I just can’t believe how greedy some people can be.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4508158.stm
Here’s a quote from the article.
[quote]“Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing,” he said.
[/quote]
I believe that these sites drive more record sales. People will try to learn songs off tab sites, then they will want to get the music so they can play along with it.
“Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing,”
lol.
How stupid is that please? Of course its their right to do that, but I fail to see any benefit in doing so.
I started to write some things and deleted everything afterwards several times. Its so in-your-face obviously stupid… ah well… its not like I need to convince anyone here.
You’re probably right, it would drive they’re sales up not down. Even so, its still their right as owners of the material to decide where and when its used. In the truest sense it is stealing, its just that the stealing in this case would be a good thing 
Kev
You can’t call it stealing either. Stealing generally implies that one part loses something which was rightfully theirs. Software doesn’t share the property of, for example, wallets, which tend to disappear from the owner when taken. I’m not stating that it is okay to copy all software, but under no circumstances should it qualify as stealing.
Its totally different with software. If you copy some program, you have the real thing. The one you would have paid for.
But lyrics or tabs? You cant buy em. Its more like a script of a movie… stuff which is interesting if you didnt understood what was said… which implies that you already watched it (or listened to it if you apply that to music).
Stuff like that is useless without the real thing.
The value of a CD is higher with this stuff around.
moreover, a lot of these tabs are work of a third person, that has transcripted the song only hearing it.
It’s like i could get sued for, in example, doing a handdraw of the mona lisa and uploading it to my web.
the discography industry is making desperate movings trying to survive, but it’s destinated to disapear since the market has reduced from
authors -> managers -> discographics -> distributos -> shops -> general public
to
authors -> (optional) managers -> web portal -> general public
Ima bit confused by the terminology here. when you say “tabs” what do you mean, chord progressions?
If so then, at least in the US, there are print publshers who publish such things and the song writers get a royalty for each one sold.
Reproducing text or music that someone else has created without ther permission is copyright vioaltion and is stealing.
The idea that there si no harm because a new copy is created is absolutely bogus. You all write software, if someone took one of Cas’s games and made it usable without payign him, sin’t that stealing? Same rules/theory applies.
When you say making a copy of intelelctual property is not stealing , what you are saying is that the act of acquiring a copy has no value. And if it has no value, there is no viable way for an artist to make a living through the production of the original.
Copyright law isn’t just an arbitrary act of greed, it was created to make the creation of intellectual mproeprty possible within a capitalist society.
Thats the reality.
Its about tabs and lyrics. If you can actually buy those tabs… alright. But lyrics? (Once upon a time you got those together with the data carrier.)
Say I make some adventure game… and someone puts some walkthrough online with dialog-trees. Those lines of text are all mine and I could sue em, but what would I gain from doing so? There is a really big difference between that and distributing the full game.
What Jeff said, however in Denmark there IS a difference between stealing (ie. removing something, so that owner does not have it any more) and the act of copying. Different laws and punishements are applied.
[quote]Ima bit confused by the terminology here. when you say “tabs” what do you mean, chord progressions?
[/quote]
Yes, tablatures are a way of writing chords, and more specifically, graphical symbols showing how to play these chords on (usually) a guitar: where to put your index finger, your middle finger, which strings play, which to mute etc.
The music market is difficult enough as it is, which is very easy to forget if you only watch MTV, and I feel it’s a good thing to try to protect copyright law here. Spreading unauthorized tablatures is generally the same thing as ‘warez’. As for stopping these sites being smart or stupid is a matter of debate.
Maybe Robbie Williams or Madonna might not give a damn, but maybe others do. Maybe they’re trying to get something together to serve legal, payed for tablatures downloads, like the legal mp3 sites that pop up here and there. Those illegal sites stole that opportunity away.
Whether you sue 'em or not is up to you. That’s the beauty of it
I don’t think ‘stealing’ is used as a legal term here, but more as just a means to make a point.
its called poetry my man and is as valid and original an artistic expression as anything else.
Yes you could. And if you felt it was injuring your economic position vis a vis the game then you probably should.
OTOH if you felt it was helping your sales then you might want to either ignore it OR contact them and offer them the proper rights to do what they are doing.
As Erik says, the key is it is the creator’s call, not yours as the copier. And that is how it should be.
Now to take it a step further… do I have the right to write down what I hear? As a means of recording or assisting my personal memory? If the answer is yes, then I imagine it is only okay so long as I don’t sell copies of that “recording” or even make it available for free, since that might cut in on someone else’s profits (who does have a right to sell it). I suppose in the case of keeping a personal record of the lyrics I hear that would constitute “fair use” under copyright law - but IANAL.
Now let’s say someone asks me what I heard. Can I tell them? Can I write them a note to give them my answer? Can I just post the answer on a web page so if they ask the question they will find my answer?
I know. Copyright laws are good stuff. We all know that. :
Show me where you can buy[1] all kinds of lyrics[2] and then I can understand why there is a reason to do something against lyric-pages. My posts are about reasons to do so, because I cant even think of one.
