New School vs. Old School?

[hbarcat]

downloading ilegally is stealing, whether you like it or not. copyrights and intellectual property rights are there to protect your ideas, not actual stuff you can run a way with. legally speaking it's the same, you took something which is not yours to take. end of story.

Theft and copyright infringement are NOT legally the same any more than rape and embezzlement are legally the same. They only share the commonality of being illegal. If you still think they are legally the same, then you can go argue with the U.S. Supreme Court about why you think their decisions are unsound.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/copyrt.htm

 

[jlaws]

If reverse engineering a song is illegal, then is it illegal for me to learn to play a song by listening to it? Furthermore, is it illegal for me to have my bass teacher listen to a song and write down the tab to it for me? These aren't rhetorical questions, I'd really like to know the answer to them. Also, would you consider it stealing (not legally speaking, but in moral terms) to use tabs on the internet?

 

[brianrost]

Brianrost is hilarious.

Really? Wasn't aware I wrote anything funny

 

[brianrost]

I dont think its fair for the music industry to chage such high prices for a cd. If I wanted just my top ten favorite artits cd's thatd be over 200-300 bucks!

 

[brianrost]

So I write a song. I play the song. Someone learns/copies the song. Someone tabs the song. Someone learns the song from the tab.

How am I harmed and to what extent?

It's the old slippery slope argument.

There are legal precedents about losing your property rights if you do not actively enforce them, for example if you know someone is openly squatting on your land and you do not try to evict them over time they can claim ownership of it.

Copyright holders are trying to protect their copyrights, if certain types of infringement are allowed then perhaps other more damaging infringements will be allowed.

Perhaps you don't know that recording artists typically make more money off the rights to the songs they wrote than royalties from the recordings until the recordings sell into the multiple millions. If you were getting royalty checks for songs you wrote you might feel differently about it. As Cristo wrote above the people who are all for the free exchange of everything are the ones who don't lose anything from that theft.

The internet has changed everything because it makes it easy for more people than ever before to access information. When I bought my first Real Book I had to know someone who knew someone who knew a guy who had some...it was like buying drugs. I couldn't just go to realbook.com and download it. In fact I had to pony up $25 for my copy.

 

[brianrost]

If reverse engineering a song is illegal, then is it illegal for me to learn to play a song by listening to it? Furthermore, is it illegal for me to have my bass teacher listen to a song and write down the tab to it for me? These aren't rhetorical questions, I'd really like to know the answer to them.

Making copies for personal or educational use is legal.

"Reverse engineering" a song is not illegal, never has been.

The only illegal thing is distributing the tab or notation itself in print or online without paying a royalty to whomever owns the copyright on the music. It doesn't matter whether you give it away or charge for it.

 

[Gawd]

the problem with books is that it's also just an interpretation by some guy being paid. and I have looked through many books before at shops and found loads of mistakes in the songs. the books aren't always right because they're not actually written by the musicians who wrote the songs.

so why should we pay for someones interpretation of a song? when we can get someone elses free interpretation easier? and actually I find a lot of tabs on the web to be correct. when I was starting out I realized this was true definately for bands like the red hot chili peppers and primus, the net tabs have been more accurate than the published tab books.

thank god we still have ultimate-guitar though, since it's not in the U.S.A it doesn't have to go by the same laws. and their rating system makes it easy to find the good tabs.

even though I don't really use them anymore, it's still good for beginning musicians. that way they can spend their money on strings, instruments, and other accessories instead of half-right books when all they want is to learn one song.

 

[iplaybassguitar]

Legal?

Legal is just what some government says is ok to do.

Government is no different that gangs ( organized crime ).

They both rule through coercion. It's that simple.

It's all the same - one group's desire to control another group.

Why is it "legal" to smoke one plant and not another?

Why is it "legal" to eat one mushroom and not another?

Why is it "legal" for the government to take money (taxes) from you? It's just another name for "protection money". So long as you are taxed, you are a slave- THINK ABOUT IT!

So I write a song. I play the song. Someone learns/copies the song. Someone tabs the song. Someone learns the song from the tab.

How am I harmed and to what extent?

right on bro. +1

 

[iplaybassguitar]

i think he was aiming for the post above yours.