It might be worth considering other costs/benefits...like the fact that amateur, crappy musicians looking up that free tab (say hey, Rachel of 2002) might then get more into that musician whose stuff they learn, and spread the good news to their friends, who are more inclined to hit up X Musician's next show. Or the fact that Amateur Crap Minstrel isn't going to buy that tab if it's not available for free, and the websites are unlikely to continue if they have to pay one, so that's a zero sum game if they do enforce it.
I don't know....I kind of side with the MPA on this one. Maybe it's because the summer at the corporate law firm is slowly tansforming my views from good to those more aligned with the forces of evil...
Whatever the case may be, I think the MPA makes a compelling arguement that it should be up the creator of the music if he/she would like to authorize free guitar tabs. If you are the benevolent famous musician and you want to authorize a website to put your tabs up there, then great. But, if not, why shouldn't you be able to make a few coins from your hard work creating a song by selling the sheet music?
However, I don't know if the MPA has a slam dunk case here -- there is no legal precedent regarding guitar tabs, and these websites maintain that their tabs are a teaching tool for amateur guitarists. Tabs definitly fall under the The Copyright Act of 1976 which provides that owners of copyrights in sound recordings have the exclusive rights of reproduction, preparation of derivative works, and distribution of copies. This big issue is whether these tab websites fall under the 'fair use' exception. According to Copyright law (17 USC 107), if these sites are really for teaching purposes then they may come under the "fair use" provision of the law. Fair use is determined by: "1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2) the nature of the copyrighted work; 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." This is ultimately a question for a court to determine, if there is a tab site out there willing to keep their stuff out there for purposes of taking this to court.
Whichever way this comes out, it speaks to the real problem here: market failure. The MPA does not adequately address the concerns of musicians who cannot find printed tabs to buy of their favortie songs. The MPA says "It is very difficult for a music publisher to make the investment needed to produce and sell an accurate, high-quality tablature version of a song when an unauthorized competing tablature version can be downloaded for free on numerous illegal web sites, even if the illegal tablature often is not accurate." I find this a little hard to believe. What the MPA and artists need to do is make their tabs available and accessible online for a relaitvely low price. Sort of like how itunes was the market reponse to Napster and its progeny.
Clearly we have another instance of regular internet users adapting technology to fit their needs faster than an industry full of old stuffy men in suits. While a lawsuit is a good first step to determine whether guitar tabs are protected by copyrights or not, the next step is to come up with a working market to ensure that musicians can get paid for their works, and th
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