Damn you, copyright junkies!
Posted by Jorge Bernal September 09, 2006
Today, I felt like recovering my old guitar from the closet and try to play for some time.
But I checked OLGA (the OnLine Guitar Archive) and found this:
OLGA is currently offline while we attempt to resolve legal issues with the archive.
We received a ‘take down’ letter (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 ) from lawyers representing the NMPA and the MPA.
We greatly appreciate your support and hope to return to providing resources to the aspiring guitarist as soon as possible. Contact rcwoods for more information. In the meantime, we recommend the usenet newsgroups rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature and alt.guitar.tab.
I think this is one of the first tablature sites on the Internet. In fact, it’s also one of the first web sites I visited (when I got online the first time I was learning to play guitar, so it was one of my first searches)
Now we can’t enjoy this because it’s supposed to kill the music industry (or another stupid reason). Sure, you have to watch me play to discover I’m not putting artists like Queen, U2 or any other by getting their tablatures.
In fact, they are usually written by amateurs and not copies of the official tab book (if it exists).
I hate you all, obsolete copyright junkies!!!
Now, a sample tab:
E-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0---7-| B-----0---0---|-----0---0---|-----0---0---|-----0---0---| G---0-------0-|---0-------0-|---0-------0-|---0---------| D-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------| A-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------| E-0-----------|-0-----------|-0-----------|-0-----------|
They are the first notes from Metallica’s “Nothin else matters”. That means you can just play the first part of the song without even knowing how to play guitar (the 0’s mean you don’t have to ‘push’ the cord, only play it). So, how in hell can be this copyrighted?
Note to evil lawyers: don’t even bother on trying to sue me for this piece of a tab. Spanish laws allow me to quote a part of a registered play to illustrate news.
Yes, it is really crazy…
In the USA, copyright is a *privilege* that the constitution permits “for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”.
The duration of copyright is set by the legislature.
Petition your representatives to limit copyright to no more than 40 years, after which the rights to the Author’s work passes to the public domain. This would basically return all copyrighted works prior to and including (part of) the Vietnam War to public domain as our shared heritage, as the founders intended (oh, go read their writings yourself).
The current multi-lifetime duration for copyright is a travesty of the “limited Times” clause, and must be corrected ASAP. Don’t delay - write your representative TODAY.
The evil lawyers would have a tough fight on their hands with this one, since the beginning of “Nothing Else Matters” is basically ripped off from an anonymous Spanish piece dating back to the mid-1800s… (it goes under many titles but the most oft used is “Spanish Romance”)
Yeah, it seems that ultimate-guitar.com is the last standing tab site. It’s safe because it’s not hosted in the US.
It’s a shame it has so many pop ups though…
wow, I’d almost forgot OLGA. It was such a great site. I think i downloaded the chords for Ziggy Stardust when I was in highschool.. I guess that meant a lot to mr. Bowie’s career - glad his (and other’s) lawyers are there to help!