How so when Bach he wrote music for the church his whole life? How about Mozart that money grabbing basterd wrote 100's of pieces to people who would give him money. The fact is that is not possible. These works were grandfathered in per say..i mean if the owners dead and copyright laws didn't exist how in the hell can you give him copyright protection now?





As for this part man thats retarded and you know it. Just because we tab it by ear we are still copying. Yea you can say all you want "Exact same Note", but really take that into context for a momment. We arranged these tabs by band name, cd, song name. Ok those Exact same notes you are talking about are inside the tab. The tab is in the same exact timing as the original song and you have to use the original song to learn how to play it. Therefore its copying because those notes are arranged in the same timing, and order as the original work, and without that original work you would have never known how to do it in the first place.

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Why doesn't the custodian of this website transfer ownership to a bum?

Go up to some dude and say, I'll give you $20 if we can state that you own this website?

This way, the guy has nothing and can't be sued for anything anyways and we can still post the stuff up there?

Perhaps a crappy suggestion. It's early in the morning, leave me alone...

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hahaha, ouch you tabbed my song out

this is actually a load of bullshit.... BIG bullshit...

just send them a turd in the post or something 'from all at metaltabs.com'

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? Did you read all the posts? ha

The difference between me and others who think about things in an intelligent manner is you have to build up your opposing side in order to find its weaknesses and flaws. If you can't even do that you are dead on arrival before you ever get a word off about anything.
Your opinions seem weak and nobody takes you seriously.

Where were you when i was talking about tabs being an original work of the WRITER and not the artist? Thats how i see it. Which makes the NMPA have absolutely no case.

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No thats is a good arguement. This is not. There is a distinct difference between the 2. Just because something may appear the same doesn't make it so. I should have already shut you up about this topic refering back to your bs warez website.

Regardless just because you slap a name on it it doesn't make it a copy. So if we just leave them nameless or put "this sounds a little like" (insert name of band here) that would completely go around it?

There is a clear difference between production in this case. Its transcribing something that is not "known" and i don't see how the BAND has ownership of that. Thats absolute bullshit if i can't type out a few things, without some fucking random band having ownership over that .txt file I made, not them but me. Thats asinine and i would think it would be hard to find one person that disagrees with me in those rights. Especially in an area as completely grey as the music industry where you could have similar riffs with similar ideas and it still be original.

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God, this fucking sucks! I hope they can find a way to resolve this matter without having to stop tabs on the internet all together. Tabs are essential to an uprising musician. I would bet every famous artist used tabs in their learning days as a resource to learning their favorite bands songs. It's not like anyone is making money off these tabs, they state 'they are for educational purposes.' That's exactly what we want them for. Who the hell would try to 'sell' a tab, that should be the only grounds the NMPA should be concerned with. Not a bunch of kids wanting to get better at their instrument. Fuck the fucking fuckers!!

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Pr0az: First, if somebody could be said to have owned the work at any point, the descendants of said person could have copyrighted it when the possibility came up. Quite aside from that, the possibility first came up in the early 18th century. You need to stop this silly tangential argument.

Second, are you aware of the distinction between publishing and recording rights? Aside from that, thought you repeated the phrase 'exact same notes' a bunch of times, you didn't address the point I used the phrase in. You don't have to copy any existing, copyrighted material in order to be able to play the song. They are claiming that you do. Look at the decisions in existing copyright infringement cases; they have nothing to do with either what you're claiming or what these kinds of lawsuits claim. Why do you think that is? It's because a copyright doesn't work how you think it does, which is probably a good thing. Anyhow, it doesn't work that way yet. It might when this is all over.

Fuck dude you can't explain shit to you guys. You want to make the law fit your own agenda. End of fucking story im done in this thread....

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Don't you think anybody in their right mind could say the very same back to you, completely negating any reason for you to even say this?

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Well since your all talking about beethoven, I found this tab site that has like fucking ALL classical, baroque, tabs; and they just started up a forum. So if any of you are up to learning a bunch of new classical tabs check it out: www.classtab.org its actually really good!

