Music Fans Beware
After years of heated debate over illegal music downloads, the music industry is still waging war to “protect their artists”. Now they are even targeting the fans who play their artist’s songs on guitar.
Long before mp3s were being distributed by music fans all over the world, guitar enthusiasts have been interpreting songs digitally into ‘guitar tabs’. These interpretations are a way for guitarists to learn how to play nearly any popular song they want. Many cover bands or other musicians will use these to learn the method behind the madness they are hearing on the stage. This way they can create a similar sound and exercise their freedom of speech so they and their friends can sing along to their favorite songs.
So what’s wrong with this? Well, the music industry is claiming that these guitar tabs are illegal adaptations of the songs. The National Music Publisher’s Association believes that by publishing guitar tabs and lyrics of songs that the musicians are being deprived of their ability to make a living.
What most music fans are probably wondering now is what’s next? Well don’t be suprised if you start seeing lyric websites being pulled down due to illegal interpretations of songs. Next time you are playing a song for your friends on the guitar, be careful… you may wind up in court.
September 3rd, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Why say that the music industry is trying to protect the artists? The music industry is trying to protect the industry and their dollars, that the artists get a small cut of. Let’s be real here, the artists make the real money off of the tours…….
September 10th, 2006 at 3:13 am
Guitar tabs and lyrics only make fans even more dedicated to a specific band. The only bands that tabs may hurt are ones with porely thought out guitar riffs because people realize how boring they are. If learning a guitar tab is pirating music, then taking a photograph of a person that has been in a photo by someone else is plagiarism.