Squonk
Oops, Sorry Alan
@ Brent brilliant smiley
Spyke
Now... I disagree here.
What makes tabs copyrighted material? Are the majority of them (i didn't follow the link so I don't know about this context) not merely an individuals representation of the said work? The creator of the tabs sat down and figured it out and then wrote it down, he hasn't copied the tabs from the artists sheet / tab music, and it is therefore flawed.
I fear that this rabbit hole is much deeper than one thinks, especially seeing as some pub artists surely don't have the rights or permission to perform certain songs - but they make money off of it. Anyone here going to be making money off of the posted tabs?
If my one challenge piece happens to sound like another song, am I in breech of a copyright by posting it here?
I am reminded of the great Mxtabs fiasco, one that was bypassed by hosting the site outside of the United States.
discuss...
Heath
well it goes back down to sounding like there music , remember coldplay vs JS just for sounding similar , what i have a problem is can i copyright a sound , say the sound a engine makes and sue every person who uses that sound or every owner of a car cos there car makes sound that i have copyrighted . i know this sounds silly but this is actually what is happening .
but what the record companys are getting pissed about is , they not making money off the tabs , they are freely available and they want to sell the book which they are not .
it was a sad day when started this nonsense , as many of us would not be playing guitar today if it wasn't for tabs , if they had tabs as freely available in 60's as they do today there would be millions more guitarists now .
DonovanB
Tailon. wrote:
it was a sad day when started this nonsense , as many of us would not be playing guitar today if it wasn't for tabs , if they had tabs as freely available in 60's as they do today there would be millions more guitarists now .
Yip, clearly they are not thinking for the future by trying to deny people from learning and as such denying a potential superstar.
It is a funny topic and while we can disagreee, it is best to protect this forum form any legal action by not putting it up here.
Neps
Spyke wrote:
I fear that this rabbit hole is much deeper than one thinks, especially seeing as some pub artists surely don't have the rights or permission to perform certain songs - but they make money off of it. Anyone here going to be making money off of the posted tabs?
Well, technically if you perform Cover songs you have to register with SAMRO (I think it's SAMRO) and pay a yearly fee that enables you to perform the music in public. Clubs and Pubs who also play music from CD's or the DSTV music channel are also supposed to pay a fee for the usage of that music. It's not as well enforced as it's supposed to. So all muso's who perform covers in their set are technically in breach of copyright laws. (I may be wrong, but this was after a long chat I had with a lawyer regarding copyrights)
IMHO the Tab issue world wide is a joke. Unless you are making money from publishing it you're not really breaking the law. But then again the above argument about performance rights also is a sticky issue. Websites also receive revenue from advertising and that can be seen as earning an income due to copyright infringement.
My 5 cents.. (which I now duly will have to pay to FPK's publishing company for having a line from one of their songs in my signature)
[deleted]
Well, regardless of the means of transcription (tabs or notation), I guess what they're saying is that if someone owns the rights to publishing the music (as written down), jotting down tabs and then passing them around (despite being tabs, they DO have the potential to be 100% correct, hahahaha) is the same as filming a movie in a theatre with a handicam and then passing that around. I can understand where they're coming from, although I think the digital age might fast bring about a rewriting of copyright laws.
As for more guitarists - do we need more of them? ?
And, technically, pubs SHOULD be paying royalties for music played over the PA (with cover versions played live I think it's up to the band to sort out?), which is already one area where SA gets away with murder compared with places like the UK and USA.
EDIT: Incidentally, we can also count ourselves lucky that, given the (by international standards) relatively low numbers of CD sales in South Africa, record companies are not fussed about you including a cover version on an album. In fact, all they demand is that credit is given to the songwriters! It's only when airplay over the media happens that they want to get interested. If you ask me, that's a pretty damn cushy situation.
Spyke
Neps wrote:
My 5 cents.. (which I now duly will have to pay to FPK's publishing company for having a line from one of their songs in my signature)
Exactly! Now are you more guilty because you have it as a direct quote, without errors? What about the tabs with errors?
But I do hear what DonovanB is saying wrt the forum and playing safe by not endorsing what is 'seen' as copyright infringement. I'm just perplexed at the greed and stifling nature of those who are supposedly 'for' the music industry.