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Music is the voice of "God" and any attempt by these money-men to profit needlessly from this is hideously evil. Any other discussion is simply a trip into Choronzon's pit of reason.

ARGH! I thought this site was safe... it's not like the NMPA or whatever get any money from these bands anyways. I'm going to call them later today and complain.

If UG is resisting, metaltabs should too.

I'll be back to rant some more later, I gotta eat for now.

$$$$lica

fret play for like 5-6 months of shit

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i am pist so i sent them an email;
what is your problem all we want to do on tab sites is learn how to play a song we are making no money off of it but because i learn a deicide song i owe them money that is crap get your act together and how much money could one person possibly have music is more important than money get is strait

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im sure theyll be impressed with teh 7331z93^K
lawlz

Wow. Just... wow.

thats the exact kind of immature dumb shit id expect from someone your age yeah jeeze

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Well I read the 10 Myths about Copyrights, and from what I get from it the bands seem to have absolute control over their songs, be it the actual mixed recording with all guitars, bass, drums & vocals, or simply the arrangement of notes from just the guitar parts shoddily transcribed with heavy rhythm mistakes (...) – therefore we are indeed breaking copyright laws. BUT, one very interesting point in the article mentions that a lot of artist DON’T CARE to enforce those and won’t take actions because like it’s already been said, tabs are a form of promotion, it’s flattering, etc. And since there are no Me…Met……..(can’t say it) on this site, then we’re perfectly fine, because I suspect that 100% of the bands listed here would be with us.

Why not (until the whole thing is resolved or close or whatever) you post the tabs of people's bands from this board? And send messages to smaller bands who are more likely to actually respond, and build up a database of tabs of these smaller bands, so at least there'll be something?

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I think you would be pleasantly surprised at the number and size of popularity of bands that WOULD respond and respond saying we could use their tabs.

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The thing is I'm sure a lot of the "bigger" bands probably get a lot of mail as it is, but then again I've never tried, so maybe you're right.

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This is fucking terrible.

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I tried sending an email but their contact form is screwed up:

You recently sent a cease and desist order to metaltabs.com, a site dedicated to hosting and promoting the writing of underground metal tablature. Although I can understand you wanting to restrict the spread of tabs of mainstream bands, because this results in you losing profits from tab books, I fail to see what forcing metaltabs.com to close will do. 99% of the bands on that site do not have tab books at all, and are as far I can tell, not represented by you anyways. A fair number of the tabs on that site were actually submitted by band members themselves! Most of these bands are underground and sell less than 25,000 copies per full length release and they certainly do NOT have tab books on the market.

I strongly encourage you to direct your efforts towards sites that are actually infriging on someone's profits, rather than attacking sites that have nothing to do with this and subsequently alienating and angering thousands of guitarists worldwide who enjoy sharing their work and interpretations with each other.

There we go... Thats a perfectly respectable email.

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Look at this... quoted from the NMPA site:

"Seeking permission to use music is not difficult, burdensome or costly. NMPA will be pleased to help internet music users to contact the copyright owners in order to establish a dialog that may lead to licensed uses. The currently infringing sites can eventually develop into sites which serve the interests of all Americans --including those who need to earn a living from their creative works now and those who hope to do so in the future-- but only with the cooperation of those sites' users."

Whoever is the admin/webmaster of metaltabs.com needs to get on the ball and ask them to set up a "dialogue" with Burzum, Nokturnal Mortum, heck, maybe even Blut Aus Nord

Hey guys, If you like classical guitar, and classical music, or baroque, you should check this site out: the forum URL is: http://www.classicalguitartabs.org/forum And the tab site: www.classtab.org (it has like EVERY fucking classical tab)

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hahaha... that's awesome

I basically just told them to "go fuck themselves" and that it's a fucking learning tool for musicians. I didn't talk about MT specifically because I used some harsh words...lol.

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Next thing you know they'll start banning humming "copyrighted material".

damn fascist bastards
i hate when this happends
so no more mysongbook
no more metal tabs
even no more mxtabs (the most shitty tabs ever)

let's just make another domain and send all this archive directly to the new domain
already solved

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Complete idiot. If this site goes down, you'll be at least partially to blame.

