Guitar Tab Archive Shut Down Due to Copyright Issues
Aug 17th, 2006 | By Joe Taylor Jr. | Category: Songwriting|
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OLGA, a venerable and very popular guitar tablature archive, received “take down” notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Guitar tab archives are such a gray area for working musicians. For up-and-comers on a budget, guitar tabs are a simple, free way to learn songs. However, sheet music is a traditional way that songwriters have earned money — even at a few cents per copy.
While OLGA was essentially a non-commercial effort, I imagine that the message is loud and clear for the hordes of commercial sites offering guitar tabs — pay a royalty or get sued.
Like song lyrics on the web, this is a very sticky situation that only artists can solve. I don’t ever think that there will be a blanket agreement over what you can and cannot legally do with guitar tabs and song lyrics online — the community is too divided.
What do you think should happen, and what are you, as an artist, ready to do about it?
Technorati Tags: music+business, OLGA, guitar+tabs
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August 28th, 2006 at 2:54 am
This is really short-sighted by the copyright holders. What better exposure for your recorded music than somebody playing it live?
Finally got around to posting some comments on my blog…
http://www.indiemusician.com/music_business/2006/08/guitar_tab_site.html
OLGA has has problems since the beginning. Thought that the industry was finally going to accept them, but I guess not.