Am I a copyright criminal?

[Freuds_cat]

I teach many students who regularly ask me to show them how to play their favourite songs.
I remember all those years ago that one of the things that made me mad keen to learn bass was being able to play songs by my favourite bands.
I also remember that some songs were beyond my abilites to work out at the time and I asked my teachers to show me how to play them. Some of these teachers wrote the lines out in music, some in tab.
I was never going to buy the sheet music because I (at that time) couldn't read and even if I could I already understood that most sheet music was written for the left hand of a keyboard and was not a true replication of the original bass line.

My question is this:

Under the current legal situation regarding Tablature copyright am I breaking any laws by
A. Teaching my students songs by other artists in a verbal and visual manner.
B. Writting out Tab or music based upon my own interperatation of the songs and giving this to my students to learn from.

and
C. If so how do the powers that be intend to police this.

[Vandelay]

By that logic, I'd be in violation if I write down the chord progression of a song and give it to my bandmates.

From what I understand, it's really just about the money. The music publishing industry only cares about the big tablature websites who make money by selling advertisements on their site. In the industry's view, they essentially are making money off of someone else's copyrighted work. If you're not making money by selling tabs, you have nothing to worry about.

[steveb98]

I used to work in a music school. Back then it was okay to copy lead sheet and etc as teaching materials. Now does that extend to teacher I don't know.

I would imagine they aren't worried about music teachers. It's like MP3s and people posting on the internet for the whole world to download. When people were just casually sharing with friends they didn't care, but when people started putting stuff on the internet the companies started to get upset.

[The Penguin]

Originally Posted by Vandelay

By that logic, I'd be in violation if I write down the chord progression of a song and give it to my bandmates.

That's why the Real Book is illegal to sell. Giving it away is more a grey area.

Technically transcribing and selling the work would be criminal. But then so is the students downloading the song to learn it

C is the relevant question and generally no action will be taken unless a lawyer thinks you have money to take.

[Chase_The_Bass]

even if it is illegal you would never go to court. There is no way someone could prosecute u without then having to prosecute the thousands and thousands of music teachers. I myself teach and most of my students want to learn funk. I use a method I found on a bass video a while ago to start them out (cant remember what it was, i'll dig it up 2nite). But I cant be sued, and neither can u.

[Freuds_cat]

Originally Posted by Vandelay

By that logic, I'd be in violation if I write down the chord progression of a song and give it to my bandmates.

From what I understand, it's really just about the money. The music publishing industry only cares about the big tablature websites who make money by selling advertisements on their site. In the industry's view, they essentially are making money off of someone else's copyrighted work. If you're not making money by selling tabs, you have nothing to worry about.

Well I guess I am making money out of it essentially. I mean I'm paid by my students to teach them and this is part of that process.

[WillPlay4Food]

Usually copyright laws make exceptions for educational purposes. This is why you can photocopy chapters from books and articles from periodicals.

Also, since it's your translation of a song and not a copy of copyrighted sheet music you probably have even less to worry about.

[Pacman]

Originally Posted by The Penguin

That's why the Real Book is illegal to sell. Giving it away is more a grey area.

The Real Book is illegal because it also contains the melodies. You can't copyright a chord progression.

Technically transcribing and selling the work would be criminal. But then so is the students downloading the song to learn it

Wrong. Transcribing (for your own purposes, or that of educating a student) are both legal. It's considered fair use.

C is the relevant question and generally no action will be taken unless a lawyer thinks you have money to take.

Again, not true. Copyright law doesn't consider monies made at all. It does consider number of copies made (to determine fair use versus violation).

[Dan1099]

Small numbers of copies for educational purposes are covered under fair use clauses.

[jadesmar]

I was told (by my singer) that my bass lines under other people's chords and lyrics did not fall under copyright.

Hence, I pretty much consider all bass-lines to be fair game.

[Marc Piane]

ditto dan1099

[Clay_Bass]

Originally Posted by The Penguin

That's why the Real Book is illegal to sell. Giving it away is more a grey area.

Ummm no its not. Ive bought both my real books at borders packaged and manufactured by Hal Leonard. There are also many others available from for instance Warner Bros.
What is illegal is the underground fakebooks. Someone went and drew out all the songs and sold it under the table before we had realbooks. I think youre confusing your words

[TL5]

Originally Posted by Vandelay

..it's really just about the money.. If you're not making money by selling tabs, you have nothing to worry about.

That's not necessarily true either. Whether "you" make money is not the issue. It's whether the owner of the copyright is being cheated out of money that's at issue.

Here's the basic four fold test of Fair Use:

1. What is the character of the use?
2. What is the nature of the work to be used?
3. How much of the work will you use?
4. What effect would this use have on the market for the
original or for permissions if the use were widespread?