Banditman, I owe you money...
chris77
Spyke, all the tabs were either pulled of the net by myself or copied from someone else who did. I changed a lot of the chords and corrected some lyrics, but none of them I figured out myself. So, no credit for me there. The problem as I see it is that there is 'official' licensed tablature out there as well. So somebody somewhere loose money when the tabs are freely available and nobody buys their product. It is entirely debatable however wether the 10y old who pulls tabs from the net for free would've used his pocketmoney to buy a licenced book... But money is what its all about and nobody said economics are fair. I fully agree with you on principal, and would go so far as to say that any reproduction of music for personal usage should be exempt from copyright via disclaimer. The reality is though that it isn't, and because it isnt we shouldnt do so. Personally, I would consider it a complimet if somebody enjoys my music so much that they want to recreate it, but if they make money of it at my expense I would be less than thrilled. If I loose nothing however and still get credit for it, then thank you for the free publicity. I will not be able to play every bar in the country every night, so if you are willing to do so on my behalf and keep my music alive, then I thank you sir. At the end of it all though, fair or not, we live in a society governed by rules, regulations and laws and should as far as possible try to abide by them.
Neps
Theres an even more sticky situation.. Take the Focusrite Liquid Channel as an example. It replicates the sounds from a vast amount of vintage and not so vintage gear (Pre-amps, Compressors and EQ's). The problem arises with them that the manufaturers are saying that it is in a way reversed engineered eventhough it's actualy a digital line of code. The same goes for MultiFX pedals who copy certain 'signature' sounds. Thus you'll never actually find they say 'metallica' or 'u2' but rather 'metall-ice' or 'edgydelay', stupid I know, but the world has gotten to the point where you can get sued for anything and everything.
Spyke
chris77 wrote:
Spyke, all the tabs were either pulled of the net by myself or copied from someone else who did. I changed a lot of the chords and corrected some lyrics, but none of them I figured out myself. So, no credit for me there. The problem as I see it is that there is 'official' licensed tablature out there as well. So somebody somewhere loose money when the tabs are freely available and nobody buys their product. It is entirely debatable however wether the 10y old who pulls tabs from the net for free would've used his pocketmoney to buy a licenced book... But money is what its all about and nobody said economics are fair. I fully agree with you on principal, and would go so far as to say that any reproduction of music for personal usage should be exempt from copyright via disclaimer. The reality is though that it isn't, and because it isnt we shouldnt do so. Personally, I would consider it a complimet if somebody enjoys my music so much that they want to recreate it, but if they make money of it at my expense I would be less than thrilled. If I loose nothing however and still get credit for it, then thank you for the free publicity. I will not be able to play every bar in the country every night, so if you are willing to do so on my behalf and keep my music alive, then I thank you sir. At the end of it all though, fair or not, we live in a society governed by rules, regulations and laws and should as far as possible try to abide by them.
Definitely not arguing there, they should be humbled almost that someone likes the fruits of their work and passion so much as to copy, replicate, mimic it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
But to cement my argument using your example. If I go and watch Harry Potter and transcribe the script and write it down, do you think I'm going to make millions from selling that, passing it off as the book?
DonovanB
If we were to go as far as saying you can copywrite a sound, then someone would have done the 12 notes and nobody would have made any music.
Sure it is annoying but in the end, imagine teachers offering free lessons, they would never be able to earn a living, and as such there would be no teachers. I'm sure Satriani paid Billy Bauer soemthing. I'm sure Vai paid him as well. It is a unique situation where a teacher will go without payment to pass on a skill, especially one worth paying for.
As for big record companies, I can only hope that John Mayer gets proceeds from the sale of his sheet music. and while TABS may or may not be incorrect, the only sure way of knowing is from the artist themselves.
Spyke wrote:
Definitely not arguing there, they should be humbled almost that someone likes the fruits of their work and passion so much as to copy, replicate, mimic it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
and if we liked it so much we should be willing to pay at least something for it. maybe not the exhorbitant price they ask sometimes. Everybody is demanding everything for free, yet not many will perform for free forever,
rikus
For anyone interested in the legal side of it I’ll try to explain it briefly.
Copyright gives the copyright holder certain exclusive rights (these rights differ slightly from country to country, but the major elements are the same thanks to things like the Berne Convention). If anybody does anything reserved as an exclusive right without the copyright holder consenting thereto, it constitutes copyright infringement.
