"Last year popular sites like Olga.net, MxTabs.net and others -- where users post tablature, usually called "guitar tabs," for rock songs -- suspended operations after the music publishing industry threatened them with copyright infringement lawsuits. Under the new initiative, MxTabs, which is owned by MusicNotes, will share an undisclosed portion of advertising revenue with music publishers, who in turn will give a portion to artists," reports The New York Times.
Irwin Z. Robinson, chief executive of Famous Music, Viacom's music publishing division, said: "This gives us, for the first time, the opportunity to get something that's been given away or stolen for all these years. I'm very positive about it."
It's not surprising that the music industry should try this kind of shakedown, given its almost unparalleled reputation for rapacious greed. But I don't think you'll find many guitarists who think the sharing of user-created tabs should be of any concern to the copyright police.