Point four is where the money comes in. It asks the question, "If the use were widespread, would the copyright owner be losing money?"

This is exactly why ripping a CD and posting the files on a P2P site, even for free, is illegal.

[TL5]

I really don't know where TABS fall in the eyes of copyright law. However, I would tend to think it would be somewhere close to the rules established for notation/sheet music.

Here are the rules for Fair Use of sheetmusic in an educational institution From the Stanford University page on Copyright Fair Use :

Rules for Reproducing Music

A music instructor can make copies of excerpts of sheet music or other printed works, provided that the excerpts do not constitute a "performable unit" such as a whole song, section, movement or aria. In no case can more than 10% of the whole work be copied and the number of copies may not exceed one copy per pupil. Printed copies that have been purchased may be edited or simplified provided that the fundamental character of the work is not distorted or the lyrics altered (or added).

A single recording of a performance of copyrighted music may be made by a student for evaluation or rehearsal purposes, and the educational institution or individual teacher may keep a copy. In addition, a single copy of a sound recording owned by an educational institution or an individual teacher (such as a tape, disc or cassette) of copyrighted music may be made for the purpose of constructing aural exercises or examinations, and the educational institution or individual teacher can keep a copy.

Instructors may not:

* copy sheet music or recorded music for the purpose of creating anthologies or compilations used in class
* copy from works intended to be "consumable" in the course of study or teaching such as workbooks, exercises, standardized tests and answer sheets and like material
* copy sheet music or recorded music for the purpose of performance, except for emergency copying to replace purchased copies which are not available for an imminent performance (provided purchased replacement copies are substituted in due course); or
* copy any materials without including the copyright notice which appears on the printed copy.

If copyrighted sheet music is out of print (not available for sale), an educator can request permission to reproduce it from the music publisher. Information about contacting music publishers is provided in Chapter 5. A library that wants to reproduce out-of-print sheet music can use a system established by the Music Publishers' Association (www.mpa.org/copyright/searchenter.html ). Download the "Library Requisition for Out-of-Print Copyrighted Music."

[KeithBMI]

Watch out 4 teh coppz0rz! They r busting dwn on tis stuffz! Oh noes!

But serisouly, I wouldn't worry about it.

[morf]

Yes and you should go to jail without going past the starting blocks and getting the 20000 from the bank

[mcdeath]

Hmmm.

1. You're not selling the tabs by themselves, they're a part of your instruction. What you are being paid for is the instruction time you sell to your students.

So you're good here.

2. Your tabs are your interpretation of the songs. They may or may not be accurate depending on many factors. So you're not buying a tab book and then reprinting it.

So you're good here too.

Personally I think you're on solid ground here as long as you're the one creating the tabs from your skills at interpreting music and you're not selling the tabs but instead are including them as student materials.

[The Penguin]

Originally Posted by Pacman

The Real Book is illegal because it also contains the melodies. You can't copyright a chord progression.

I didn't know that

Wrong. Transcribing (for your own purposes, or that of educating a student) are both legal. It's considered fair use.

Selling to students isn't.

Again, not true. Copyright law doesn't consider monies made at all. It does consider number of copies made (to determine fair use versus violation).

This missed my point by a mile. I was pointing out lawyers won't take a case that's not profitable

[The Penguin]

Originally Posted by Clay_Bass

Ummm no its not. Ive bought both my real books at borders packaged and manufactured by Hal Leonard. There are also many others available from for instance Warner Bros.
What is illegal is the underground fakebooks. Someone went and drew out all the songs and sold it under the table before we had realbooks. I think youre confusing your words

Maybe but the Realbook I remember from the '80's was underground.

The Real Book can refer to any of a number of popular jazz fake books, but is generally used to refer to one of two books: volume 1 of an illegal, semi-underground series transcribed and collated by students at Berklee College of Music during the 1970s, or a fully legal book published by Hal Leonard Corporation in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Book

[steveb98]

Originally Posted by Clay_Bass

Ummm no its not. Ive bought both my real books at borders packaged and manufactured by Hal Leonard. There are also many others available from for instance Warner Bros.
What is illegal is the underground fakebooks. Someone went and drew out all the songs and sold it under the table before we had realbooks. I think youre confusing your words

Well like everything else its a matter of paying royalities. The Warner Bros and Hal Leonard are huge publishers who own many of the songs and is cheap for them to do Legal Fake Books. But if you look at their books they don't have all the the songs the orignal Real Book had, they have supplemented with a lot of Standards they have the rights to.

I remember getting my first copy of the Real Book back about 1978 it was a real bad zerox copy. The story back then was the Real Book was created by students and instructors at Berklee and the reason so many Berklee students and instructors tunes are in it. Since then it have been cleaned up and nicely printed. But fake books are nothing new. A friends dad played accordian in the 40's and he would show us the fake book he had from back then.