# On line Tabs, gone?



## Bevo (Nov 24, 2006)

My #1 tab site All Power Tabs just got shut down which sucks!! Looking for some other power tab type sites, I am finding them to be gone, message comes up with file unavabile.

What are your New ( has been discussed some time ago) thoughts on the state of tab out there.

Guitar world has a new tab site that charges $99 cents, is that a good option?
I don't think so, some tab sucks so why would I buy before I try.

If you have a good site let us know.

Lets discuss.
Bev


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2008)

Bevo said:


> Guitar world has a new tab site that charges $99 cents, is that a good option? I don't think so, some tab sucks so why would I buy before I try.


Sounds good to me. Nice to know song writers and publishers will get paid. And Guitar World's transcriptions will be very high quality. Not to mention easy to read. Not OLGA-type ASCII stuff.

Hmm...I seem to be able to view ASCII tabs from them without paying:

http://tabs.guitarworld.com/tabs/show/2177/tom-sawyer

That looks like they pulled it from the OLGA archive. Ahh yes: they have a "User Tabs" section that is their rip-off of all the OLGA content. They must have struck a deal with the publishers to let them host the OLGA content if they also provided the for-pay content.

Honestly, their for-pay stuff is going to be great, legible, professionally transcribed. $0.99 is a deal if you ask me. 

You could always -- gasp! -- go it alone. The pay off for transcribing songs on your own is huge. You'll be a better player for it in the end.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I tend to use Ultimate Guitar and GuitareTab, both of which have decent databanks, though UG will give you pop-ups and stuff, but nothing malicious, just advertising.

Also, if you use bit torrent at all, there's a couple torrents floating around out there for the Guitar Pro software that have 20-50,000 tabs in a large archive. Most of those tabs, you'll never use/need. Some of them are plain bad, but a good chunk of them are fairly accurate and useful.

On an aside, would it be illegal to take a famous painting, like Van Gogh's Starry Night and make a paint-by-numbers of it, or even a more contemporary painting? I don't think so. So what gives with tabs? Arguably, the only infringement is that you have access to the building blocks of the artist's creation, thus allowing you to reproduce it under false pretenses. 

If this is the case, why is browsing books on Amazon not illegal? I can similarly get a sense of the author's style and rip that off. Better still, I can verbatim copy passages. Libraries should be made illegal as well. It just seems kind of silly when you take it to a logical extreme.

The issue of tabs being legal or not seems like another attempt by artists to collect on their studio accomplishments, rather than honing their skills as musicians in order to put on a good show. Give me enough takes, and I can nail pretty much anything too, put me on stage in front of 20,000 people, I'll crap my pants.


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2008)

hollowbody said:


> The issue of tabs being legal or not seems like another attempt by artists to collect on their studio accomplishments, rather than honing their skills as musicians in order to put on a good show. Give me enough takes, and I can nail pretty much anything too, put me on stage in front of 20,000 people, I'll crap my pants.


If I write a song, why shouldn't I get paid when it's used by you or anyone else? That's the whole business of songwriting. Copyright exists to ensure content creators get reimbursed for their work. Don't like? Take it up with the government. As it stands if you transcribe my song you owe me money if you want to distribute that transcription, for free or for pay. That's how someone who writes songs makes a living.

Note the distinction between songwriter here. We're not talking about performers. Whether you soil yourself or not when you play one of my songs in front of 20,000 people doesn't change the fact that you owe me for playing a song a wrote. :smile:


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Paul said:


> Many of the tablature sites are SELLING copyrighted works they don't own. That is enforceable.


This I am perfectly fine with. I wouldn't want to pay for a tab anyway. However, given that most tabs are not 100% accurate, and for the most part the lion's share of tabs are used as purely educational tools to help guitarists learn to play their instruments by learning songs they are already familiar with, where is the infringement? My tab of the lead part in Tom Wait's _Downtown Train_ is not completely accurate, but I needed to transcribe it to learn it for a gig. To the best of my knowledge, playing a cover song is not illegal. So was my act of transcribing the song for myself illegal? I gather that it may be illegal for me to give my transcription to a friend, but again, if it is not a flawless transcription, where does the legality issue pop up? Is there a level of accuracy a tab must have before it breaks certain rules?




Paul said:


> Looking through a book at Amazon doesn't give you the right to steal the content of the book and either give it away or sell it. Style may or may not be copyrightable. Copying verbatim passages is enforcable. With a library you have to return the book. It gets silly when you take it to an *IL*logical extreme.


K, so I was a bit silly here. What I mean is, like my example above, if I have no intention of giving a tab away or selling it, am I still guilty of a crime?





