In 2008 Governor Rendell signed into law regulation that closed down abusive puppy mills in PA.
Don’t look now, but the state legislature is moving to turn back the clock. I’m having a hard time finding updates to this story on the Web interestingly enough, so if you know about updates, where to find them, and how to fight this, feel free to share.
Shelley Powers recently posted about the situation in Missouri, which seems to have set the stage for PA.
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.