as part of $10 downloadable guitar lessons.

But Mr. Reiland said that with the music publishers “dealing with the free sites,” and a stronger ad market, his business might be able to lower the cost of its guitar tabs.

“Maybe we could sell some of the riffs to Jimmy Page’s solo in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for a buck, since that’s really what the kids want to learn anyway,” Mr. Reiland said.

Low prices are only part of the battle, though, Mr. Reiland said. The free tablature sites often host vibrant communities of musicians, who rate each other’s tablature and trade ideas and commentary, and Musicnotes would have to find a way to replicate that environment on its site. Furthermore, these communities often create tablature for songs that have little or no commercial value, he said.

“Less than 25 percent of the music out there ends up in sheet music because sometimes it just doesn’t pay to do it,” Mr. Reiland said. “So the fact that someone comes up with a transcription themselves just because they love that song and want to share it with people, there’s some value to that.”

“I don’t have an answer for that,” Mr. Reiland added. “But I think the industry needs to play around with it, because it could be a nice source of revenue for songwriters, and for the community it could be a really good thing.”

And that's not all.

There is just breaking news that the Recording Industry Association of America is now after people who share music they created over the Internet, as well as independent labels.

The RIAA said:

"Those who share free music over the Internet, even though they had composed their own songs.

"As well as we are going after pirates from copied music from CDs and these guitarists and musicians, we are now going after composers who fail to copyright their music and sign then in with our company.

"Anyone who gives free music they compose that compete with the musician's careers is hurting the underlying industry. If you make a music, but do not want to copyright the music and give it to others to share, you are distroying the underlying industry. Either copyright the music, pay the RIAA royalty fees for every song you composed traded, or face the consequences."

Apperently, the RIAA does not like independent labels here in America.

Furthermore, the RIAA is looking to kick out the traditional CDs, and release new CDs that have a one year license. Not only you can't copy these, they also have an expiration date of one year after you purchased it. Furthermore, that CD will work only on that player you first loaded it in to.

Shame on the RIAA.
Shame on the greedy b____s.
Shame on the ESA.

Shame and excrement on 'em.

We here at these affiliated websites always knew the RIAA's main agenda is about control, to the exclusion of independents. All they really were waiting for was a choice pretext to verbalize their true intentions.
At last, we can use their feeble rationale (their own weak words) as fodder for the grist to show unwitting people just how rotten and unfair the RIAA truly is.

Apparently the cartel has been emboldened by some sort of overconfidence. Perhaps some of their recent successes have gone to their head, I don't know. I just think they've practically removed the last of any pretense or any remaining charade at this point. . .
they're close to just letting it all hang out.
In one way, I'm sorta glad that they had the nerve to show their true colors for almost anyone to see.

You can almost see the next monopolistic progression here. It wouldn't be surprising for the RIAA's next phase to be a cease-and-desist threat of litigation against music distributed by any independent artist as having a dire impact on their major-labelled clients!


Shmoo, your reaction to all this?

(bracing myself)

you know our works have all been legaly copweriten in the libary of congress, we have given away tons of mp3s, and have even given away CDs.
Let them try and even say we are destorying the industry. Its the RIAA

"People can get it for free on the Internet, and it’s hurting the songwriters" WTF ! maybe the publishers of the tab books and song books, But I don't think so, the few I have are well over 24 years old and have been shared and pages copyed and so on.
how many times can they sell the same sheet/tab of the same songs from the 60s and 70s?

I got it free 22 years ago when me my girlfriend her friend and a better guitarist all sat and learned Zepplin or Ozzy tunes, whats the diffrence? if these are not sold , and most of them are inacuret anyway!

damn right we're hurting the underlying industry, we're trying to. The RIAA is corrupt and taking advantage of musicains and fans alike. They finally relize the new way is better and leaves them behind. We may be hurting the RIAA's system but we're doing great for musicains and fans alike.

I paid anywhere from $15 - $21 for authorized tab books and found many mistakes, they may be a legal part of the RIAA's system but they aint written by Angus nor Page and contain many mistakes. I have to wonder how much of that $15 made it to the artist. If/when I release a CD I'll write the tab myself (or "spel chek" it at least) before it gets posted on my band's website fer free. Also, if Im ever famous enough, I'll make the karaoke tracks from the orginal tracks rather then just using a crappy voice cancelling program (I can't believe the RIAA "industry" trys to sell voice cancelled tracks instead of remixing)

Sheet music/tab is just another rip-off to buy. I can imagine that Angus gets a dime and the rest of the "industry" (cartel) gets paid while the customer gets a poorly transcribed product with mistakes.
boycotting the riaa includes boycotting sheet music/tab
boycott contunes

What kinda bulsh*t is that?

