BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Song sites face legal crackdown
Before you act: there’s no point in writing comments like: Where’s the zip file? I want the zip file. Can you please send me the zip file?
well well… What can I say? Several people have sent me links to this and other similar news reports, concerned about what is going to happen to dylanchords.
I understand the concern — I share it, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.
On the one hand: I don’t want to go to jail, and I can’t afford a 500,000$ lawsuit. Those are two good reasons to shut down the site right now.
On the other, I keep telling myself that I don’t have much to worry about: all the lyrics are already freely available from bobdylan.com; all the tabs are my own interpretations and “intellectual property” in some sense of the word, I haven’t copied them from anywhere, and god knows I haven’t cast so much as an eye on the official chord books — heaven forbid! (in fact, had the publishers done a decent job on those, I would never have started this site); to my knowledge, chord charts in the form and with the contents you will find on dylanchords.com have not been copyrighted; etc. All in all, if I were the judge, I couldn’t really say that the site is much of an infringement.
Then again, I ain’t the judge.
The Australian Copyright Council writes:
If you own copyright in a musical work or lyrics, you are generally the only person who can:
- reproduce it: for example, by recording a performance of it, photocopying it, copying it by hand, or scanning it onto a computer disk;
- make it public for the first time;
- perform it in public;
- communicate it to the public (including via radio, television and the internet);
- translate it (for lyrics); or
- arrange or transcribe it (for music).
That would mean that I would need Dylan’s permission to arrange the songs, even though the “arrangements” (i.e. tabs) are my own.
However:
Unless a special exception applies, copyright is infringed if someone uses copyright material in one of the ways set out in the Copyright Act without the copyright owners permission. The special exceptions include fair dealing with copyright material for research or study, or for criticism or review.
The disclaimer about “research, study, personal use” etc. is a standard mantra in headers of tab pages, which I’ve never really taken seriously, and I doubt that anyone has — especially not the publishers and copyright holders. Whether or not a use is fair depends on four factors, listed in the US Copyright Act:
• the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
• the nature of the copyright work;
• the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright work as a whole; and
• the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
I’d say I score a point on #1, but I lose on the other three.
All in all, the situation is too unclear for me to see through it, but also to just sit and wait. I have therefore decided — actually while writing this — to take down the potentially offensive parts of the site until the situation has become clearer. There will be a solution, I’m sure, but until then: have patience! This is not a goodbye, but a “We’ll meet again”
And — not that I think it will have any effect whatsoever, but there’s a petition one can sign at http://www.petitiononline.com/mioti/petition.html
Eyolf,
Thanks for all your hard work. Your site was definitely the best tab site I ever came across. I have to say that I don’t really think that your site was under any real threat, but of course it’s your decision. I still hope it’ll be back. Good luck.
Will all the brainiacs who ask for the zip file to be e-mailed to them PLEASE read the other comments?
i tried to gwt the zip file from the ‘archived pages’ website but it just crashes, halfway through downloading. can someone tell me the right way to go about this???
OH BRING BACK THE SITE ASAP!! don’t let them push you around
I am shocked, I didn’t know anything about this. I come every day o check these pages out…I’m speechless. I do understand your concerns mr. Olstrem, but I cannot commen t, I’m too shocked.
Is internet done with freedom? Do we really want this market to rule us and average us all? I start thinking about this now more seriousy than ever, and I just dscovered that your pages are not online for a a few minutes
I’m disgusted, I want to be communist at this point…will i have to pay even if i play songs at home? Should I share each girl I conquer playing guitar (eventually) with the author of the songs I played? Who pays the plane ticket? +=
Update, upon second thought (and some more reading): I think it’s fair to say that the tabs (being arrangements) are my intellectual property, but formally, in order to publish them, I’d need Dylan’s permission, as the copyright holder of the original work.
Eyolf,
For me it is “Street Legal” to publish your interpretation of Dylan’s work but maybe you should try to contact Mr. Dylan about this matter. (I wouldn’t be surprised if you already did try)
please someone if… you could send me the archive….
i lost mine!
zikman@kozanh.com
…Something you never understand. Best side of the net and a great information pool for all of us. Sorry, but sometimes money can’t even win. What will Bob say???
Just wanted to say I discovered this site about two and a half months ago and my guitar playing has improved greatly. Your site has helped me learn some pretty cool tricks and I just wanted to say thanks to everything your have contributed to our Dylan community.
Just a quick note to say that my mirror now has a new advert-free address – http://dylanchords.nfshost.com – and a more generous bandwidth allowance so it shouldn’t be dropping off the Net anytime soon…. :)
hot damn, Chris! God love ya brother. Just discovered the situation and was about to sink into depression.
