Bye Bye Arctic Monkeys, Blair's Ugly Rumours, Cliff, Beatles?....whistle a happy tune - and you're sued
Posted by Colleen on Tuesday, 14 November 2006 08:32:41
Billionaire music publishers and song writers who are feeling the pinch from the online revolution are taking action to shut down guitarists' self help and music transcription, or tab sharing, websites which are vital for young learners. The hugely rich and powerful music industry say these transcriptions infringe songwriters' copyrights.
We all want to protect songwriters reasonable copyrights. However, the problem lies with how damaging the over-censorious implications of such action - and its inevitable, heavy handed, extension into other areas - would be to young musicians and to UK's music industry. It could quite literally eventually mean that, whistle a happy tune in the wrong place - and you're sued.
Guitar notation (tab) books can be purchased, however these are an expensive con and offer an extremely limited range of music. For most young musicians, the prerequisite to obtaining a transcription of a required tune is often the purchase of a £20-30 book of 40 or so obscure tunes that you don't want, have never heard of and will never play. Many musicians, such as those in my family, were originally inspired to learn to play instruments by the desire to play one tune or a group of tunes by a favourite musician. Most of this music notation is not available without informal, persoanl transcription and sharing. Without the help of experienced fellow musicians who transcribe these tunes and who give technical tips, many might never learn to play or developed creatively.
Bear in mind that music and technical tip sharing - and crude amateur performance of such music - is how generations of musicians from the Arctic Monkeys to the Beatles, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Stones, Tony Blair's band Ugly Rumours, and almost all amateur and professional rock musicians, learned to play - not at school. Yet most of the music which has inspired generations of young musicians to learn to play will not be available to them if this censorship trend is extended as we know it will be.
It's a more than a little ironic that Cliff Richard - and his guitar playing pal, holiday home sharing, pal, Tony Blair - should be behind a drive to apply draconian state censorship to the range of music available to young musicians, in order to give billionaire musicians like Cliff and his descendants an unreaonable 75 years of total control over their music.
young musiciand, UK music industry, songwriters copyright, Music industry