See the headline point of view from George here:

http://www.azoz.com/

Number one...it's not piracy, so the RIAA can call alleged copyright infringement "piracy" or "rape" or "breaking and entering" if they wish, so that point is just stupid.

It strains the mind to see how going after tablature sites is protecting their stupid record sales.

The RIAA will eventually piss off so many people (since apparently, pissing off people and selling records made from precious metals is their only two reasons for being) that they will do themselves in from the weight of public opinion against them.

Note to Cary Sherman...the T-Rex was once a big intimidator too.

See many of them wandering around?

~Code

Here's an interesting take on the bigger issues
http://www.bricklin.com/softwarepolice.htm

"...no court doctrine has been written on guitar tablature."

It will be eventually. Let's not make the mistake of allowing these RIAA affiliated publishing companies be the ones who "write" it.

Rightfully, in a FAIR world, the copyright of a particlar version of a tab (or music score) SHOULD belong to the person who interpets it (although the song itself would still belong to the original author or whom they stupidly assign the rights.)

Composers who sign with the RIAA (or RIAA affiliated publishing company) usually sign their own rights to any "derivitave" work (including the rights to any tab or music scores derived) as part of the terms in their enslavement contract.

HOWEVER, the question is, does the composer hold the copyright to any not-yet-existing derivitive (the tabs) to that someone else later might make? According to current US copyright law, probably so. (Unfortunately)

It is really sad that these RIAA affiliated publishing companies are going after non-commercial tab sites. (I can't really bitch too much about them attacking the commercial ones, especially if the commercial site is using the actual "legitimate" version of the tab. That WOULD be copyright infringement ...more-so than the sites only dealing in their user created versions of the tabs.)

As with any copyright conundrum, we as a society (and in our laws) should only call something "copyright infringement" if the primary goal is to make $$$ off of the work without the creator's consent. (As was the original intent of copyright law in the begining when drafted by our Founding Fathers.)

However, large corporate interests (The RIAA, MPAA and affiliated companies) have perverted these laws to stiffle creativity and bolster their monopoly.

It's why we fight. (To set right these kinds of injustice.) We are NOT "pirates" ...and we do NOT want to take away the incentive provided to the creators by the original intent of copyright.

Shmoo aka "independentmusician"
Support Local and Independent Music!
http://www.boycottriaa.com

"usually sign their own rights" = "usually sign AWAY their own rights"

