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The music industry vs tab rustlers

The music industry's found a new reason to fire up its cease-and-desist machine: guitar tablature sites "where users exchange tips on how to play songs like 'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,' 'Highway to Hell' and thousands of others." [Link]

Assuming a tablature site musters the legal resources to challenge the publishers in court, some legal scholars say they believe publishers may have difficulty arguing their complaints successfully. Jonathan Zittrain, the professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said “it isn’t at all clear” that the publishers’ claim would succeed because no court doctrine has been written on guitar tablature.

Mr. Zittrain said the tablature sites could well have a free speech defense. But because the Supreme Court, in a 2003 case involving the extension of copyright terms, declined to determine when overenforcement or interpretation of copyright might raise a free speech problem, the success of that argument was questionable. “It’s possible, though, that this is one reason why guitar tabs generated by people would be found to fit fair use,” Mr. Zittrain said, “or would be found not to be a derivative work to begin with.”

jon posted this at 7:00 AM
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