This is a sad development. Yesterday I logged on to powertabs.net to see if anyone had managed to tab Dream Theater’s Raise the knife, only to find that I needed to login to the site, something I’ve never had to do before. I went through the process of establishing a username and password, browsed to the Dream Theater section and then discovered that all of the tabs on PowerTabs.net were no longer available.
What the heck?
It turns out that the Music Publisher’s Association has taken it’s legal battle to the web and are shutting down sites that provide musicians with song transcriptions.
Their complaint is that these web sites rob artists of a valuable revenue stream that comes from selling guitar tabs and song scores. Lauren Keiser, president of the MPA says (via the BBC news):
“The Xerox machine was the big usurper of our potential income,” he said. “But now the internet is taking more of a bite out of sheet music and printed music sales so we’re taking a more proactive stance.”
There’s just one problem with all of this: the tabs available on Powertabs.net are not copies from legitimate books sold by publishers. They are, in fact, hand-constructed tabs that musicans have deciphered by ear. The folks at PowerTabs.net have always been very explicit in their instructions that files uploaded to PowerTabs.net be the work of the person submitting it, and not a copy of an existing tablature book.
Musicians all over the world have used their own skill, brains and ears to decipher the recordings of their favorite artists and songs since music was invented. The only difference now is that they can take these deciphered scores (that they have created by themselves) and transcribe them into a PowerTab files so that the program can play them back in realtime using MIDI technology. This is not a trivial process. The files are then uploaded to a website (like powertabs.net) to share with other players, for free. This is an invaluable resource for musicians who want to learn songs from their favorite artists, but lack the time or skill to decipher such songs themselves. And as far as revenue is concerned, most of the songs on PowerTabs.net don’t even exist in a legitimate tablature book in the first place!
The MPA’s claim on this issue is absurd and wrong. This is nothing like Xeroxing an existing tablature book. These musicians are doing this using their own resources, namely their ears, brains and skill. They are robbing no one.
What I don’t understand is, how can an entity like the MPA legally tell someone not to transcribe a song if they so choose? Where is the legal precidence that says a person cannot decipher another person’s musical work? And once the song is transcribed, why can’t that person share it with a friend? If they are making no money from it, then there’s no legal infraction here. And that is precisely what guitar players are doing. They are sharing their own creations with each other. Instead of doing it one-on-one, they use the web.
I hope when this goes to court that the MPA gets exactly what they deserve: a good ass-reaming from the judge for being a bunch of jerkoffs. They should be ashamed of themselves. If they want to attack people who are copying published work then I’m all for that. I hate piracy. But I’ve been using the PowerTab archive for a couple years now and I know how it works. These are not copies of published work. These are musician’s interpretations. There are songs on PowerTabs.net that I’ve never seen in any tablature book anywhere; I’d gladly buy them if they existed. But they don’t, so I use Powertabs. Many times the transcriptions on PowerTabs.net are imperfect. That should be clue #1 that artists are not having their official tab books “Xeroxed”.
Fortunately, if you’re like me and you’re still looking for PowerTabs you can find mirrored archives:
pta.acidpit.org
powertabs.phiross.org
www.allpowertabs.com (courtesy of Jack Holmns)
P.S. Bonus points if you name the artist and song of the transcription at the top of this post.
Jack Holmns says:
You forgot to include http://www.allpowertabs.com as another mirror.
April 21, 2006, 11:49 amPaul Derbyshire says:
So did you find the tab for Raise the Knife? I’ve been looking for this for years now, without success.
December 9, 2006, 4:28 amChris says:
Paul,
I haven’t found “Raise the Knife” anywhere. With the release of “Score”, I’m strongly considering tabbing it myself (the visual aid is nice to have as a reference). I have Transcribe!, which is really great software for slowing songs down without changing the pitch., and I’ve used it to tab out sections of some Enchant songs.
I thought maybe with the release of “Score” someone would jump on the “Raise the Knife” tab, but so far it doesn’t look like anyone has. So maybe I can attempt it.
December 9, 2006, 12:09 pmJames says:
Why, that would be the instrumental section in Metropolis Pt. 1 by Dream Theater.
April 4, 2008, 5:36 amJames says:
I would also like to add that if they wanted people to buy their transcription books, they at least make them accurate. As I’m sure you’re aware, some of the DT transcription books I’ve seen (with the exception of the newer ones for Octavarium and SC as I know the transcriber personally and know he’s 100% accurate), the transcriptions are absolutely horrible and inaccurate. This goes for just about any transcription book I’ve seen.
9 times out of 10, the tabs on sites like Powertabs.net are more accurate than the shit these companies like Cherry Lane put out.
April 4, 2008, 5:40 amChris says:
James! You rock dude. Good job picking out the artist.
And yes, you’re right: tab books are horribly inaccurate, and that’s a large reason why I think sites like Powertabs have taken off so well.
April 4, 2008, 6:59 amMatt says:
here, here to cherry Ln.’s inaccuracy. its a joke. if they’d just DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, i wouldnt mind paying. thank god for the mirrored sites, because this powertabs shut-down breaks my heart. SCREW THE CORPORATIONS!
April 4, 2008, 10:10 amJunior says:
For those of you looking for tabs for Raise the Knife, I have recently started tabbing out a power tab of it. When it’s finished, I will post it on http://www.ultimate-guitar.com.
I am also a huge fan of this song, and I had to sadly discover the end of http://www.powertabs.net while looking for Raise the Knife.
April 4, 2008, 6:22 pmC says:
I completely agree with you man. If people were simply coppying the music straight out of tab books and posting it on the web, i would be taking no part in it, but theses are just peoples “ideas” of how the songs should be played. Its BS.
April 4, 2008, 8:21 pmchris says:
whens the court date? I hope to be able to use powertabs.net as soon as possible…
April 19, 2008, 10:06 pmTim says:
I have purchased many legit TAB books from the stores. I have to correct them often.
The MPA can put this in their pipe and smoke it: since people are being nasty about this, I will never buy another TAB book again. I am quite good at learning by ear.
These bullies need to get a hobby.
April 24, 2008, 9:16 amEd says:
I LOVE how these guys talk about how it’s stealing money from the Artists. Bullcrap! That’s not why they’re concerned. They’re concerned because it’s taking revenue from THEIR pockets. Don’t feed me this starving artist crap either. TABS are not where big bands make their money anyway.
May 11, 2008, 10:41 amTim says:
Better update those links – I can[’t get any of the three to work.
August 3, 2008, 7:20 pm