Paul said:


> You might be surprised how many copyright protected songs are written by professional songwriters that do not have the ability to collect any money from live performances, simply because they do not perform live. Songwriting and publishing royalties are their only income stream. Tablature sites steal that income stream.


I completely understand this, and I'm not looking at taking money out of anyone's pockets (though the idea that so many pop-stars are getting rich off other peoples' work is sickening, but that's another story), but songwriters who are credited also get royalties from record sales, do they not? I have no idea what the figures are like, but I would guess they would get more money selling records of songs they wrote than sheet music. When's the last time you went out to buy sheet music for _Hit Me Baby One More Time_?


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

iaresee said:


> If I write a song, why shouldn't I get paid when it's used by you or anyone else?


Like I mentioned in the other post, what is the deal with covers? I always thought playing a cover was ok. Is it not? I know it's illegal to record a cover and post it on the net without permission, but if my band wants to play a cover, do we need to get permission first, or can we just credit the artist on-stage?

This thread is getting pretty off-topic!


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2008)

hollowbody said:


> This I am perfectly fine with. I wouldn't want to pay for a tab anyway. However, given that most tabs are not 100% accurate, and for the most part the lion's share of tabs are used as purely educational tools to help guitarists learn to play their instruments by learning songs they are already familiar with, where is the infringement?


You're taking another's creative work and reproducing it without permission. That is, by it's very definition, copyright infringement. Like it or not, this is the system we've got in place.



> My tab of the lead part in Tom Wait's _Downtown Train_ is not completely accurate, but I needed to transcribe it to learn it for a gig. To the best of my knowledge, playing a cover song is not illegal. So was my act of transcribing the song for myself illegal?


I've always stressed that chioce of words in these matters is very, very important. This is not an _illegal_ action. It is a copyright infringement. As my lawyer friends say: the devil is always in the details. And I disagree with Paul here. If you are transcribing for private use I don't think a copyright owner can claim infringement. It's only if you intend to distribute it -- they you need permission. And like I say below: covering songs is legit as long as the venue is playing their dues.



> I gather that it may be illegal for me to give my transcription to a friend, but again, if it is not a flawless transcription, where does the legality issue pop up? Is there a level of accuracy a tab must have before it breaks certain rules?


Accuracy to some extent matters, but not much. If I write G/C/D on a piece of paper and give it to you calling it a transcription of Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne -- well, that's not infringement because that's clearly not the song, right? But if you're in the ball park and it's just down to your skills as a musician and transcriber you're going to be liable.



> K, so I was a bit silly here. What I mean is, like my example above, if I have no intention of giving a tab away or selling it, am I still guilty of a crime?


My opinion: no. I don't recall the letter of the law here. You have to distribute or profit from the infringement before it becomes _enforceable_ though by the copyright owner.



> I completely understand this, and I'm not looking at taking money out of anyone's pockets (though the idea that so many pop-stars are getting rich off other peoples' work is sickening, but that's another story), but songwriters who are credited also get royalties from record sales, do they not? I have no idea what the figures are like, but I would guess they would get more money selling records of songs they wrote than sheet music. When's the last time you went out to buy sheet music for _Hit Me Baby One More Time_?


They do get royalities from sales. But what does that matter? What if you're transcribing one of my songs? Where the sales are well below the 1000 album mark? Am I more or less entitled to my royalties because I'm not selling millions of albums? The system doesn't differentiate between my case or between the case of the people who wrote _Hit Me Baby One More Time_. And rightly so.

As for buying _Hit Me Baby One More Time_ -- I purchased the arrangement for this in 2000 because I needed to supply the pit band for Skule Nite(tm), which I was musical director of, with arrangements. I re-arranged the score to suit the musical, but I had to pay for a copy of the music in order to put paper on everyone's stands. We did this for every song parodied by the way. I think the music budget was about $2k for the production and I ate through most of it.



Paul said:


> Actually, as it stands, if I transcribe your song, period, for any purpose, I owe you money.


I don't think so. Infringement is only enforceable if I distribute the work or profit from it. But IMNAL.



> Much of this goes un-enforced. Music arranging students likely don't get permi$$ion for the works they arrange as part of their studies. I know I never did.


You don't have to if it's for private study/use. Now, if you write it down and give it to someone else in your class _that's_ enforceable because you're distributing it without permission. But as long as it's for-your-eyes-only you're okay. That was how OLGA got shut down. They tried the for-education bend, but in the end that didn't hold up in court.



> I did read of a case in Holland where the police showed up in the middle of a concert, pulled the music off of the stand and arrested the musicians. They were playing somebody elses work and did not have permission to use it.