Eyolf – thanks for all your masterful work, a wonderful service to Dylan-lovers, musicians, and hacks like me. Peace!
Any chance of forwarding the zip file to me? I can’t believe this site has been pulled, and I would badly like to get my hands on the zip file.
The email address is mprysock@fei.org
Ooooooh, I’m so sad… I’m use to spend a lot of time on your site, and I’m really disappointed that you have to close it. :(
I make my friends laught by playing the harmonica & the guitar, and I learned songs thanks to you…
I saw people asked you if was possible for you to send a zip file; if yes, I would be very glad to get it!
Many thanks for all, bye from France
Would be really glad to get the archive.
pael60@ofir.dk
what bullshit!!! I can’t even look up the chords now!! Like I can’t listen to the album and pick it out if I wanted to. Man, this is some crap.
Talk to Dylan’s Foundation. They are AFAIK usually very helpful – for example, here in Serbia and Montenegro they gave a permission to Dejan Cukic to translate Dylan’s songs and to sing them using Dylan’s chords – free of charge.
Wow, this is a mightly long list of comments. The world is burning! Quick, head for the ships!
Well my opinion on the matter is that the legality of their stance is unfounded….a lot of Dylan’s music wouldn’t even EXIST if it wasn’t for appropriating other people’s intellectual propertly. And I believe that the work becomes public domain after 50 or 100 years? I do not know the facts there, though, but according to the first rule of their statement I am not allowed to cover songs by other artists at the local coffeehouses or else…..someone call Homeland Security!
But the only thing I wanted to say was this: Eyolf has provided an enormous catalogue for us for many years, completely invaluable and well crafted. But, as one of my older friends once commented, tabs have ruined guitarists for a while now. The days when you put the album on and sat there and figured it out for yourself are past, and as a result we become less trained as guitarists and lazy by the dozen. I know my first instict is to google a song rather than take the time to labour over it.
Another thing for myself, due to Dylan’s common use of capo and C shape voicings, I have become too accustomed to playing in certain keys and shapes. This is because I play so much Dylan, and Eyolf puts it in the most convenient position. But, when I listen to some old jazz tunes and sit there and try to pick out those chords, I am way prouder of myself when I succeed and given to try more! Now we can all enjoy that warm fuzzy feeling when you figure out for yourself that well loved Dylan tune you always wanted to play but never could!
Cheers, and thanks for all the tabs!
What a shame, this site has been invaluable for my research work, would greatly appreciate the zip file at carcham333@yahoo.ca thanks in advance
Just as everyone else here, i love this site and i have surely learned a lot from it. But i just have a question: Do you really take their threats so seriously? I think you have done a tremendous job so far, but with all due respect, i think that you are acting a bit cowardly. They’re not going to put you in jail or make you pay fines. Maybe they’ll write you an angry e-mail (which they probably won’t). If anyone gets sued at all, it’s gonna be sites like guitaretab, azchords and such. And if you DO get busted, we will all chip in to pay the fines. Ok?
Your site is amazing. I am very disappointed to see it put on hiatus. Not only is this a site to help fellow musicians, but it really shows the love people have of Bob Dylan. You don’t have stupid advertisements all over the screen and have devoted the site entirely to his music. If they say you doing this is a crime, I say they are the ones doing the crime to you. I can only imagine how much time and effort you put into this and its a shame to see it go to waste because of egotistical musicians that cry about the money they don’t need. Long live Dylan, and long live Dylanchords.
Jaså, en upsaliensare? Dylanchords föddes på Rackarberget :-)
You bring up some interesting questions, which I’ll try to answer.
I don’t necessarily take the threats seriously, so much as the issues involved. The bottom line is: I want the site to be fully legit, which, at the present (or rather: the past) it isn’t (/wasn’t).
Well, how do you know that? I know of others who have had more unpleasant experiences than just an angry email. That’s enough for me to treat this with some caution.
Well, how do I know that? :-)
You’re right, though, that the big, commerical tab sites are the ones who have reason to tremble.
yet another soul who would like the zip file: mjpuczko@gmail.com. thanks everyone. hope everything works out for you eyolf. been a visiter here for years
I have come to enjoy this site not only as a useful and wonderful collection of arrangements but also as a valuable resource for a great musical tradition. Please, protest and fight this! Say “who cares!” Internet tab sites such as this one are the next great trend in the passing of folk music from one soul to another. Please, send me a zip file and I will gladly continue studying and sharing.
eyolf, thank you so much for what you do, this site helps me enormously in learning how to play, and i love dylan so much i couldn’t bear not being able to learn more. if anyone could help with the archive zip file: qussay66@hotmail.com. i’d appreciate it hugely. everything will work out fine eyolf, don’t fret.
