Copyright News

[John A Swartz]

Rob Maerz writes:
>
> well, I was not able to get in contact with Bolle via telly...but I noticed
> that the ftp Nevada Online Guitar Archive has been shutdown "until legal
> issues are resolved"...


Lot of bullshit again, if you ask me.  I agree that if someone basically
copied tab out of a book or something and put it in OLGA (and there may
be some of that going on), but if someone sits down and figures out the
chords to a song, or the lead line and figures out how to play it on
a guitar and writes it down, it hardly seems like a copyright violation.
Certainly if this person verbally tells another person how to play it,
no violation is committed.  Why should putting it in a file that others
can access be a violation?  Sheez if I tell you the chords to "(Don't
Fear) The Reaper" are Am - G - F (well, actually they're playing Bm - A -
G in concert these days I think - Buck using a capo), what's the big
deal?

Steve adds:

>I've been kind of anticipating a big legal crackdown ever since the
'net hit the big time.  I think the best way to keep the right to
maintain archives at all is to do it as a low profile operation.  This
is a private discussion list; I think the archive should be taken off
the web, and its existence should remain unadvertised outside of this
forum.  If we keep a low profile, and don't broadcast the availability
of this stuff all over the net, then nobody will take any notice of
our little fans-only lyrics project.


I'm not the moderator, or responsible for the archives, but I would
think that this would be somewhat of a shame to do.  I'd rather see
everyone download what they want from the archive and then keep the
archive up and running until someone were to ask us to shut it down.
Again, this is certainly not my call.  I think the archive is a great
asset to BOC fans in general, not just in our group.  But, then, perhaps
based on recent discussions these files are in fact "illegal" (at least
the way the current copyright laws are written) -- have we actually
determined that fact?  I guess if they are clearly in violation of
existing copyright violations, then perhaps Steve is right.  However,
if it is NOT clear that they are in violation, I believe they should
stay open.

This fucking sucks (yeah, come and get me Bill Clinton),

John