Well, the music industry has threatened lawsuits before over very similar "fair use" by consumers. This is a pretty obscure piece of knowledge, but some years ago a web site called Powertab hosted very detailed transcriptions of guitar arrangements for lots of rock/metal/pop bands. The transcription was done by ear and provided very detailed scores for thousands of songs. It was a very good source for learning some more complicated arrangements. However, the Music Publishers' Association threatened to sue over alleged copyright violation and the site's administrators took the site down.
This happened in 2006, and I don't know what has happened since then. My impression was that the move killed off the entire PowerTab transcription community. This case was never tried in court and is very similar to what this story describes. What strikes me is the double standard.
Comments
Well, the music industry has threatened lawsuits before over very similar "fair use" by consumers. This is a pretty obscure piece of knowledge, but some years ago a web site called Powertab hosted very detailed transcriptions of guitar arrangements for lots of rock/metal/pop bands. The transcription was done by ear and provided very detailed scores for thousands of songs. It was a very good source for learning some more complicated arrangements. However, the Music Publishers' Association threatened to sue over alleged copyright violation and the site's administrators took the site down.
This happened in 2006, and I don't know what has happened since then. My impression was that the move killed off the entire PowerTab transcription community. This case was never tried in court and is very similar to what this story describes. What strikes me is the double standard.
http://www.power-tab.net/
You forget OLGA (on-line guitar archive) that faced similar copyright claims in 1996 and again in 1998. History repeats itself.