This is blows hard, but is understandable.. you got to do what you got to do.. good luck eyolf and thanks for the awesome tabs you provided!!!
If anyone has the zip, count_dragula21@yahoo.com is my email and i’d love a copy. THANKS!
And may the “big commercial tab sites” burn in hell. They are worse than the song books. But this site has been a great resource for me a a Dylan fan and a guitar teacher. I truly hope you find a way to feel secure in continuing your documentary and educational work, Eyolf. Thank you so much for what you have given to the Bob Dylan community.
I think your fears are largely unfounded. We all know the bottom line: money. Are you making or taking money that is rightfully his? Of course not. Can not your free distribution of his songs’ lyrics and/or chords/tabs be construed as advertising Bob Dylan’s music for free? If anyone *should* pay (but I maintain that no one should, or will ever have to), it would be Bob Dylan compensating your for your tireless effort to spread his music throughout the cosmos! What you are doing is making *more* money for Dylan! There is no way you would be found guilty. Only if you were receiving money for distributing his tabs would there ever be a winnable case against you. You worry too much; yeah, Dylan wants your money. Right. I owned a website called memofromturner.net (from The Stones’ Memo From Turner), and the “memofromturner” logo I designed had the Stones Tongue in it. Same thing: Sure, the Stones wanna sue me. C’mon, buddy. In closing, please e-mail me any and all zips pertaining to our subject matter. Remember, you’re the good guy here, and *any* judicious mind would agree. j.ballas@cox.net
i made an open and honest contribution to what i thought was a dialectic and was told my comments “look suspiciously like spam…” thanx from your pal, memo
wow…
such a shame, man…thank you big E for your work, for helping me catch a glimpse of the enormity and power of Dylan’s canon…thankfully, while I was in South America recently, I downloaded your zip file onto my laptop for offline access to your site…I never thought, though, that it’d be the only thing to access. Crazy, crazy world we live in that altruistic work like yours be considered illegal. Someone needs to give Bob a ring so he can step in and say a wry “fuck off” to those who would shut your site down.
Good luck man, hope to see your stuff up and shining again sometime soon
ianwalk.com
I just wanted to say first of all thank you so much for all your work and your wonderful website. We share a great love for Bob Dylan’s music and when I picked up the guitar a couple years ago- I really would not have learned the little I know if it were not for your site. It’s simply an amazing and complete resource, and everything you say in your blog and news updates is just very refreshing- you have a great perspective on Dylan and his music, something that is hard to come by these days. I am confident that this whole thing will blow over and you’ll be able to have things back to normal soon enough- I mean come on, how will Dylan be able to play any of his old stuff without your site…? But seriously, I just wanted to add to the perhaps thousands out there thank you for all your effort and work, and know that your contributions have not gone unnoticed!
Great respect for the author of this site!
Can anyone send me the zip file? I would realy like to share this awesome work with some good people I know.
Thanks!
:-( if anyone still cares can i get the zip? luigiatlarge03@yahoo.com
I am not sure I have understood the situation, but is it clear that the problem reduces to ask Dylan’s permission? I am not sure this is the case, I think Dylan has a certain amount of decisional power on this matter, but for sure also Columbia or whoever Dylan has sold the rights for publishing transcriptions of his music should give its permission…
Anyway it is a pity the site is down, but I agree with Eyolf that there is nothing else to do without taking risks.
As you can see now, the comment is up. See the post “The Irony of Commercialism” for an explanation.
Hi eyolf
I just found out about this and it is very upsetting – but not unexpected. This is copyright gone crazy and there’s probably nothing you’ll (or any of us) be able to do. We jsut have to be smarter. This is just a bunch of f…ing a…holes trying to cash in on music that they have cashed in many times over and still want more. Greed and more greed.
A way round this may be to ask several people to host dylanchords on their own server or the zip file with you publishing the links on your site. You would anly neeed to provide a page where the fans could insert the URL where the zip file can be found or dylachords site is (a moving target for MPA – could be some spamming problem but I’m sure this can be overcome).
Can you send me the zip file.
Also, do you have a donation page where dylachords fan could donate some money for you to get some legal advice.