In Canada no one can stop you from playing their songs. Same in the US. Might be different in Holland. You have to pay the songwriter, but you don't have to ask permission to play it. But if you write down a song and hand out copies to everyone in your band you have to pay the songwriter for that because you're distributing it. As you say: it's impossible to not have sheet music for some types of music and that's where you have to start asking for permission. Most publishers want to sell you their transcription at some insane price no doubt.



hollowbody said:


> Like I mentioned in the other post, what is the deal with covers? I always thought playing a cover was ok. Is it not? I know it's illegal to record a cover and post it on the net without permission, but if my band wants to play a cover, do we need to get permission first, or can we just credit the artist on-stage?


If you're playing covers songwriters are still getting paid. The places where you play those covers pay fees to the royalty distribution engines who work on behalf of the songwriters and publishers. You may have heard of some of these collection entities. In Canada we have SOCAN in the US there's ASCAP, BMI (and another I forget that's by-invite only). Bars, clubs, coffee shops, festival halls, the legion down the street from you -- they all pay dues to SOCAN, who redistributes all that money based on some math and random sampling of people's play lists. Bands aren't responsible for these fees, venues are, that's why you can spend your entire musical career in a cover band and never encounter this stuff.

You don't ever has to ask a songwriter for permission to perform their song. I can't prevent you from doing a really awful cover of one of my tunes and releasing it. But you do have to pay the songwriter for their song (and on the sales of that song). The rate is fixed by SOCAN and the Government of Canada. I think it's about a $1 per play or sale.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Paul said:


> As a man commited to total honesty......last year. Really. Why did you have to pick THAT Britney song? I could have answered no to any other song!!!!!


Hahahahahaha. Awesome! Well, at least you can fess up to it. I know I probably wouldn't have.

Thanks a lot for your insight, Paul! You clarified a bunch of stuff for me.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

iaresee said:


> If you're playing covers songwriters are still getting paid. The places where you play those covers pay fees to the royalty distribution engines who work on behalf of the songwriters and publishers. You may have heard of some of these collection entities. In Canada we have SOCAN in the US there's ASCAP, BMI (and another I forget that's by-invite only). Bars, clubs, coffee shops, festival halls, the legion down the street from you -- they all pay dues to SOCAN, who redistributes all that money based on some math and random sampling of people's play lists. Bands aren't responsible for these fees, venues are, that's why you can spend your entire musical career in a cover band and never encounter this stuff.
> 
> You don't ever has to ask a songwriter for permission to perform their song. I can't prevent you from doing a really awful cover of one of my tunes and releasing it. But you do have to pay the songwriter for their song (and on the sales of that song). The rate is fixed by SOCAN and the Government of Canada. I think it's about a $1 per play or sale.


Brilliant! That is about as succinct an explanation I can ask for. I look forward to playing terrible versions of your songs for the rest of my life.


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2008)

hollowbody said:


> I look forward to playing terrible versions of your songs for the rest of my life.


By all means sample liberally from my collection of published songs! You can find my works in the SOCAN database under 'Chesal' -- conveniently I'm the only Chesal with published musical works in Canada (for that matter: it might be the world, definitely it's North America 'cause I know all the Chesal's in North America).


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## satch09 (Jul 26, 2008)

Ladies and gentleman, lets make things simple, why dont we all just do it the old fashioned way and learn by ear (just don't write it out afterwards haha). All the greats that we know and love had to do it that way, it made them successful, and will make you too, because having a great ear is the most powerful tool and musician should have. We don't need tabs, hell you don't need sheet music either for that matter (I'm not against theory) grab a cd (I guess in this case, for legalities, not a burnt cd haha) have a listen and play along. Come on folks, this is an issue that has a quick fix, and doesn't need to be talked about so much, sure I think some (NOT ALL) musicians make too much money as it is, and sure I agree that if you wrote it and own, it's yours and no one should be able to transcribe it without permission, but all this aside, if you're not going to learn to read music or theory, then screw tabs and figure it out yourself by ear at least that way you practicing on more than one level.


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## Vincent (Nov 24, 2007)

Most online tabs are inacurate anyway so its no big loss if they are no more.

Im still surprised you can download mp3's for nothing still...i know they are cracking down on it big time lately however its still out there.


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## Bevo (Nov 24, 2006)

All good stuff guy's.

Bottom line is if your profiting from it then it should be a legal issue, home study or use should be fine...Would a subscription to a tab site clear it up with the waivers?

Ear training sounds ( made a funny) like the way to go, gave it a go today and have to say it went easier than I thought.

Paying for band approved tab also sounds like it will get around the crap thats out there and the bands will profit, good stuff once thought through. But who is to say they wont get traded around?

Bev


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