For something to be copyrighted it needs to be reduced to material form, which for the most part means it needs to be written down. For music what is actually copyrighted is the written down arrangement or transcription of the musical work. In other words a tune bouncing around in your head can’t be copyrighted.
Now for some extracts from our copyright act. The South African copyright act states that:
"Copyright in a literary or musical work vests the exclusive right to do or to authorize the doing of any of the following acts in the Republic:
(a) Reproducing the work in any manner or form;
(b) publishing the work if it was hitherto unpublished;
(c) performing the work in public;
(d) broadcasting the work;
(e) causing the work to be transmitted in a diffusion service, unless such service transmits a lawful broadcast, including the work, and is operated by the original broadcaster;
(f) making an adaptation of the work;
(g) doing, in relation to an adaptation of the work, any of the acts specified in relation to the work in paragraphs (a) to (e) inclusive."
So, by tabbing out a musical work you are reproducing that musical work (the arrangement or transcription), which constitutes copyright infringement if you aren't authorised to do it.
As I said, the above is the position in terms of South African laws, but it should be very similar outside South Africa.
chris77
So its illegal and shouldnt be done. Point taken. How the hell anybody is able to play a song entirely by ear and remember it, with lyrics, without writing it down is just beyond my comprehension. I am just not that good. So for me, all on my lonesome own, to enjoy my favourite passtime I have to break the law to a certain degree. What a bleak prospect...
rikus
chris77 wrote:
So its illegal and shouldnt be done. Point taken. How the hell anybody is able to play a song entirely by ear and remember it, with lyrics, without writing it down is just beyond my comprehension. I am just not that good. So for me, all on my lonesome own, to enjoy my favourite passtime I have to break the law to a certain degree. What a bleak prospect...
I maybe should've mentioned the concept of "fair dealing/use"... most countries allow what is called fair dealing/use of copyrighted material, which is use for:
research or private study or personal or private use;
criticism or review;
reporting current events.
So you're allowed to do all that, provided that it falls within the fair dealing exceptions.
DonovanB
I was just saying on the chat that the record companies are caught in a tough place.
Do they
a) encourage people to buy their stuff ie give them money. or
b) encourage people to play the stuff ( by allowing free transcriptions etc) and possibly make them money one day.
What they fail to see is the sustainability of b. The players will still buy the music, but "pure" buyers wont make them any more money once their current stock of players gets old.
My old man told me of the rebels in the congo who used to rob the shop, take all the money and then burn it down. The next week they rocked up at the same shop with all this money but nowhere to spend it.
Spyke
DonovanB wrote:
My old man told me of the rebels in the congo who used to rob the shop, take all the money and then burn it down. The next week they rocked up at the same shop with all this money but nowhere to spend it.
LOL! I think that's just African consumer mentality for you.
But I do agree with you, the more they encourage players and playing the better their chances are of finding new talent. Can anyone say Idols?
[deleted]
Hmm. African consumer mentality? On a much, much larger scale, that's just what countries like America are doing to the Earth.
Don, I'm not sure what you're saying is actually the real issue right now. Record companies are throwing less and less money behind artists anyway, because the old music business models just don't apply. They just don't get the same return, and things will change drastically before long. So, we can't assume it's necessarily their responsibility to ensure sustainability.
DonovanB
I'm not saying it's their responsibility. But in general we are bombarded with lazy media that either encourages us to just spend ( and never earn) and media that dumbs us down and lowering our values. (if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it. WTF?)
It may not be their responsibility, but we have been ushered into a lazy, under achieving, money-grabbing generation. No wonder crime is at an all time high, that all we know.
Its an on going issue that highlights the deep set problems in our world.
Squonk
If you look at the copyright law, it also applies to photgraphs and film etc.
That means if you record on your PVR or VCR the "Rocky 2" from the SABC who seem to get a licence to broadcast this quite often. And watch it you are in fact breaking the law.
What would be the point in a PVR?
You should have a look at the broadcasting laws and see what is breaking the law? Doesn't make sense
If I learn TAB from Guitarist, whom I assume have a copyright licence to publish it in their magazine. And I play it to my wife, I will be in fact reproducing the work and in trouble with the Law again.
So we can only reproduce our own compositions?
Doesn't make sense
But I do agree we shouldn't have TABS on the GFSA.
