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Welcome to GuitarZone.com!
(Previously known as Guitar Tab Universe. Same owners. Same great service. New domain. Bookmark it!)
Top 3 things to do here:
- Read the (very important) message:
"Statement Regarding Legality of Tabs"
- Search Lessons
- Browse Lessons
July 17, 2006
To all "Guitar Tab Universe" visitors:
The company which owns this website has been indirectly threatened (via our ISP) with legal action by the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) as well as the Music Publishers' Association (MPA) on the basis that sharing tablature constitutes copyright infringement. At what point does describing how one plays a song on guitar become an issue of copyright infringment? This website, among other things, helps users teach eachother how they play guitar parts for many different songs. This is the way music teachers have behaved since the first music was ever created. The difference here is that the information is shared by way of a new technology: the Internet.
When you are jamming with a friend and you show him/her the chords for a song you heard on the radio, is that copyright infringement? What about if you helped him/her remember the chord progression or riff by writing it down on, say, a napkin... infringement? If he/she calls you later that night on the phone or e-mails you and you respond via one of those methods, are you infringing? I don't know... but I would really like to know. If anyone has information on this, please email support@guitartabs.cc.
Apparently, the NMPA/MPA believes that the Internet may be on the foul side of the legality line they would like to draw here. For me, I see no difference. It's teachers educating students and covered as a 'fair use' of the tablature. The teachers here don't even get paid nor do the students have to pay this website to access the lessons.
An attack on this website is really an attack on every one of you who have told someone (in person, or via the written word, telephone, or e-mail) how you play a song on guitar. And who, especially among small websites, has the deep pockets to fight the NMPA/MPA? They use scare tactics while there is, in fact, no legal precedent on this matter (to the best of our knowledge). If you are interested in expressing your opinion to the NMPA/MPA, contact them via their respective websites. Please do not resort to vulgar language or insults.
Millions of people use the Internet to learn guitar, in one form or another. It appears the NMPA/MPA and their members do not want to support us and help us further our education. To you visitors from outside the USA or UK, can you find your favorite artists' "official sheet music" at your local music store? Even in the United States and United Kingdom, we often can not. The NMPA/MPA have a choice to make: either they support us as aspiring guitarists, or they choose to alienate their customer base. To date, not one sheet music publisher has contacted this website to either inquire as to our activities or to express interest in any type of dialogue or collaboration whatsoever. All we deserve is a cold, indirect, impersonal threat without any explanation? They should embrace new technologies or else become relics of the old economy.
Since I'm now 'worried' about working around tabs at all, I'm in a tough situation! Luckily, I'm fairly confident that if I alone listen to a song and then figure out how to play it by ear, I will then be able to enjoy using that knowledge to practice and improve my guitar playing skills. Is that what is necessary for everyone to do? Work these things out alone? What a sad situation.
Sincerely,
Rob Balch
Manager of "Guitar Tab Universe"
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This website is somewhat based on the wiki system for website editing/creation. All logged-in members with at least 50 posts made in the forum are able to create new webpages here as well as edit the ones which already exist. The goal is to make a collaborative and comprehensive website that is useful for any variety of guitar or bass player.
In the meantime, if you are not familiar with how a wiki-based website works, please check out [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents].
You can edit most pages just by clicking Edit this page at the left or bottom of the page. When you are editing, you may find the information here useful: Editing help. That same link is also available to you on the left side menu.
The Forums are available if you click the Forum link here or on the left side menu.
This page has been officially locked (protected) so that members cannot edit it themselves. Most pages are NOT officially locked yet pages will appear locked to you unless you have made at least 50 posts in the forum. The following pages linked below which, for the meantime, are becoming the real homepages for GuitarZone.com. We ought to get some great content up on the skill level sections soon. It is all free for you to edit. Also, anyone logged in can just type in a new (non-existing) page name in the form of http://www.guitarzone.com/w/Category:PageTitle and make a page of their own. Then just go back to a more popular page like the homepage, for instance, and add a link to your new page. It's actually quite easy. There are already some existing "Categories" so try to find one that your page can fit into instead of making a new one. But, you can make a new one if you think it's better than using an existing one. Then "PageTitle" should just be something that is a short word or short string of words (for many words use the format "CapitalizeEachFirstLetter"... that also applies when making Categories yet try to keep Category names as short as possible since they are used and typed more often than the "PageTitle").
Also, we have had a case of minor vandalism, with someone editing the homepage to include some inappropriate language. In case you are unaware, your username is logged along with the exact changes you made. With a few clicks, we reverted the page back to it's original state and banned the user for 1 week from this website. I recommend that all mods do the same if they see any vandalism. UPDATE: There was that first case of vandalism but overall there have not been any more problems with vandalising. Also, never worry that a page your work on will be overwritten maliciously. All old versions are saved so your contributions are safe
Continue: Go to Homepage...
Or, also, here we're starting a new layout:
Choose your level of skill....
Best Regards,
GZ Webmaster