Copyright issues (history)

[Webmaster]

Hi fellow guitarists,

you might have discovered that some tracks are missing from the site. This is due to copyright issues and I am working on resolving the situation. This is also the reason for the lack of new tracks recently. Sorry to all that have submitted tracks recently.

This site was started almost 10 years ago as there were no good guitar backing track sites that were easy to use and had a decent amount of tracks. The idea was to provide free guitar backing tracks on a user-friendly site so that you guys could rock out in your bedrooms. With help from a bunch of talented backing track makers the site has grown and over 14000 tracks has been submitted!

A few weeks ago I received a DMCA notice that required me to take som tracks down. I removed the tracks and a few days later I received a new one for another set of tracks. I contacted the sender and am now in dialogue with them about copyright issues. It turns out that all tracks from all artists are in breach of copyright, even if it is just a drum track or a bass line. I have investigated this myself now, and it seems they are right. I was blissfully unaware of this.

So, now I am trying to negotiate a licensing deal. If successful, the site will stay up in its current form. If not, I am not sure what to do. I will keep you posted!

Cheers,
Oddgeir

[Webmaster]

Well, I have investigated the legislation concerning this and they are definitely correct that the tracks are violating copyright, both mechanical and publishing. I have no intention of becoming a criminal or gangster, so it will either be licensed tracks or a significant reduction in tracks. Unfortunately, the copyright laws and licensing schemes are not easy to understand and different laws apply to different countries. So there might be a reduction in tracks to certain geographics or similar, but I cannot say at this point. It seems to involve a large amount of dealmaking, so we'll have to wait and see...

The Deep Web is unfortunately not an option 

/Oddgeir

[Webmaster]

Hi,

I am still working on resolving this. Unfortunately, it seems like a hard task to overcome. It seems to be very hard to be able to pay the licensing fees for the vast amount of streams/downloads this site has with a free, advertising-driven model. But I hope it is possible.

The tracks that were removed are some Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Bon Jovi tracks. I hope to have them back up when this is over.

/Oddgeir

[Webmaster]

Hi guys,

I have implemented a new tracking system and tweaked quite a bit on the onsite player and the backend system. If you experience any issues, please let me know and I will try to fix them.

Regards,
Oddgeir

[Webmaster]

Hey everyone.

As you know, I have been working hard for the past few months to solve the site's licensing and royalty issues.

The licensing process is very complicated. While we are lucky that we don't need licenses from the record labels for the recordings our community makes, the music publishers, the ones who control the copyright for the composition, require a license and royalty payment for creating and using recordings of their songs. It seems nearly impossible for the current form of the site to generate enough revenue to cover the royalties demanded.

Our community has done a great job in creating a massive catalog of backing tracks, and I promise you I am trying really hard to find a way to preserve your work and keep it going for you and all the guitarists out there who enjoy using the site.

I have a couple options in front of me, and I will let you know how things go.

Sincerely,
Oddgeir

[josephabinion]

Thank you for all your hard work for all of us here and making music something to challenge.  You all are the best and love it. Keep Rockin and Never Give Up.  God Bless.

Sincerely,

Joseph A. Binion

[axismiracle]

Yes, Thank you for all you hard work.  I am not surprised at all that "the man" has finally felt the need to stick his red tape up all in your groove.  They need "big data" from us all, so this is expected.  That is OK, from this user.... It is completely worth it.  Backing tracks are a genuine tool, when it comes to practice and inspiration, when you don't have the luxury of being in a room with 3-5 other good, human, musicians!!  I wish you patients and success in dealing with the legal  !@#$@$ (mumbo jumbo)

THANK YOU!

[eduardoritos]

Hi, guys,

first of all, my big thank you to the webmaster for that idea, and manteining the site after all those years.

I'll had take advantage from the site, and I'd tried doing my part.

I like working for free, because for me is a way to learn things about playing, compositing and producing, and I like sharing with you, unkonown people.

BUT

Yesterday I'd did a search on youtube with some of the tracks I programmed; usually, I'm finding amateur non profit covers, but not in that case, wich is a site of guitar tuition.
I doubt he's doing that for free, so I wrote him asking for, at least, a credit quote on the lesson he'd did with my track.

May we can ask for some money in those cases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh__5TKvlCc

[Yurichъ]

Hi, folks,

You have a great resource here on site. Thanks a lot!

[andrew625]

I knew this was going to happen one day. Good things don't last forever.

Oddgeir, you have no idea how many guitarists you've inspired and helped with this site. I'm one of the thousands if not millions. I inquired you a long time ago before you implemented logins and forums about how you were able to sustain this page without copyright big guns coming down your throat, since UG had gone through the same thing even just tabs. I'm fully aware of the obscurity of copyright laws. This is a large pool of artists' income and establishment bands like the one you've removed will certainly NOT allow this kind of free sources flowing around. Like how Metallica took down all UG's tab for awhile. (d*ck) I genuinely wish you best luck working things out.

Sincerely hoping this site doesn't meet the same fate as KAT. 

[gemini9]

I just now found this site and it's a useful tool.  I'm hoping something can be worked out here.  Any news?

[Yurichъ]

Hi andrew625!

This is a large pool of artists' income

Not really, normally they do not release backing tracks for their material. Steve Vai did that officially, and provoked a huge copyright infrigement issue years ago. Too bad for him imo... and let's hope for the best.

Metallica aside, as they do own all the rights to their songs by now. They bought them off from labels this year and spent lots of money on that. So one should be very careful about anything Metallica from now on 

This is how a serious lawsuit looks like today

https://www.yahoo.com/music/bruno-mars-mark-ronson-face-151835968.html

So be careful making hits - they always watch you 

Cheers!

[PassionDut]

Are there any legal issues when grabbing videos from major tube sites?  Is there a risk of running into copyright issues when using the video grabber?

Thanks for your feedback

[Yurichъ]

Are there any legal issues when grabbing videos from major tube sites?  Is there a risk of running into copyright issues when using the video grabber?

It depends on where you actually reside, you can consult any local internet provider on that matter

[Yurichъ]

A good example of borrowing other artist's music is Joe Satriani. Here's Satch Boogie (1987)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt3ImNur5ig

Here's the Aerosmith's song The Hop (1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHpTKjNsRF8

Judge for yourself, but you know what it means - "borrowing", not "copypasting"