Keeping Tabs: The Legal issue
As some of you may know over the past year there has been a lot of legal issues when it comes to websites posting guitar tablatures online. Sites Like Metaltabs.com, Guitartabs.cc and OLGA have been threatened with lawsuits over copyright infringement saying that posting tablature is illegal. You can read a statement from guitarzone.com here.NMPA Threatens guitartabs.cc
The National Music Publishers Association as well as the Music Publishers Association says sharing tablature constitutes infringement. As we all know this is just a case of they want to sell the right. However I don’t see how this can be because 99.9% of the tabs posted at these sites are the fans transcription and interpretation. Metaltabs.com has got permission from some labels to post tabs on there site but it seems that most aren’t even trying.
Now I think it’s a bunch of B.S. and so does Ultimate-guitar.com . Being threatened by the NMPA didn’t stop them from keeping their site up and running and full of tabs. This is the best place online to find tabs for your favorite bands. You can read the full story behind the legal issue with them here. UG Pays Royalties.
Picture from UG.com
I remember when all of this was such a big issue. All of my favorite tab sites kept getting shut down, but now I found ultimate-guitar which is without a doubt the best place to get tabs.
ATR