ultimate-guitar.com — The time has come for Ultimate-Guitar.Com to get an MPA letter. Surely, that was not something good, but the request to remove all tabs in 10 days. What does it mean? Nothing. We are legal. We are not going to shut down the website.
Aug 18, 2006 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountAug 19, 2006
They've already started doing that.
broly1718Aug 19, 2006
I think the mpa's big deal is that they are supposedly losing sales for sheet music. Which is bulls**t, because most of the stuff on these tab sites arent available to buy. Which is why there are tab sites.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2006
Close to 6 years, I think. I remember helping app (site admin/founder) design an email newsletter back in 2001. Good times! Love that place. Except the kids on the forums.
twoeyesAug 23, 2006
God, they must be making a s**t load of money considering all their competition just got wasted by the RIAA tommy guns (aka lawyers)Spray n pray RIAA, spray n pray
chmodAug 24, 2006
"You aren't downloading sheet music, you are downloading artist interpretations of songs."True. Is it illegal for me to listen to a song, figure out how to play it, and write that down?No, No, and Nope.Is it illegal for me to give away how I believe the song should be played? Sadly enough, yes it is. It is not a plagiarism issue here, it is a result of our antiquated copyright system. Copyrights (the way they were written) cover just about any form of the music (including live performances, transcriptions, etc.) because they were penned before the advent of the computer let alone the Internet. The issue is not listening to, or figuring out the music (or even writing it down). The issue at hand comes with the distribution of the transcription.This was not an issue for them before the Internet because you can't (and wouldn't want to) go after every guitarist or teacher that did this in their spare time for friends or students. The Internet allows it to be transmitted over the web and duplicated at blazing speeds and rates. I am not defending their actions, but am saying that (from what I understand about copyright laws) legally they can--which is why so many sites located in notRussia are either closing their doors permanently, or putting themselves on hold until this s**tstorm blows over."I don't know... it just doesn't sit well with me that tabs sites are getting desist orders and legal threats now."I could not agree with you more. This is s**t. Just because they can doesn't mean they should, especially since some of these sites would gladly pay a fee to do their job rather than get shut down. This is based on greed of the worst sort. If you really look at the issue these "non-profit" organizations are looking to line their pockets, not the artists or even the copyright holders, and certainly not the rights of all the musicians out there.
chmodAug 24, 2006
@nsmike and all of the trigger happy mods:The poster you were replying to was adding to the discussion in a thoughtful way by describing exactly what is going on and the reasoning behind it. I doubt that person agrees with it any more than you or I do, so why on earth would you attack them over it?
clckwrkorang777Aug 30, 2006
Good on them. UGA is one of my go-to sites when I want to learn a new tune.
racapaOct 18, 2006
I'm not going to purchase a book to learn to play one song that I want. I know I can go to a library and either take notes or photocopy a page and not be a criminal so long as it's for my own personal use and not for monetary gain.