G-D-Am -- G-D-C

I have just broken the law, according to wankers at the NMPA and the MPA. Why? Because those are the chords to "Knockin' On Heaven's Door", by Bob Dylan, and guitar tablature is the music industry's latest target.

This one hits me close to home, since I'm an "aspiring" guitarist (that adjective is so much nicer than "sucky"), and I've learned a HUGE amount by visiting sites like Guitar Tab Universe and playing along with my legally purchased music. I also happen to like their response.

Now, I totally understand how the music industry wants to protect itself from illegal downloads. I happen to agree with them on copyright in certain respects - no one is going to produce anything without some sort of compensation. Producing music in particular can be VERY expensive, and just covering the costs of a studio album means charging for music.

But this is beyond ridiculous, as I hope the title of the post conveys. We're talking about instructions on how to play a song - not the whole song, of course - only the guitar part. Yes, there is a small industry that publishes official songbooks that may be hurt by this, but that's not who these groups are claiming to protect.

Anyway, this is clearly less about protecting musicians than it is trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of every last song (how else can you justify charging for a text document that tells you how to play along with a 40-year-old song?). It's pretty clear the music industry has lost its mind at this point, and they're simply going to alienate more and more people from their cause with their overzealousy.

And remember: Em-D-C (verse) -- G-D-C (chorus)! (That's "Keep On Rockin' In The Free World ;-)")

--YY