Another Music Industry Big Brother Crack Down

Music Industry to Attack Lyric, Tab Sites

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

December 12, 2005, 4:07 PM

The litigious music industry will have a new target in 2006: sites that provide lyrics and scores to popular songs. The Music Publishers' Association says fines and the removal of such Web sites is not enough -- it is even advocating jail time for those operating these sites.

MPA President Lauren Keiser told the BBC Monday that he thought if the MPA would be successful in "[throwing] in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective". He says the guitar tabs that have been commonplace on music sites for years are "completely illegal."

The effort marks the first time the MPA would embark on a legal effort to protect the copyrights of its members. Individual companies have used the courts to protect their rights in the past.

According to Keiser, the organization plans to go after popular sites that some would think are legal, but are not. The music publishing industry's biggest enemy before the Internet was the copying machine, Keiser said, "but now the Internet is taking more of a bite out of sheet music and printed music sales so we're taking a more proactive stance."

That was showing the writing on the wall. . .

The National Music Publishers' Association is also planning to support the MPA in its legal endeavor.

The industry has already begun to strong-arm lyrics sites off the Internet. Popular Austrian-based PearLyrics was forced off the web on December 6 after a cease and desist letter from British music label Warner/Chappell Music Limited.

The software for Macintosh helped users to locate lyrics to popular songs.

"As a freeware developer I can not afford to risk a law suit against such a big company, although personally I don't see where pearLyrics should infringe any copyrights handled by them," PearLyrics creator Walter Ritter wrote in a message to users on his Web site. "After all, pearLyrics only searches and accesses publicly available websites, displays, and, at the users wish, caches its content."

Ritter is currently investigating his legal options, and thanked his users for their overwhelming support.

Basically, I guess the internet is to blame for cutting yet another revenue stream down and that is , the publishing of books with the lyrics and chords. So are they going to ban copiers as well? I think what you actually may see is a NEW .99 download for any song you want the chords and lyrics too. Damn shame these folks are trying to stop the sharing of music.

Guess its back to the old days, where you have to put your ear to the song and work it out from there.

Dude, not to be a dick, but welcome to a year ago

Damn, was I asleep that long?

In any case, I was wondering if anyone saw the effects of this Thought Police action throughout the past year.

The first 4 chords to Autumn Leaves in Gm are

C-7, F7, Bb6, Ebma7

HAHA. This forum is going to be shut DOWN.

Tis' a shame... I really enjoyed the OLGA archive even if they were more often than not wrong...

Now you've gone and done it! Where will I be able to waste my time away without KSS!

this is news to me

sad, but some how not surprising. I dont think I could be surprised by anything at this point...

Ditto.

Not to mention, the only things technically protected by copyright are lyrics and melody. Chord progressions and such aren't. I think even in terms of solo's, only something like Van Halen's Eruption could be considered protected, as the solo IS the melody.

As much as I hate it, I can understand the point on lyrics. I think it's being very anal. I don't like their stance, but I can understand it.

But as for tabs and chord charts, I believe there is no legal foundation for it. Otherwise every single blues song after the first one is in violation of copyrights!

Lawyers, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes mainstream music industry does not want anyone to be a musician unless they are in control of what you do and how your doing it and your making them a money profit as they tell you what to do and how to do it. Mainstream music industry has greedy hitlers at the helm. Success in their efforts would just make turning the free world into dictator led govt easier. Kill peoples ability to play music that isnt approved by the govt is a basic way to erode personal freedom & unsupervised self direction. Music industry imo would prefer music be controlled same as in Iraq under nasty dictator & clerics. The fundie xians would absoutely love such to happen as would the ultra conservative politicians who want to see an end to most of the music out there.

Pro musicians who support this no tab sites etc are imo nothing but zombie drones of the music industry with no interest in music, cause only dollar signs matter. Someday that drone in metallica who got napster shut may well be declared the patron saint of music industries control over amatuer musicians.

{censored} them.

Let them stop me from playing other peoples' tunes if I want. Let them stop me from playing a blues with the same progression as someone else's.

I'd be flattered if someone wanted to play my {censored}, and I'm sure if it ever got to that point that I would be making a comfortable living by then anyways, so who cares? Only corporate assholes who make money off of music not because they play it (most of them probably can't play a note) but because they take care of legal matters about the organization of sound. They don't even care about it as an art, they only work with it for the money. That's why they care about this issue in the first place.

{censored} them.

I don't really get what this all implies.

All these sites say, usually, that they are both educational and someone's interpretation.

So isn't that perfectly legal? Gee, it sounds to me like this song's chorus is C F G A. So that is now being threatened?

I don't exactly get it. Especially lyrics. If you hear the {censored}in song then you know what the lyrics are, at least when the damn singer isn't marble mouthing his way around it.

I can see why certain tablatures might be banned but I really don't get this.

Also, what about those "fakebooks" they sell in stores? Arent they also unlicensed interpretations?

PS these greedy bastards want more TREES to DIE! I hope trunks topple down on their speeding BMWs.

