Anyone get guitar tabs or lyrics online?

MoP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4508158.stm

This is ridiculous. The MPA chief even says he wants courts to "throw in some jail time" for owners of sites that host musical scores.

I get my guitar tabs from www.powertabs.net ... the majority of tabs on that site are by people who have sat and listened to the song and figured it out by ear... and this guy wants to fine people for doing their own work for private enjoyment?
Even if they end up banning all sorts of online music score/lyrics sites, that doesn't mean I'm gonna rush out and buy all the "legitimate" music books that the MPA endorses and sells ... I'll just sit at home and figure it out by ear myself. It's not like they're even losing out on much business this way - I think most people who buy music books would buy them regardless of whether sheet music sites were available or not.

Internet crackdowns suck, and never lead anywhere but to petty bickering and pointless court cases that end up wasting more money than they were trying to save in the first place

EmAr

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Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing

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Sounds ridiculous. I seriously wonder how much money an artist earns via an official songbook. ...And how much a songbook publisher earns who publishes transcriptions of just popular music. You can find anything at powertabs.net. I don't even mention how sore it feels when you buy an official tab and find out it has faults at some points.
EDIT: Also many artists/bands like Dream Theater put fan made tabs on their sites along their tab books.

ElysiumGX

Unbelieveable. I use powertabs as well. Not just for hit songs, but for other tunes and classical music. It's educational. Both my brothers are using it to learn songs, and actually use the editor to write their own melodies. It really gives them an interest in writing and playing music.

Buying tab books and mags is expensive, often including faults that can't be seen just by looking at the notes on paper, and single specific arrangements can be hard to find.

Music industry is really going too far, and falling behind the times. Asking for jail time is ridiculous. These music industry morons need to be kicked in the head.

MoP

Yep ... and EmAr, that's a good point - Foo Fighters also have their own tabs (unofficial, but hosted by the band) linked from their official site. What are the MPA gonna do about that? Obviously the bands themselves endorse that sort of thing, so why complain about it?

Malekyth

Wow, pretty shitty! I have a few crap tabs on the net meself, and won't be able to live with my guilt until they're pulled in accordance with (one company's greedypiggy interpretation of) the law.

It will make downloading harder though. I guess I'll have to find my Anti-Flag and Against All Authority tabs elsewh--er, actually, maybe I personally will be juuussst fine. But you guys with your Metallica tabs, oooo, dark times.

MoP

don't need tabs to learn metallica songs

KDR_11k

I wish governments would start to rip those "industry associations" to shreds because of monopolistic behaviour. Though I'd settle for lining up their executives on the wall.

Jail time for a civil offense? Why don't we start with the sensible stuff and make execs legally responsible for the wrongs done by their corporation? If the company gets fined for illegal behaviour, jail the top x people from the corp plus anyone else that's found responsible. And how about making it a felony to start lawsuits without real merit because you know your victim can't afford to defend himself? How about making it a felony to use a loophole in a law if the act runs contrary to the stated goal of the law? How about making lawyers lose their license if they attempt to intimidate people with baseless legal threats? How about outlawing "political donations" that EVERYBODY knows are just bribes anyway?

How about making laws that actually benefit the people instead of some rich fatsacks that malfunction as human beings?

Justin Meisse

The music industry is full of assholes, some of my Dad's friends used to get together at a local bar and have a blues jam, anybody can come up and play some tunes. One day an asshole from ASCAP stops by the bar and threatens to sue the bar unless they pay licensing fees, jam night got shut down because of that.

Michael Knubben

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I guess I'll have to find my Anti-Flag and Against All Authority tabs elsewh--er, actually, maybe I personally will be juuussst fine. But you guys with your Metallica tabs, oooo, dark times.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think i love you, Mal.

Rick Stirling

In the old dark days I used to transcribe them - you'll find my name on a fair few Therapy? and Husker Du tabs. I did it cos I wanted to play the songs, and I knew others would too.

Now, I can see that reprinting the LYRICS would be easily considered a breach of copyright, but the TAB?

Is this another case of people who are making money seeing other people giving away the fruits of their own labour and being pissed off? Would Shell sue people giving away free petrol? Would te electric companies sue people who generated their own power and shared it for free?

ebagg

Wow that's pretty scummy. Back when I was taking guitar lessons my instructor had been playing for decades and he could mimic a song just from listening to it a few times. It's a pretty damn good showing of skill when you can do that and a site for people to share just seems logical. I'm sure any such law wouldn't work out.

Mishra

i heard about this yesterday, so im trying to save my 250+ bookmarked tabs to my hard drive in case something unfortunate happens with this.

Mishra

ok well update, powertabs have taken down the ability to download the tabs for the "immediate future"

eepberries

"Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing,"

LOL

Though personally, I couldn't really be bothered to care about tabs. Lyrics are what I'm worried about. I love being able to access a song's lyrics so I can better understand what the singer is saying while I am listening to my legally purchased audio Compact Disk.