OLGA Tabs cannot legally be taken down
Tablature or the transcription of a piece of music from ear to pen is a protected act of free speech and is not forbidden by any form of licensing, contract, copyright, or trademark.
The reprinting of such a completely free endeavor is also completely protected as free speech.
How then did DMCA bound lawyers shutdown OLGA the largest database of user contributed guitar tablature?
Under what law and by what means do they have the right to deny anyone (however talented or not) to write down what their ear hears and provide it to others.
The individual effort to transcribe a work of art whether it be a painting or a piece of music has no connection to the original work as long as it is not claimed to be the original. A transcription can clearly not claim to be an original. Its implicit in the definition of the word transcription.
Even the paid musical performance and recording of a transcription cannot be forbidden. Not a single "cover" band in the world scratching a living in bars all over the world pays or is required to pay royalties of any kind to the originators of the works they perform.
The transcription of the work was done by the cover band and has no direct connection to the original with the exception that they listened to it and by their own skills produced a performable replica which is judged on its merits and is well known to the consuming audience not to be an original work of art. In no way does that diminish its value or potential enjoyment by the consumer. Nor should it need to be (or has it ever been) licensed or sanctioned by the government.
Perhaps the DMCA should have been named the DMPA (Digital Millenium PATENT Act) because the DMCA view of copyright is coming eerily close to the interpretation of patents and trademarks wherein any and all use or reproduction is prohibited apparently especially when in combination with a computer network.
To continue along these lines, every printed copy of song and verse of the US National Anthem has a copyright notice at the bottom of the printed page. However, if I as an experienced musician merely write it down by ear, I am now a criminal?
How many of the hundreds of transcribers of the original anthem licensed the song from anyone all the way back to Francis Scott Key?
The DMCA is not copyright law at all. It is patent law that says any creatively produced work of a person is assumed to be an invention which cannot by any non-sanctioned means be replicated (even by non-technical human means ear and pen) and transmitted to another.
If my local elementary school endeavors to do a play called Pirates of the Caribbean and post it on youtube.com they will be in big trouble.
When will this insanity stop?
The reprinting of such a completely free endeavor is also completely protected as free speech.
How then did DMCA bound lawyers shutdown OLGA the largest database of user contributed guitar tablature?
Under what law and by what means do they have the right to deny anyone (however talented or not) to write down what their ear hears and provide it to others.
The individual effort to transcribe a work of art whether it be a painting or a piece of music has no connection to the original work as long as it is not claimed to be the original. A transcription can clearly not claim to be an original. Its implicit in the definition of the word transcription.
Even the paid musical performance and recording of a transcription cannot be forbidden. Not a single "cover" band in the world scratching a living in bars all over the world pays or is required to pay royalties of any kind to the originators of the works they perform.
The transcription of the work was done by the cover band and has no direct connection to the original with the exception that they listened to it and by their own skills produced a performable replica which is judged on its merits and is well known to the consuming audience not to be an original work of art. In no way does that diminish its value or potential enjoyment by the consumer. Nor should it need to be (or has it ever been) licensed or sanctioned by the government.
Perhaps the DMCA should have been named the DMPA (Digital Millenium PATENT Act) because the DMCA view of copyright is coming eerily close to the interpretation of patents and trademarks wherein any and all use or reproduction is prohibited apparently especially when in combination with a computer network.
To continue along these lines, every printed copy of song and verse of the US National Anthem has a copyright notice at the bottom of the printed page. However, if I as an experienced musician merely write it down by ear, I am now a criminal?
How many of the hundreds of transcribers of the original anthem licensed the song from anyone all the way back to Francis Scott Key?
The DMCA is not copyright law at all. It is patent law that says any creatively produced work of a person is assumed to be an invention which cannot by any non-sanctioned means be replicated (even by non-technical human means ear and pen) and transmitted to another.
If my local elementary school endeavors to do a play called Pirates of the Caribbean and post it on youtube.com they will be in big trouble.
When will this insanity stop?
posted by tal at 4:02 AM
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