Quote: "every artist retains the copyright to their music as mentioned in previous posts.
If they sold their rights, then its their own fault"
Actually the copyright belongs to the music company in many instances, signing the rights away is common practice in the industry and many bands do so so they can "Make it" not truly realizing what it means. Their name will always rest in the credits but their ballad of teen angst could end up in a feminine hygiene commercial and they have no say over it. Thats part of why Paul McCartney tried so hard to get the rights to Beatles catalog when they were sold and was pissed at being outbid by Michael Jackson. I think he has since gained the catalog from Jackson but not sure about that.
Quote: "But what about bands with songs of the same name? Like band A has a song called "One Wish" and band B has a song called "One Wish", but the tab named "One Wish" doesnt sound like either, you're saying thats automatically illegal?"
Good question, I suppose (and I say this because I am unsure) that if there were a song listed with a common title the companies would have to then prove who's material was lifted, if none could be resonably compared I think they could get away with it. This would mean of course they could not list the artist in the Tab, as you notice Tab sites generally break things down by band and a tab is then in their sub directory. On the same note if they don't list a band users will have no real idea what song they are getting a Tab for and if it does not sound like any of them it might be neat to learn but won't help the player learn a song they may have been looking for. When it comes to playing covers as a band there are pretty much two options play it as close to the original as you can, or completely rearrange the song, people are not usually too thrilled with just a bad, innacurate cover. We used to do a few of each, I completely reworked Stepping Stone by the Monkees, She's Not There by the Zombies, and Werewolf in London by Warren Zevon, the music was all original (or at least changed quite a bit) but I think if we recorded them we still would have been at risk for copyright infringment.
All this said infringing on a copyright is one thing, but proving it is quite another, these things go to a jury and as OJ has shown Juries can be morons.
Quote: "the last album was total rubbish imo, and so will the newer stuff. I really liked a lot of older content they did, but they handled themselves badly with the p2p / online sales compartment of their business machine."
In my opinion the fact that their newer music has sucked (I think Master of Puppets was their peak) rests in two places 1) the Commercial success of "One" started them on a road of thinking about what song would make a cool video. 2) They lost their most talented songwriter Dave Mustaine, look at the first three albums and his name is on alot of the songs, Dave has an internal anger that really leant to what they were doing. Kirk may be a better guitarist, but he just does not have that agression that makes its way into a song. Of course I think bands need to grow and progress in their art, but Metallica I think, was looking to make songs that sell.