[1 Some ad-powered page from the label would count, too.]
[2 As I said the times where you could find lyrics in the booklet are over… they rather save a few cents there, which is somewhat funny considering that the MI said at the beginning of the CD-ara that CDs are only that expensive, because its oh-so-cutting-the-edge technology… years passed and producing CDs is really cheap now and yet there wasnt a price drop.]
IMO they are just shooting themselfes in the foot (again). (Well, doesnt seem to matter anyways… the MI is making more money each year regadless how much they cry about theoretical-worst-case-scenario losses.)
And back to that game example. A walkthrough (or better thousands of em) would help my game a lot, because it a) makes it accessible for a very broad range of people, b) it would push my page rank, c) it would push the value of the name (because its on more sites), d) it would slightly increased visibility. Thats all very neat stuff… for free
And as I said the value of a CD is higher if there are lyrics available. If your first language is english and you’re only listening to english music, you’ll have some blind spot there. Just think about it… if you can get ahold of some lyrics (eventually with translation) the CD magically becomes way more valuable, because it helps you to understand it better and/or helps you learning complete sentences (which is very effective for learning a new language, because your brain gets more associations to work with - needless to say that some melody is another association, which helps you remembering it).
Its added value and its just plain stupid to take that away.
Sure they should benefit from that, but they were years too late. Therefore they should try some smooth transition (by building the resource in the net and by only suing people who publish new lyrics). Nuking everything and replacing it with last year’s chart “lyrics” wont cut the cheese.
Won’t somebody think of the customers? :-\
Just ignore the MI whining in protest. It’s not like they are going to sue YOU
Or if you are really mad… seed a few torrents full of lyrics
The worst part is how little of the money actually gets to the artist in the first place. The internet should have changed that… but unfortunately the big labels won’t let online distributors have their songs unless they shut out the little guys. I.e. with iTunes Music store, the bands shouldn’t need record labels at all anymore… make the MP3s and upload them to Apple… let Steve jobs take a couple pennies of that $0.99 and have the rest go straight to the artist. If done right ANYONE should be able to get a song on the iTunes music store and have the downloads credited to their PayPal account or similar. But the iTunes Music Store (and others) can’t do that … if they did… the labels wouldn’t let them have anything.
I think it’s fair enough to expect to get paid for sheet music. I have bought arrangements for the piano. No complaints there. However I would like a copy of the lyrics when I buy the CD and feel it’s a bit mean when there’s no booklet with them provided.
This clampdown seems a touch counterproductive as I usually search for lyrics when:
The music industry has got into the habit of criminalising its customers, while at the same time attempting to install legally dubious copyright protection software on users PCs, sometimes without permission. This latter practice is actually making me hestitate before buying CDs these days, as I often play them in my PC CD player (with headphones), but don’t want my PC borked. I understand the internet facilitates widespread copyright theft, but question their business model.
Alan
Well I’m glad now you do 8)
Well then don’t buy the album if not having the lyrics reduces its value to you below the asking price.
Thats how pricing works. if you are still buying the album then you are telling them that in fact they are correct in seperating them as they have indvidual value.
I prefer albums with lyrics sheets myself. But if I want them and they arent included, I sit down with mycd play anda finger on the pause key and transcribe them myself.
You have them, just not in the form most convenient to you.
Generally searching on the words in teh chorus will lead you to most songs.
While at the same time the custoerms are gettign more and mreo into the habit of beign criminals, as all this rationalization just goes to show.
I agree that an industry that fights with its own customers can’t survive in the long run and in that regard I think the music industry has to either find new workable models or die. But I also think there is a big difference between customers who are doing things the industry dislikes and people who are outright abusing and cheating the content providers. I consider TSR suing their customers over posting their own modules on the web the former, I consider college students making one CD available to hundreds of listeners the latter.
And the fact of the matter is that the latter are still a very vocal minority of the customer base. ENough to concern the industry, but still a minority.
In general, Copyright exists to make industries based around IP possible. If it fails, so do all those industries.
[quote] This latter practice is actually making me hestitate before buying CDs these days, as I often play them in my PC CD player (with headphones), but don’t want my PC borked. I understand the internet facilitates widespread copyright theft, but question their business model.
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Irellevent to our disucssion really EXCEPT that you yourself have just illustrated my first point-- when the provider drops the value to the consumer below the asked for price, the market generally corrects itself.
Thats sort of the point of a free market economy.
I think there is more to it then that, personally.
Look at our own examples of independant net based distribution. Puppy Games and Oddlabs. Both rpoduce superb, award winning product. Both I assume are still struggling and making nowhere near the (gross) money even a mediocre game from EA pulls in.
Distribution still has value. It gets the product in front of the customer. It creates advertising around the product to help differentiate it from the scores of other products all fighting for attention from that same consumer.
Anyway thats MHO.