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You got it backwards. Have fun with it that way. It seems to be the way you want it, and it's much more fun when you can change it to fit your beliefs.

I just read this..it's fucked up!
I'm wondering if they are just enforcing their "rights" just because they can.
Also, where the fuck is their legal basis? Have they actualy gone to court and won from anyone?

They say they represent the rights of the musicians. Complete bollocks if you ask me. All throughout history musicians have learned how to play by learning from the works of the previous generation.
They are making it very difficult for anyone wanting to learn to play guitar to do so. If this keeps up, there hardly be a next generation of musicians to pay them.

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They represent the rights of publishers. Whole different breed.

So these publishers think that by banning every single tab on the internet they'll sell more tab books?

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I sent them an email when I was a bit drunk last night... I believe it went something like this:

From: Metal

Body: You fail.

that is possibly the most counterproductive thing you could've done for this site

lol.

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You know, when talking about copyright infringment,
do tablature publisher hold the exclusive copyright on tablature, or do they just have publishing rights given from the actual copyright owner?

Also, when does derivation become copying?
When I whistle a tune I hear from the radio, is that infringing?
Or when I teach someone else to whistle it?
When I just saw a movie, and someone asks what is about it, and I give them a synopsis, is that copying? Are movie and music review sites the same as warez sites?

Is the NMPA representing certain tablatures from certain bands, or is all tablature infringement?
The main argument is either that they have the copyright on the tablature themselves and therevore it's infringment to publish that particulair tablature, or they don't have to right to publish it and without anyone having the claim from a piece of tablature, it is public domain.

I doubt the NMPA had a strong case in court if they sued random tablature sites and can't summon a list of particulair infringing tablature.

I don't think it was such a bad idea we don't have Meta$$ica tabs here.

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Wow this is really fucking gay! Why are you admins paying heed to this letter anyway? I mean what's the worse they can do? You think they'd really press charges against you? I thought this site was run in Australia or something, aren't you exempt from certain copyright laws?

Maybe if you were to take off all the tabs from major bands on major labels like Metallica, Cradle of Filth, etc. they may back off, but that's a lot of effort and it's still really stupid.

How long until you guys decide to take action against this?

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They got shut down but did they take up the legal battle?

I ask because I think these guys are just assuming every webmaster will bow down to their treaths. I guess there's no webmasters out there that can afford to get into a legal battle with them.

I wonder if this ever went into court, with some previous court results we might be able to find out what the exact charges are and how they worked those out with argumentation. Don't know the English word but in Holland we have a database of cases handled by the legal system, everything out of there counts as 'jurespeditie' which basically gives a 'handle' for similair cases.

Yeah, he's the one that brought metaltabs under their attention.

We should dig a hole in the ground, put him in and throw stones at his head. Way oldskool but still daily fashion in towelhead country.

If you don't stop that I'll permanently ban you. Two the same posts just in this thread. No spamming over metaltabs's dead body. Shut up, the fuck.

Hey Def! No double posts!


Yeah...has any tab site actually even tried to fight this in court??

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If they fuck with RoG, you can count on it.

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Might be a stupid suggestion and probably won't work but:

For those of us that actually write tabs, get a list of the bands you have tabbed songs for, especially those less known (i.e., not Slayer, Pantera, etc.). Then write each band an e-mail asking them to write another e-mail to the NMPA stating we can use their music (it takes a couple minutes at most). There should be no grounds for them closing the site down then, because we have permission. So instead of just bitching about how much this sucks, we can actually do something about it.

If we fail, at least we tried...then we can bitch.

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Worth a try. I know quite a few bands represented here would have no problem with this, so hopefully they own their own publishing rights. Could go a step further if this proves successful and have something on the site with the rightsholders giving us permission to have tabs.

Ok seriously people better smarten the fuck up and stop sending the MPA stupid messages. Cause honestly that's not helping. It may seem funny to you but those messages are not productive and are just adding fuel to the fire. So seriously shut your fucking mouths and leave it for someone else.

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how is that imature

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Oh Jesus Christ... Listen: you are not smart. You are dumb. You are not witty. You are annoying. You are not even remotely intelligent. You are HAMMERSMASHEDFACE.


