tabs being banned

senordingdong

Doctor J wrote:

It's about more than tabs. It's about more than metal bands. If you deem a Cynic song worth learning but can't figure it out by ear then yes I think the guys from Cynic have every right to expect some money for providing me with a written version of the song, to go with your audio version of the song.

I think that's a big grey area there.
Ok, you'd gladly retribute them for providing a written version of their song, but would you happy to pay even if you had learned the song by ear?
Keeping the theft of intellectual property in mind.

Yeah, I get what you're saying about the Jamie Oliver incident...but I'd sooner compare that to the theft of actual songs via the internet, instead of tablature.

Doctor J wrote:

Apologies if I seemed a little forceful with my points, but I've presented links and information to you which you've either not bothered to read or chosen to disregard, which is quite frustrating. You continually reply with spiels about record companies which, while certainly a large part of the music industry, are nothing to do with music publishing and you've yet to back up any of these claims. A songwriter may have a publishing contract without having a recording contract. They are mutually exclusive entities. Publishing is a very viable form of income for artists, as I've already stated and, as is rare in the music industry, the artist gets treated appropriately by the publishers and has nothing to do with record companies who we all can agree are scum.

Well apologies if it seemed I was straying your arguement, I merely brought up the big bad record companies in relation to the Steve Albini essay...trying to point out that bands poor income was due to thieving record companies, not fans.

John

senordingdong wrote:

I think that's a big grey area there.
Ok, you'd gladly retribute them for providing a written version of their song, but would you happy to pay even if you had learned the song by ear?
Keeping the theft of intellectual property in mind.

But learning a song by ear isn't an infringement of copyright. It's only if you play it in public that you are supposed to pay. Playing in your own house or at a band rehearsal is fine. Getting the sheet music/tabs/lyrics in printed form is an infringement of copyright if you haven't paid for it.

I think a lot of people here are ignorant of what a publishing company actually is. A publishing company is a body that collects money for artists from the reproduction of their work. If a band A covers a song by band B, the publishing company for band B collects money from band A, takes its cut (in most cases nothing as bad as the cut taken by a record company) and gives the remainder to band B. Similarly if you download a tab, sheet music or lyrics you owe money to the band via the publishing company. Before you go into a rant saying why don't bands just get the money directly, it is a full time job tracking down all the uses of a copyrighted work. Although a lot of musicians do set up their own publishing companies to minimise their loss of money.

Just because there is no tab book available doesn't mean you can take it without paying. In fact, I think that having individual files (containing proper music notation, tabs and lyrics) for each song by an artist would be more profitable than a tab book. I wouldn't buy a tab book for one song but I'd pay a couple of euro to have a properly transcribed copy of that song.