So sad…. I have spent hours on this site and have actually bought 3 Dylan records since I discovered it. I think it is a shame to remove tabulature sites, because they encourage the purchase of albums, at least in my case. Your unique comprehensive collection of songs makes me want to buy more and more albums so I can learn all the particular arrangements that can only be found on records that you have to purchase. I would absolutely love the zip file, but I understand the number of requests you have had. Hopefully the knowledge that I gained from the time I spent here will give me the ability to learn the songs more easily by ear. If you do face litigation, email me and I will be glad to testify on your behalf. Thanks for everything! -Ike Dingle (ike.dingle@citadel.edu)
Eyolf
Many thanks for the site, I must admit that it was only today that I realised that you had tabbed the entire catalogue by ear!
I can’t proffer much in the way of legal advice. However, a Dylan quote from 1962 seems apt:
“The songs are just there. They exist by themselves, just waiting for someone to write them down. If I don’t do it, someone else would”
I hope common sense prevails.
If there is a chance of the zip file my email is nathan_gopichandran@hotmail.com
thanks to adrian mcmanus for providing download of chords.zip here: http://s64.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3ASMIEX2IODCN33INSVG5CDTVP
really sorry to see this happen to dylanchords
I agree with the many comments posted above, I have found this site to be highly educational and a good way to spend many hours learning great songs. By learning these songs and increasing my exposure to them I have ended up buying quite a few Dylan albums and getting others hooked on them as well. As with everyone else, if someone would be so kind to send me the zip to drhodus@gmail.com I would greatly appreciate it. I hope everything works out and that you and the readers of this site all have a very good holiday!
cheers
This whole damn thing is so stupid and in fact ruined my mood for the evening.
Read once again: Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can “throw in some jail time I think we’ll be a little more effective”.
Well Mr Keiser you, and the music publishing business have for ever lost my respect. I think there is a great difference between Am G F E and a complete score, which in turn is only some other kind of transcription, only more elaborate. And who benefits the most from the sales of sheet music? I think it’s the publishing company, not the artist.
Aargh I’m so mad I can’t think straight.
I’d love to give shelter to dylanchords if I had the means and I do hope you will find a way go get back on track.
you can also get an up-to-date version of it from my webspace..
http://spik3d.com/chords.zip
I-m veru sad with what happens with Dylan´s Chord, cause I´m a great fan of your job. I´m a Brazilian´s Lawer, and if you want put your site in a Brazilian Site, My I can Help You.
If you can send me the zip file I would appreciate it… thanks. My E-mail is afrabarros@hotmail.com
Awful to say the least. You’ve done some great work and have really added to my knowlegde of dylan and my own playing style. Im hoping for the best.
I would love to have the zip. but I do know that your getting more then your fair share of requests for it.
bobdylansblues@hotmail.com
keep fighing the good fight.
AAAAARGGGGGGGG!!!!!! – Is this what the DTs feel like? Thanks so much for this site. I feel like a friend died.
Your webiste and transcriptions have been very helpful to guitar players such as myself. I really hope all works out well.
In addition, I would most appreciatie a copy of the chords zip file, but I am aware of the enormous number of requests. Greatest of thanks for the time and effort you spent on these works.
sgtpepper1396@hotmail.com
Well, like everyone else here, I’ve learned a great deal from your site and feel that all this is bullshit and hope you get back online soon. Your explanations have helped me to understand music to an exponentially greater degree and I know from reading all the comments that I’m not alone. I understand your concern and think it is totally founded, but I also understand everyone else’s side in that your fears may be for nothing, though it would be risky to put the stuff back up. So what do we do now?
Well, I think a good answer to that question would be to ask Bob or a representative of his for permission. So he’s having an XM show? Someone needs to call him up. It doesn’t matter how, just get in contact with someone. It may be tough or it may take a while, but no action gets you nowhere. Just imagine it, being able to proclaim your website is under the protection of Bob Dylan.
I haven´t really learned to appreciate what you´ve done here before it all went down…
This sucks! I understand that you have to close the site but those damn Copyrigh council are a bunch of ignorant fools with no means to appreciate culture… I thought I would take this opportunity to thank you for your cultural deed. I don´t know what I would have done without it,,,,
Been surfing this site for years. It’s the best in the Internet and it renews my faith in Dylan and everybody that loves Dylan every time I visit it. Thanks for a truly amazing job and for giving me hours of entertainment with just me and my guitar.
Oh yeah, please if you could send me the zip files I would truly appreciate it. Then again, maybe I’ll get off my lazy ass and learn the songs for myself. Ok, no. Please send me the zip. Cheers.
I just discovered Dylan a month ago, and I’ve been binging on his music ever since; this is the best site on the web for his music and they CANNOT DO THIS TO ME!!
So in the name of Christmas,
zip files?
I’d be forever indebted.
Hi Eyolf!
Just wanted to say thank you for all your work and Happy Christmas!
Tony Hood, Schönbrunn, Germany