Legal action against U.S. tab sites!?

[Dogil]

Checking out some of my favourite tab sites today - Olga being the main one - and it appears that there is a current battle ensuing between the on-line tab community and the National Music Publishers Association of America. It seems the NMPA argue that tablature is an infringement of copyright law, and believe that we should all go out and buy the sheet music to satisfy our needs. Yeah, like that would be so cheap, easy and achievable!! The manager of guitartab universe www.guitartabs.cc/ makes a salient argument/discussion supporting online tablature.

Paul, maybe you could make comment here in relation to whether such a situation has ever crossed your desk, or whether you had heard of it elsewhere in Oz? All I know is that I am pretty peeved - I have certainly spent my fair share over the years buying sheet music, and I have many hundreds of dollars worth of books and single sheets, but you simply can't afford to buy everything! I encourage everyone to keep an eye on what is happening over there, and stand united against the idea if it ever raises its head over here!!

[epicure]

yeah its absolute bullshit, olga is alright but guitartab universe was the best out of the lot, stupid fn yanks always have to whinge about something

[robbieb]

It's not like we sell our tabs. That would definitely be bad. We'll just have to keep our eye on it

[Slider]

We'll just have to be very very quiet and hope no one notices us down here.

This sort of thing really infuriates me - but at the end of the day the anarchy that is the internet will win.

[steggz]

Well at the moment its only sites based in the US in 'trouble'. Ultimate Guitar, a fairly big tab site, is based in Russia, and because of that is not being prosecuted.

[damian22]

Yeah, I was pretty upset about this for two reasons: one, I used to work in sheet music and there are no tabs available for 99% of the songs people want; two, what is the difference between posting stuff up on the net and writing down a few chords on a bit of paper for your mates? Is that going to be illegal too? I'm self-taught, so internet tabs were all I had trying to learn... wouldn't be here today if it weren't for them. Long live Oztabs anyway.

[ariarocker]

I agree with epicure....F#@*in yanks always have to winge about something..

Seriously, They winge about everything!

"Our country is fat". Well dont feed your f**kin kids McDonalds so often!!

"The middle east has too many bombs". You dont have to be the best at everything....Think about it, you spend billions of dollars on your military but people died of dehydration and hunger in new orleans flood??!!?? Think about it.

Geez you make me get all political! haha

[Dogil]

Sadly the litigious nature of the average citizen (American AND Australian) leads us down pathways of this nature. We tend to mimic our brothers and sisters from the land of the brave, and sue every second person that ticks us off!! It all comes down to who is getting the big bucks for what, and can they make more!? Pratt and Visyboard this week proved that - we have a monopoly market, let's go for it!! A $36 million dollar fine hopefully will sort that out. Anyway, back to the thread - as damian noted, we have been jotting down stuff for ourselves and others since time began - I believe they found some chords for Peggy Sue amongst the heiroglyphics in the pyramids at Cheops, and the Stairway to Heaven intro was in the carvings at Machu Pichu!!

At the end of the day - TAB ON!!!!!

(And don't feed your f**in kids McDonalds so often as well!)