The two of us need look no more

Unless you play guitar or know how to "fake play a piano" (neither, I think, are the case with any people I know who would read this blog), then you are missing out on another aspect of the tyrancy of the RIAA.

Well, the Record Industry Association of America and the Music Publishers' Association, anyway.

It used to be that you could log on to any number of databases online and pick up a bit of tablature. Tablature, if you don't know, is a form of musical notation written out for the guitar with the chords to play or the specific pickings. Many aspiring musicians pick up their first skills through tablature- hearing a song they want to play, scouring the internet for the tablature, and then plunking their way to adequacy. I myself picked up most of my skills (*ahem*) this way, learning The Who's Tommy or any number of Weezer songs.

One day last week I searched for one of my favorite databases: http://www.guitartabs.cc/ only to be let down, discovering that the page was no longer up. Later that week, it returned, with a savaged library. I couldn't find any of the bands I'd normally seek out- Barenaked Ladies, David Bowie, Talking Heads, even my beloved Weezer.

What's going on here? More searching on the web proves again that these sites are more and more being stripped down dramatically. What I am confused about, however, is how exactly the RIAA and MPA can justify the tablature of a song as being a copyright infringement. Sure, one could say "Well, it is the artist's music and they have a right to keeping it theirs." Hmm. That isn't quite inclusive of what the government's copyright website says about it.

"The owner of copyright [to a musical piece] retains the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords; to prepare the derivative works based upon the work; to distribute copies or phonorecords publicly by sale; to perform the work publicly; to display the copyrighted work publicly; or to perform the work publicly by means of digital audio transmission."

I may be off base here, but I don't see anything regarding the private tinkering of a beloved song by a fan on his/her guitar. Tablature is not authored by the artist, but is a manuscriptual representation of the song, easing the apprehending of its nuances. I myself have sat and plunked out the parts for a couple songs. Never, however, have I made a dime for someone else's song in this way.

Perhaps I'm walking thin ice here, my band Almost Positive learned many a song through tablature, but we never recorded or performed for profit any of those songs. According to the web page, though, we were in violation, but most certainly not in any respect due to tablature. We would have learned them anyway. Oh yes. We're that good.

So I've ranted my peace. In the end, I am simply frustrated that I can no longer look up how to play "Five Years", but have to dink it out on my own again, just as I will have to for most every other popular song I want to learn. One thing is for certain, I have definitely changed policies and am no longer inclined to pay a dime to any band signed onto a distributor for a song again. Even through iTunes. They've tread on me and I won't stand for it!

Left without the alternative of learning songs through tab, I must, therefore, learn it through repeated listening. If you have any interest in learning a song, please, go here:

http://www.bittorrent.com/
http://www.kazaa.com/us/index.htm (warning, spyware)
http://www.gnucleus.com/Gnucleus/
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

Download whatever you want. Sure, it's illegal. But what isn't these days? You aren't hurting the artist, not if they can truly play their music live, anyway. And don't worry, if you do download something "illegally", the server will take the brunt of the blow, thanks to the Supreme Court's ruling in May with Grockster. You're cool, baby.

You're cool.

Gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-Gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi=Gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gin

Count me among the ranks of the spat upon. I yelled at a handicapped elderly woman. Seriously. Perhaps not so seriously, it was more an intense hissed-whisper than it was true yelling. Nevertheless, how many people can say that? That they've yelled at a handicapped person? Especially when it was their disabled nature that sparked part of the conversation?

No doubt, and rightfully so, you're wondering what on earth could have possessed me to do such a demonic and wretched act. It goes thusly: I was in the library attending on Jenn who was working at the time and had to tinkle in the worst way. So I made my way to the only bathroom on that floor, which happened to also be handicapped. One of those one toilet duel gendered doo-wahs. So I go in, lift the seat, do my dirty business, lower the seat, and wash my hands. Here's what's key: that I simply put my gloves on my wet hands and forewent using any paper towels.

Sitting down and reading Aristotle (oh the scholar am I), I later hear this cane clunking towards me from behind. A voice hisses catching my attention.

"You."

You? Someone is calling me "You"? That is somehow very unnerving, and already tickling whatever imp inside makes me boil.

"I was waiting to use the bathroom, and just want you to know that I am deeply offended by how you left the bathroom," hissed the old women, towering over me in the armchair.

"You don't like the way I exited the bathroom?" I asked. What, that I used it at all is offending her? I wondered silently to myself.

"Go look and fix it." She demands.

Upon inspection, I conclude (as you no doubt have already picked up by now) that there were paper towels scattered across the floor next to the trash can behind the door. So that's the hag's problem, she's upset that someone left their trash littered about and, since I was the last person she saw using the bathroom, she naturally assumes it wasn't me. Not someone who went in any of the preceding 13 hours that the library was open. How precise a pinning of blame, I marvel at her Sherlockish abilities.

Well, I left the bathroom, and I most certainly didn't clean up the dross- not out of spite, hear you me, but rather deterred by the bloody nature of the paper. Ew. I found the feeble woman sitting at a computer and walked up behind her, seething.

"You. I just left the bathroom and wanted you to know that I am deeply offended by how you approached me, ordered me, and blamed me. How dare you! That is not my mess and I am not touching it!"

Shaking with anger, I left the library that night, and now retroflect on the events. Why on earth was she so "offended", anyway? And it hits me, that she feels as if that bathroom is somehow especially her bathroom because she uses a cane. As if it is set aside for her privilege versus the rest of the able-bodied human race, and that I am merely a guest to her special water-closet. Conversely, I view it more as this facility is equipped and spatious enough to accomodate those who need it, but it does not exclude the rest of us. It's simply a... a "bathroom plus" of sorts. When one considers that there is no other bathroom on that floor of the library, I think it becomes especially clear. This is everyone's. Not just the handicap's. I would hope she doesn't get this upset at every restroom she visits in some state of messiness. If so, I can't imagine her ever leaving a bathroom at a mall (if she even goes to any), she could spend days waiting out the culprits for whoever that bastard was who turned the blow dryer upside down.

Done.