[MLUG - DISCUSSION] Hoping to Move Guitar Notations Into the Legal Sunshine

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

How annoying.  I didn't even know this had happened.  I'm sure there will 
be sites in other nations that ignore all of this legal wrangling.  I 
don't like the idea of a company making money from work that was created 
to be freely sharable and not for their profits.  I wonder if this can go 
anywhere.  One of the problems is that the free tabs often totally suck. 
--Mike


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/technology/02ecom.html

N.Y. Times
April 2, 2007

E-Commerce Report

Hoping to Move Guitar Notations Into the Legal Sunshine

By BOB TEDESCHI

IF budding guitarists fail to master "Stairway to Heaven" in the coming 
months, they can no longer blame the music publishers.

Because of an agreement in March between MusicNotes, an online music 
publisher and the Harry Fox Agency, which represents 31,000 music 
publishers, guitar tablature -- a popular system for teaching and learning 
guitar -- will enter the legitimate business realm for the first time.

Last year popular sites like Olga.net, MxTabs.net and others -- where 
users post tablature, usually called "guitar tabs," for rock songs -- 
suspended operations after the music publishing industry threatened them 
with copyright infringement lawsuits. Under the new initiative, MxTabs, 
which is owned by MusicNotes, will share an undisclosed portion of 
advertising revenue with music publishers, who in turn will give a portion 
to artists.

The effort could face a chicken-or-egg problem, in that publishers may 
balk if they do not see enough potential for advertising revenue, and 
advertisers may balk if publishers do not free enough of their music to 
attract a big audience. Advertising analysts suggest the revenue could be 
significant, but even a little is better than none.

"It's a huge opportunity, in that this is a revenue stream publishers 
haven't had before," said Gary L. Churgin the chief executive of Harry Fox 
Agency. "In a sense, the sky's the limit."

The initiative is still in the early stages, and Mr. Churgin has not yet 
formally asked publishers if they would like to participate.  Artists are 
even less familiar with the agreement.

Still, Mr. Churgin said, he has not yet encountered resistance. "We're a 
step and a half away from knowing how much it will be embraced," he said. 
"But the informal feedback we've gotten since the announcement has been 
enthusiastic."

Irwin Z. Robinson, chief executive of Famous Music, Viacom's music 
publishing division, said: "This gives us, for the first time, the 
opportunity to get something that's been given away or stolen for all 
these years. I'm very positive about it."

Mr. Robinson, whose company represents Linda Perry, a songwriter for 
Christina Aguilera and Pink among others, said that about 2 percent of the 
songs in the company's catalog have licensed guitar tablature associated 
with them.

For the remaining songs in Famous Music's catalog -- and the vast majority 
of the music publishing industry's collective catalog -- there is 
insufficient demand to justify the costs of publishing tablature.

As a result, guitarists who want to know how to play less mainstream songs 
have gone to sites where amateurs post tablature. Under this agreement, 
MusicNotes, publishers and artists will essentially earn money from an 
army of volunteers, who are creating content that the publishers are not 
creating on their own.

Tim Reiland, chairman and chief financial officer of MusicNotes, which is 
based in Madison, Wis., said publishers would receive "a very healthy 
split" of the advertising dollars.

"We've got lots of work here to get the publishers signed up, but we think 
they should," Mr. Reiland said. "We think it's a good deal."

MusicNotes bought MxTabs.net, one of the most popular guitar tablature 
sites, last year as it came under legal attack by music publishers. 
Publishers claimed that even incorrect versions of music notation violate 
copyright laws, since the postings represent "derivative works" related to 
the original compositions, to use the legal parlance.

The guitar tablature sites were typically small operations, running on 
little more than revenue gleaned from Google text ads. Many shut down 
rather than challenge the publishers in court. (Ultimate-Guitar.com, which 
has a New Jersey phone number but claims that it is based in Russia and 
that it complies with Russian copyright laws, still operates. Its 
advertisers include AOL, T-Mobile and Dell, among others.)

Mr. Reiland said MxTabs has more than 100,000 tabs in its files. Those 
tabs will remain under wraps until the site's re-emergence this summer -- 
assuming his company can clear at least 50,000 of those tabs with 
publishers. "We'd have to have at least that many to make it a good 
experience for the customer," he said.

Mr. Reiland and Kathleen Marsh, the chief executive of MusicNotes, are now 
making plans to sell advertising. That is a new realm for the company, 
since it has subsisted until now on fees charged to users for downloading 
sheet music and a small number of guitar tablatures generated by 
publishing houses.

Ms. Marsh said the site "already has a lot of interest" from advertisers. 
"This demographic -- teenage boys to young adults -- is very similar to 
the demographic for gaming. There are a lot of advertisers who are 
interested in that group."

Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst with Forrester Research, said tablature sites 
could also join other online publishers and anonymously track the Internet 
travels of their users. The budding guitar players might somehow show that 
they were shopping for a car, for instance, or other expensive goods. 
Suddenly, she said, "these users are really valuable targets for sellers 
of all kinds."

Lauren Keiser, the president of the Music Publishers' Association, and the 
chief executive of Carl Fischer, a music publisher in New York, said he 
would offer the MusicNotes proposal to his board this month to gauge their 
reaction. "As a publisher, I want to see this baby walk," he said. "And 
we'll see. There might be a whole bunch of other deals coming out of 
this."

Representatives from Ultimate-Guitar did not respond to calls seeking 
comment. Cathal Woods, the director of Olga, wrote via e-mail that he had, 
in the past, approached Harry Fox, the Music Publishers' Association and 
the National Music Publishers' Association with similar business deals.

Those groups "have always rejected out-of-hand any requests about 
licensing," Mr. Woods wrote. "I'm somewhat surprised by this."


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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