sorry for the typo. Prob more in there.

~~~Anyone who gives free music they compose that compete with the musician's careers is hurting the underlying industry. If you make a music, but do not want to copyright the music and give it to others to share, you are distroying the underlying industry. Either copyright the music, pay the RIAA royalty fees for every song you composed traded, or face the consequences.~~~~

Is this a joke???? That would be trying to make independent music against the law...

Nothing would please the RIAA more than that. Their whole PURPOSE of being is to hold a total monopoly over recorded music.

If only the truth (of what Shmoo just said) could be known by the general public.

Somebody with a rich uncle; kindly PLEASE foot the bill for a national advertising campaign. We need it badly!

Puddy pweez? (With sugar and a cherry on top!)

"Apparently the cartel has been emboldened by some sort of overconfidence. Perhaps some of their recent successes have gone to their head, I don't know. I just think they've practically removed the last of any pretense or any remaining charade at this point. . .
they're close to just letting it all hang out.
In one way, I'm sorta glad that they had the nerve to show their true colors for almost anyone to see."

"...emboldened by some sort of overconfidence..."

Its not hard to figure this out, its not ambiguos, or puzzling, its right smack dab in you face. The answer is: They have for some time now had the FBI, Department of (MY ASS) Homeland "Security", and the so-called Justice Department, in their damn back pockets, doing THEIR fighting for THEM for the most part. Not to mention the Senators who they have had for even longer.

"...I'm sorta glad that they had the nerve to show their true colors for almost anyone to see."

Sounds somewhat optimistic, implying that people will care enough to do something about it, lets compare some other things and lets see if the true colors shown by the U.S. Guvmint have led to any resistance that has been effective.

1) It's widely publicly known that the NSA DOMESTIC (NOTE: Thier excuse is that the claim they don't wiretap calls within the US, yeah, but the UK, or CANADA, etc i.e. anyone part of Echelon, can wiretap us FOR THEM, and rely the data back to the NSA in the US, achieving the same thing as direct domestic wiretapping) wiretapping program has been going on for some time, in violation of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

Have people given a shit enough to try to stop this? Are you part of the ACLU and the select other few groups who are trying to fight this? Alot more people know about this moreso than anything about the RIAA, and still people engage in doublethink, or are too busy watching football, basketball, or Fox Pseudo-News, to even think about it.


2) The Govt. Showed their "true colors" with 9-11 "1.5" as I'll call it, by staging a false flag terror incident (and claiming we foiled it, to create false support and quash opposition and debate for other Constitutional violations of the Guvmint, further propagating on their current police state observational experiment called "Lets see how many freedoms we can take away from people at airports as a template to what measures we can unleash upon the general public directly later on."

Mothers pouring out BABY'S MILK -excuse me WHAT THE FUCK is that bullshit? What happens to people if the get dehydrated in the fucking airport? Are they going to pay for their medical bills if someone passes out or dies from no water etc? These are FREEDOMS WHICH EVERYONE HAD, but are now taken away, slammed into your mind by fear mongering psychological warfare on an unprecedented scale.

Do people care? Do people have POWER to say FUCK YOU to the Airports? Do people have the POWER to BOYCOTT THE AIRPORTS? YES, BUT WILL THEY? NO THEY WON'T, BECAUSE THE INCONVENIENCE OF NOT BEING ABLE TO FLY IS MORE IMPORTANT TO THEM THAN THE FREEDM THEY ONCE ENJOYED IN AN AIRPORT AND ON THEIR FLIGHT.

My point is this, If people don't care about shit like this, who the fuck does anyone think is going to instill a vast amounof insight and sound judgement into people with regards to their views about the RIAA? Answer: Get real, there's far more dangerous things happening than anything the RIAA is doing, and ain't jack shit happening in a good way about it. THe RIAA is part of the Globalist movement itself, and probably will play a role in NWO, as, in my opinion as I have stated before, I strongly believe that so-called IP enforcement/laws etc, will be one of the major tools used to create the foundation of a one world government. Just look at Dubya's push to try to get Putin into the WTO with Russia, AND the SPECIFIC emphasis that was brought to Putins attention about how the Hollywood and the US hates their currecnt copyright laws.

www.infowars.com
--Download Terrorstorm off of Bittorrent and watch it, also see the CSPAN 9-11 national broadcast --google it.

Dubya pushing Russia into the WTO, then disagreeing with half the things the WTO wants to achieve... please, what a joke.

"As well as we are going after pirates from copied music from CDs and these guitarists and musicians, we are now going after composers who fail to copyright their music and sign then in with our company."

Pardon? You are having a laugh, right? Next, you'll be telling me sites like DMusic are music industry destroying war machines! Get the f**k outta here I would love to see the RIAA sue me for wishing to make my music free and available to the world! Whose music am i pirating?

Actually, my music is covered by the Creative Commons Licence where applicable and as far as I am concerned, until someone claims the licence is illegal, is good enough for me. If I have to copyright anything, it will be without the RIAA's help, thank YOU very much! Why should I pay them a penny? They don't provide protection of any sort for my music... and never will.

"Furthermore, the RIAA is looking to kick out the traditional CDs, and release new CDs that have a one year license. Not only you can't copy these, they also have an expiration date of one year after you purchased it. Furthermore, that CD will work only on that player you first loaded it in to."

Can't see that working in older machines, certainly never in computers, unless they try the Sony rootkit blunder method again, but short of putting a biodegradable dye in the disks the CDs will be around for a long time and any method of protecting them will prove to be useless.

take a picture and you own the copyright to it before it's devoloped

write a poem and and you own the copyright before it's posted

write and record a song and it has to be registered with the RIAA and you must be forced to charge for it.... and use DRM.... ?!?
something wrong with that system

Tabs are basicly sheet music, or a sheet music shortcut. Sheet music should be automaticly copyrighted by the songwriter (not a corperation, unless the song truely is a "work for hire") the same as poetry and photos (Publishing rights?). The same should hold true for the copyright of the recorded work. The "underlying industry" (RIAA cartel) is built on the wrong people owning the copyrights of artists' work.

I claim copyright to ALL of my works, weather registered with the Libary of Congress or not, and I choose to share a few here freely. I am a threat to the RIAA's underlying industry because I embrace fairness for musicians and fans alike, new technology, and laws that work for everyone including the independants.

Hold on folks,
I would like to see sources to what JDonahue posted. It could be true, it could not be.

It's so fucking apparent, the RIAA is just pissed that music fans are finding alternatives to their shitty music. The RIAA (and major labels) want to control the industry exclusively because they think it's the only way to ensure a profit margin. If they cannot rule as a totalitarian entity, the RIAA will attempt to alter the music industry so that it caters to them. These are monopolistic (cartel-like) tactics the RIAA (and major labels) are carrying out and should not go unpunished. People will not be branded, and herded like sheep to the latest musical watering hole, but will hold steadfast to principled industries and markets who have their best interests in mind. At least I hope so.

I sent in an e-mail about OLGA being shut down a coouple of weeks ago.

This isn't the first time they've been sued by these types of groups. The first time, it was because some submissions had full lyrics, so thier answer was to remove all but the first 2 or 3 words for each musical bar. That shut them up for a year or two.