Maybe if the world just boycotted music...that would show those corporate bastards!!!

I am on the "not surprised side" as well.

Of course if you make your living selling something you'll be outraged that a group of people break up your duties (in this case transcribing lyrics amd formatting them for dissemination).

I'd be a little pissed if I found out that my job was entirely replacible with a chorus of people just doing it for free. I mean, think of how useless they must feel.

I think it would mirror how many musicians feel. The difference is, I think that we lose something when musicians and people who wirte music are not paid-- I don't really give a damn if book publishers go without food, esp[ecially when it is a demonstrible fact (demopnstrated by the lawsuits, by the publishers themselves, no less) that people will continue to publish even without publishers. Hopefully we will reach a point where musicans can afford to eat just by making music (again).

Right, just like when they said I couldn't download music anymore? or what about tabs? you can still get whatever you want and that will never end, unless they plan on spending what little money they have left tracking down some guy in Uzbekistan.

Ignore it, you'll have your lyrics forever

Yep, musicians are a whole other story. I even think that transcription books are on another level than lyrics. Lyrics, everybody can listen to and figure out 90%...the 10% missing is because of bad articulation. But look at how many albums have the lyrics in them anyways. Who cares if someone puts that on a webpage?

Transcription books are different...but it also depends on the book. You're a fool (and usually 15) if you can't figure out your favorite Metallica riff on your own. No offense if anybody here can't do that. But not everybody has the ears to figure out a Herbie Hancock solo on their own, and when people take time to transcribe that and get it published, that's something I don't think should be shared. Chord changes? Share away. Melodies...eh, maybe. Doesn't bother me at all. I'd be all for the open sharing of lead sheets even though Hal Leonard would never hire me with that attitude.

Exactly!

You can't sue or remove a site for someone's "Interpretation" of something. Its almost akin to "derivative" works of art (which has also come under fire many many times in a row over the last 50 years).

I don't think that interpretive (and so adequatly marked websites will have much to fear. Let the RIAA blow their wad all they want. It won't make change much.

Mick

Originally posted by EerieDreamZ [...]You can't sue or remove a site for someone's "Interpretation" of something. Its almost akin to "derivative" works of art (which has also come under fire many many times in a row over the last 50 years). I don't think that interpretive (and so adequatly marked websites will have much to fear. Let the RIAA blow their wad all they want. It won't make change much.[...]

No, that is false-- I hate aspects of that law, but (most respectfully) your interpretation of it is wrong.

Derivative woks are derivative precisely insofar as they draw heavily on another work-- so startrek fan fiction is a derivative work becasue it heavily draws on startrek, to the point that it infringes on the intellectual work laid down by its original authors.

The same is true for things that are translated: if you "interpret" my novel into a screenplay, then you've infringed on my rights as an author.

I think that protection is okay, because people stand to make tremendous commercial gains from such "interpretations." So I can see how there is a clear need to protect the rights of authors, becaues it provides motivation for folks to create new, nonderivative works and advance the arts (which is the public good that underwrites copyright).

The reason that many derivative works are not harassed by rights owners (except in the prefunctory ways necssary to maintain the appearance of protecting a copyright, which is a fundamental aspect of retaining copyright) is that there is no commercial gain in things like lyrics or fan fiction: if you used those works to produce an actual film, or a song, then there are clear methods of negotiating how much you owe to the original rights holders (in the case of "interpreting someone's novel", they'd own your entire film print, in the case of "interpreting someone's published song lyrics" you'd own them 7c. per copy published in the US, perhaps more or less abroad).

But what really irks me about the music publishers is that both the public and authors are perfectly served by the free and public distribution of these texts: music publishers want to create an artifical demand for a product that is already-- as shown by the very fact of how easily availble tabs/lyrics are-- something that is redundant to a fairly natural process of distributed internet publication. Technology has broken the commercial gains availible for song publication, and that is a wonderful advance for our culture.

So, basically, they are mad that they have been made obsloete: their job is already being done by the public, for free in a speedy and useful manner.

They are not being expropriated, because their "property" is something that has been declared something for which private ownership give no public good: there's no rational basis for thier claims to a private right.

What is so awful about these claims by the RIAA is they undermine public support for more legitimate forms of copyright ownership that actually do advance the public good. When they do something that is obviously not in the public's best interest, like extending copyright indefinitely, ignoring technological advancements infavor of protectionist trade practices, undermine the public's ability to access the culture it has developed, or place the rights of a wealthy minority in front of the rights of the commnity, then they undermine the credibility of all property rights, even for legitimate rights owners.

OLGA was too funny. Some guitar dick (apologies to the language nazis here if "guitar dick" is a tautology) would write "I haven't played this song for 6 months and don't have my guitar handy but here goes anyway". And you'd get a set of chords to Achy Breaky Heart that weren't even close.

Mind you Hal Leonard have published plenty of fake books in their time with chord changes written by similarly talented folks.

Maybe we'll all just have to develop our aural skills.