I really don’t know what to say about the Music Publishers’ Association (MPA) shutting down lyric and tablature sites. What’s next? Cracking down on cover bands? Suing people for humming a tune in the shower?

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

Guitar licks and song scores are widely available on the internet but are “completely illegal”, he told the BBC.

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”.

I’ve been using Guitar Pro lately. It’s an excellent tool for learning how to play songs. I can’t say how useful it would be if the MPA neuters it by making its material unavailable.

I can see getting upset over straight-up Xeroxing sheet music, but throwing someone in prison for transposing a song — Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?

Why not do something constructive and make electronic versions of the material available at a reasonable price. I’d much rather own the authorized tablature of a song over an amateur transposition and would be willing to pay for it.

“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.”

The music industry said the same thing about automatic piano rolls and the juke box. Embrace technology or become a fossil.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.