Fan created guitar tablature – illegal?!?!?!

A friend at work sent this along over the weekend: BBC: Song sites face legal crackdown:

The US Music Publishers’ Association (MPA), which represents sheet music companies, will launch its first campaign against such sites in 2006.

MPA president Lauren Keiser said he wanted site owners to be jailed.

He said unlicensed guitar tabs and song scores were widely available on the internet but were “completely illegal”.

Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can “throw in some jail time I think we’ll be a little more effective”.

Lo and behold, my favorite tab site on the web shut down in reaction to it: Powertabs.net.

Back in 1998 this happened to OLGA, it went overseas and relaunched. OLGA has a solid claim on being the first collaborative file archive on the web – 1992. Guitar tablature written by fans, for fans, in plain text. It is still running today. But probably not for long.

Make archives people. Quickly.

Music and movie related link dump

Google Video: Randy Rhodes in Quiet Riot – except for Randy’s awesome guitar solo… my band smokes this version of Quiet Riot (they got far better by the time they got signed)… but Randy… unbelievable even then. He even plays a version of “Dee” in here! It made me cry when he slowed down and started to play those delicate passages. May he rest in peace.

Google Video: A killer Paul Gilbert guitar solo

Google Video: Canon in D Guitar: Wow, wow, wow

Google Video: Mario Guitar: Wow (not as awe inspiring as Canon in D – so just one wow)

the Onion: Metal Council Convenes To Discuss ‘Metal Hand Sign’ Abuse (hell ya!)

Please take the ‘Cool Person Test’

Wired: The Hit Factory: On MySpace and the future of music marketing

the smedley log: Give the music back (quoting lyrics to one of my favorite songs)

Matt at Philly Future: Creating Buzz: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on NPR.

ScientificAmerican: Creativity Linked to Sexual Success and Schizophrenia. via Garret.

And not music related, but why not:

Superman V: The Whole Sordid Saga: this script has been thru hell and ba… no… it still seems in hell

Guardian: The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award. NSFW and funny.