Compléte fuckup. If you want to prove an entire company WROANG, at LEAST check your fùcking grammer.

Please, PLEASE never visit this forum again, no one likes you here.

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I have permission for all the tabs I posted. I actually played a gig with them as well. On another note, Hammersmashedface is ok with me.

yeah he;ll learn the ways

Nomad, I was asked if you'd gotten any prior notice from them before this letter?

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This is a fuckin' crap!

Since when tabs are illegal? Tabs are our own interpretation of a song, we're not stealing something... is someone out in the streets selling tabs? Everybody sells movies, music, ps games, etc... and nobody gives a fuck... but tabs?

FUCK NMPA!!!

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In fact they never contacted me directly. I've received a letter from my hosting company telling that they have received a formal copyright complaint.

More info on the procedure can be found here.

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Thanks everyone for your support, but please stop sending insulting letters to NMPA, it's not going to help the situation.

I'm currently checking possible solutions to bring the tabs online, including:

• Asking NMPA which specific bands they represent and removing their tabs.
• Obtaining written permissions directly from the bands.
• Moving the website to a country with less restrictive copyright laws.

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I'll send cash if that happens.

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http://nmpa.org/pressroom/showmeeting.asp?id=1

they have an annual meeting... let's attend.

haha, brilliant plan!

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yeah we will all go to new york and beat them with our guitars

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hey nomad what bands have you contacted

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Read again dude..

The first option seems most realistic to me but if you see how other tab sites went down, the last option seems more easy.. but will that work?

this is shitty.. it certainly doesn't seem they have an open and shut case though, so i haven't lost all hope.

if i were to contact a band or a few bands and ask them to send an email to the nmpa and metaltabs that says we have permission to post tabs of their songs...where would they send the email to for metaltabs?

I don't think this will be the end of metaltabs, but procedures like this..

ehh, this might take weeks, months, maybe even a year or so.

Couldn't somebody seed a torrent in the meantime?

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i would think nomad

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me too..its just that he doesn't have one listed on his profile. the only way i could email him is through the site..not an option for any bands that aren't members.

alexk@metaltabs.com that is what it said on contact us

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Thanks Nomad. I passed along the info to tc admin.

Good luck.

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when it gets to the point that people would rather make a few more measily dollars than spread their music around that you see just how shit the world is getting

and the problem is it isnt everyone, it isnt even alot, its just a few, a small few people like meta$$ica who ruin it for everyone else, those guys arent in it for the music and their love of it, maybe at the start, but now it is just about money, and while doing something like this is going to make them a little bit more money, the hugely vast majority of artists are going to suffer because of this

i can certainly say with no doubt if it wasnt for mp3's i would have heard of none of the bands i like. i would end up listening to mainstream pop shit that we get on the radio, people who cant sing, cant write music, cant play instruments and cant do anything else.

if it wasnt for guitar tabs i certainly wouldnt have started to play guitar, and even if i had, i am one of the vast number of people with absolutely no ability to buy tab books for bands that i would never have heard of.

simply by closing down all the guitar tab sites the industry is crippling itself. less people would hear the music, find new bands and new music genres they hadnt previously heard of, and so less people would goto live gigs, hence less gigs happen and the artists dont make as much money

sure there is no denying that pretty much everyone who downloads an mp3 album isnt going to go out and buy the cd as well, (£13 for a new album is stupid, and while this arguement isnt about the price of the music (tho it is related) it just shows how desperate they are to make money), there will be at least some who would go out and buy some, "there are just some albums you *have* to own an official version of", or goto a gig, buy some t-shirts, or visit the websites (which in turn generate revenue from adverts etc).

