Today I received a certified letter from Moses & Singer LLP, a law firm in New York City which asserts that they are acting as counsel for the National Music Publishers Association and The Music Publishers Association of America. They have stated that guitar tablature hosted on my site violates the copyrights of several of their clients.

I have long been of the understanding that an original, by-ear transcription of a song, which is a duplicate of no copyrighted work and which generally deviates substantially from the work on which it is based is the property of its transcriber, and not the original composer of the song. The NMPA and MPA clearly disagree, and are threatening to send a DMCA letter to my host, as well as pursue other undisclosed legal actions in the event that I were to fall short of full cooperation with their demands.

I have not yet decided what response is appropriate. This site has been a part of my life for ten years now, and I honestly believe that what I'm doing is neither illegal nor harmful to the music publishing industry. My site generates interest in playing music, which can only lead to more purchases of licensed sheet music. In addition, I have referred tens of thousands of dollars in licensed sheet music sales to my affiliates over the years. The notion that a musician serious enough to spend $30 on a sheet music book would instead settle for a by-ear tablature interpretation seems unlikely to me. Whlie highly paid laywers may easily be able to use corrupt, recently-manipulated and poorly-tested copyright law to suggest that I am violating the law, the argument that I have actually damaged their industry in the process seems ludicrous.

I have not had a chance to scan the letter yet, but I have typed it out. Please excuse any typoes I have made in haste.

Ultimate-Guitar.com works just fine for me.

But I agree with you, music industry must die. Especially since no copyrights are really actually being infringed. It's just the user's interpretation of the song. If the tabs were copied directly from the printed material, then yeah, copyright infringment. But when pretty much all the tabs are transcribed by ear by the users, then I don't see any problem whatsoever.