Anyone else annoyed at the NMPA?

Naffa · 7 Sep 2006 at 23:17

Fair enough I don't use tabs a lot.. But when I do they are really helpful. And to people learning to play the guitar they and so handy. I'm just annoyed that the NMPA and the MPA have taken down all the best tab sites. :mad:

Even though it's copyright infringement apparently I still believe it to be ok.. It's just the big record labels that don't want to lose money on their tab books.

Nothing to do with the musicians themselves imo..

Pretty silly OP but just wanted to express my annoyance about this whole thing. :mad:

"At what point does describing how one plays a song on guitar become an issue of copyright infringment? This website, among other things, helps users teach eachother how they play guitar parts for many different songs. This is the way music teachers have behaved since the first music was ever created. The difference here is that the information is shared by way of a new technology: the Internet."

"When you are jamming with a friend and you show him/her the chords for a song you heard on the radio, is that copyright infringement? What about if you helped him/her remember the chord progression or riff by writing it down on, say, a napkin... infringement?"

Taken from Guitartabs.cc. Both show up some good points.

I'm really unhappy about this.

Locrian · 7 Sep 2006 at 23:36

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ still works but it has annoying ads.

Wrong forum btw

penski · 8 Sep 2006 at 00:25

Why don't they put all the tab back up but as parodies of the original songs?

Parody is exempt from copyright.

*n

Naffa · 8 Sep 2006 at 00:54

That is a cracking suggestion. :cool:

Chronos-X · 8 Sep 2006 at 09:29

penski said:
Why don't they put all the tab back up but as parodies of the original songs?

Parody is exempt from copyright.

*n

Unfortunately, parody (in the case where someone like Weird Al changes lyrics to the same music) still has royalties payable to the songwriters.

Pastiche (where you change the music and lyrics a little bit, like the songs on The Simpsons/Family Guy/The Rutles) due to its nature doesn't have royalties payable, but at the same time you have to change the music enough that it would be useless anyway.

xyphic · 8 Sep 2006 at 10:12

I wish the recording artists that the NMPA claim to represent would stand up and be counted. Most of the bands making it big at the moment will undoubtedly have used unofficial guitar tablature as an aid to learning, so it'd be nice to hear what they think about this.

What really gets my goat is this article from the president of the NMPA, who obviously believes in what he's doing. In fact, so much so that it's scary. He talks about how the NMPA will have to change to adapt to the internet's influence on music (but that change basically boils down to suing the pants off people).