as for the tabs themselves, even if a tab book existed for EVERY song ever produced, even if they were on a website where you could buy a tab for a small fee (unlikely..probably be high knowing the industry), people are not going to buy them. One or two might, those with more money than sense, who dont care about throwing money into what is in essence a corperate mess, but most of us simply dont have the money to do it, the fact some of these bands like meta$$ica feel the need to spend their money on hiring expensive lawyers to try to make them more money is just stupid. If they left it as it is then they would save more money by not hiring the lawyers, and then maybe make some by actually supporting internet distribution of tabs and of their music. If they hadnt created the environment like it is now then the tab sites and mp3 sites wouldnt be as prolific as they are now. (but we all know the reason meta$$ica try to sue people...their music sucks and thats the reason no one bought it, not because everyone got it from the internet...like any self-respecting metal fan would actually WANT to download meta$$ica crap anyway?)

if the NMPA has distributed the letters to a great many sites, perhaps it would be prudent to exchange emails between them all, it would take only one lawyer (or team of) to defend all the sites in question, just the first case needs to be defended (and if the site in question gets off then the nmpa will most likely drop all other cases), and if like you say alot of sites are being hit then perhaps (with any $$ generated by adverts etc) if funds were lumped together by all one could be afforded and save us from this tyrannical organisation. I am sure that we could put up with a few more adverts on the site(s) for a while to fund something like this if it became a possibility...

as for possible defenses, aside the ones already mentioned (some of which would be worth it, some maybe not), there is always the mathematical defense. The laws of probability.

k its far fetched, but as a mathmetician and a computer user, it is obvious that a VAST amount of text files are produced every minute, given the number of people using computers at any given time, creating them for whatever reason you can think of. Any guess at a number would be purely a guess but one could assume it would be pretty high. Probability tells us that eventually, a text file containing the specific text sequence to accurately describe a song produced by someone else is bound to happen eventually. No more so than reproducing a crude version of a song by writing out a text message on a phone using the little beeps (common sense suggests that there would be at least one song somewhere that could be done by this with the text message produced making sense). This site could quite easily just be a collection of such randomly occuring text files and ordered into the lists of which songs they sound like (showing the other songs not found yet also to aid the user etc). While it might be obvious that the tabs are a copy of the bands work created by someone sat listening, playing, and then writing down, unless anyone actually admits to this, i can see no way the NMPA can actually prove otherwise. Since all the tabs on this site claim to be the song we are hearing, one would naturally assume them to be identical (since the song is the song and can be nothing else) yet i see tabs for songs that are blatently wrong (sorry but this is true), and when played out are even in the wrong tuning using the wrong notes, so in actual terms its not actually a direct copy of their music, merely a badly created version of what *could* be their music. If you took a few million guitar players, locked them in a room, eventually given the right initiative they will reproduce (unknowingly) the work of someone else, yet given that they havent ever heard the originally copyrighted music, how can the nmpa prove that they have breached the laws pertaining to that music?

ok i know such things would eventually take time, the odds against the files being produced with such accuracy are staggeringly huge, even with the number of files produced every second by people anywhere around the world, but there would eventually (After some horrible sums and research) appear an actual number, and if there is one thing i have learnt about probability, is while there might be the probability of 1 in 36 of hitting a double 6 when rolling dice, it can quite easily happen in the first two rolls (just unlikely) so while the number is there, it doesnt mean it cant happen more frequently at the start

(stupid arguement i know but still a possibility )

Good work nomad, keep up the fight!

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Man this is bullshit. Its not the NMPA's music that WE ALL take time to fucking tab songs for ourselves and other people. Its not there right to do this bullshit, i mean if it was anybodys right, it would be the bands we all tab. Man, and if they had a problem, theyd be emailing this sight, and i dont here of any emails. to go that, i got an email from Ivan from Cliteater saying thank blah blah blah, and im sutre everybody else gets email froms bands saying thanks for supporting them. this whole thing is bullshit. hope this sight gets closed, fave sight for metal tabs!!!

what about the dying fetus tabs tabbed out by the guitarist from the band
come on stupid nmpa

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This is fucking stupid. I'm pretty damn sure that the bands are just happy to see people tabbing their songs. I got an email from Lemuria's guitarist and the thanked me for tabbing their song.

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I've started to send e-mails to bands asking their permission to publish their tabs. I've sent just a few to see the reaction, hopefully the idea will work. Frankly speaking I would rather have a site with 200 bands that want their tabs online than a site with 1000s of bands that don't care about their fans.

If anyone has direct contact with bands that have tabs here please help us to get in touch. My e-mail is alexk@metaltabs.com.

Please don't spam them if you just know their e-mail from the official website, I can do that too

cheers!

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This is not applicable in the practical world because the tabs posted here are quite obviously not just a collection of randomly transcribed notes. The fact that each tab has a header detailing the band, song, album et cetera quite clearly disproves any aspect of randomness.

As such, this argument actually holds less credance than the NMPA's since it could easily be proved in court that the tabs have not been randomly generated.

Mathematics is one of mankinds greatest inventions but it is only useful when applied in the correct situations. This matter regarding copyright is clearly not one of them.

It is true that if one gives a monkey an infinite amount of time to hack randomly at a type writer that the monkey will eventually reproduce the exact same sequence of keystrokes that constitute Hamlet. However, this is merely a thought experiment to demonstrate that events, even those considered extremely unlikely, can still occur. Can the monkey replicate Hamlet in reality? No, because it will die within 50 years. Can an infinite amount of monkeys achieve it? No, because there aren't an infinite amount of monkeys nor an infinite amount of typewriters.

I do wish that people who have studied mathematics to a decent level of competency would take a step back and think about the real world implications of what they are saying before they open their mouths.

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I really don't see how far they can take this crap... seriously, because if tabbing a song out by ear is copyright infrigement, then teaching someone else the song is too... before you know it, practicing someone else's song in your bedroom will be a "violation"

Someone should list the bands who already gave permission so they dont get overloaded with mails

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yeah that makes sense this whole thing is a fuck up because i bet they havn'e even heard of half the bands that where on metaltabs why can they tell us to get the tabs down even if they don't own the rights to them

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Because they're assholes in suits.

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I'm going to start e-mailing the band's Ive tabbed for. I'll let everyone know if I get a response, be it positive or negative.

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I'll be there. I live in NYC so it's only a train ride away. Anyone else wanna go?

Hahaha i feel like the only guy who isn't too bothered about it.

Metaltabs has been Owned. ZING!

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I guess this would be the single most logical solution. I guess any country outside america would do, huh? Or at least I doubt they have any legislative power against websites not on U.S. domains. Go for it bitches.

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If i'm not mistaken this website isn't hosted in America. And no, not any country outside of America would be ok.

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Metaltabs is hosted in Australia.

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fucking pieces of shit...

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wouldnt this apply to lyric sites as well?

Wow, I liked everyone's rants about early music history.....they sucked balls.

I'm worried about my Sepultura and Old Man's Child tabs.....

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"yeah man , december wolves supports your tabs. the ultimate decision might be up to earache. i'm not really sure why anyone would have a problem with it. "
- December Wolves

Maybe going to the record labels/companies first would be a good idea. In the meantime, December Wolves tabs are go!

It wouldn't matter to me if they found the tab on the net, in a book, learn't from a friend or figured it out themselves. People enjoy playing along to their favourites songs. I think it's more flattering than offensive to an artist.

I find it very pleasurable to learn a guitar tab, I think we all do as it's very satisfying to play along with your favourite tunes.

People will never say to themselves "oh fuck yeah I'm ripping an artist off now!"

At the end of the day when an album comes out the songs have copyright to their name anyway and you cannot take that away by learning a tab off the internet.

Tabs on the internet cannot interfere with any music that has already been written and recorded when there is no way of modifying the original piece of music that has already been set in concrete so to speak on a copywritten recorded track that has been distributed by a record label.

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i agree that contacting record labels would be a better idea so that means we should contact roadrunner metalblade earache and nuclear blast
and all of the other metal labels

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i will talk to metalblade

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whoever tabbed out some of immo's stuff.
could they pplease contact the band?
ireall y want to be playing that stuff right now :P

Only thing is that labels are more anal about this sort of stuff than the bands they represent.

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NO, DON'T. Give that job to someone else, you'll do nothing but piss them off.
They'll most possibly answer semi-positive, but please don't try to be our representative.

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There are Immo tabs at RoG I think.

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tahnks

yoru wlecum.

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