I must admit that I find it irritating when someone posts half a tab and directs the user to another web site to see the complete tab. This means I have to maintain an external "My Favorite Tabs" list if I want access to the location of the full tab.
But, I don't believe it is right to copy the original author's work and present it as one's own with out any acknowledgement of the work of the original author.
A blatant copy is easily recognisable if spacing, puntuation, spelling errors etc. are faithfully reproduced in a later tab.

Search for song author "Jimmy Cliff" or song title "Hey Jude" to see examples.

I think a lot of us use the words copied from others on this site for our version of the song's tabs, I know I do. Most of us probably get the words from various lyrics sites. We all give credit to the original performer, if not always the writer of the song. I've never seen anyone trying to take credit for the actual song. As far as the gentleman who put partial tabs here with a redirect, I applaud him and the work he's done for the harp, I enjoy his site and visit it often.

I agree that when something is in the public domain like song lyrics, it is not necessary to acknowledge the source.
But I believe that if someone simply takes (or extends/ lighly enhances) a tab from this (or another site) and posts it under his/her own name without acknowledging the original tab author's work, then that is wrong even if there are good reasons for "re-posting" it.

To make my point more clearly, I believe that (unless it is a genuine coincidence) in the example below, tab author 2 should have acknowledged the work of tab author 1. The similarity is not confined to the short extract appearing in the example.

from tab author 1 ...

7 -8 8 -9 8 -8 7 8 7 6
I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
7 -8 8 -9 -9 8 -8 -7 7 -8
I can see all obstacles in my way.


later from tab author 2 ...

7 -8 8 -9 8 -8 7 8 7 6
I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
7 -8 8 -9 -9 8 -8 -7 7 -8
I can see all obstacles in my way.


separately, I agree entirely with you about the good work and contribution that (well, in this case tab author 1) has made and also often visit his site.

This sort of thing has been going on for all the time I've been on this site. I know a certain percentage of it is probably innocent as I've often seen people ask for a song only to have someone else on the site redirect them to it already on the site. Another bunch just want to get a song on the list, perhaps something they really care for, but has been done. Some think rules are meant to be broken. The way I think about it is; it isn't doing any real harm and it isn't taking any content away, and it isn't going to stop. If anything calling out the culprit usually just causes anger to rear its ugly head. One of the wonderful things about this site is "no flame wars".

I have only been here a couple months more than walt and have to agree that the ones doing it just to break rules don't want to hear it and really don't care, the ones that post it by mistake will probably remove it if asked to. Anyway here is my take on this, the first person to post this did only a partial posting of the song and later revised his post, and still left it as a partial song, probably to get you to go to his site to get the rest of the song and view his other songs, nothing wrong with that. The second poster just did the same song except that he put it in the correct key and he posted the entire song so that you could play the entire tab from this site and not have to go somewhere else to get the rest of the song, nothing wrong with that since the original tab wasn't complete. The third poster did the song using two harps, therefore making it different than the other two that were here, enough of a change that it wasn't just copying the other tabs. And of course the fourth poster did it in chromatic making it different. All gave credit to the beatles for doing the original song. So in this case I think that they are all fine. We have had ones that are the exact same song just the title is a little different, which is forced by the system as it does not allow the exact same title to be posted more than once, so there was no doubt that they copied and pasted the original one and then claimed it as there tab, the ones that do this fortunately aren't ususally on the site for very long, they just copy a few tabs that someone else did and then vanish, unless someone starts commenting on it, then they stay around just for the fight.

Yukon is exactly right about the variations of songs.

When we find duplicates, though, we either PM the "author" and ask him to delete or go straight to Nick about it.

Thanks Yukon, but I do not completely share your opinion.
I have to go back to the example (but only breifly) because it is useful to illustrate the point I am trying to make about aknowledegement of sources. I am not interested in hammering the individual involved because his motives may have been "innocent" *(see below).

Your "second" poster appears not only to have "[done] the same song", he appears to have copied it verbatim from the external web site of "poster 1" and because he has not acknowledged the source, he has effectively presented it as his own work (and achieved a number of views/points as a result).

Now, creating a tab usually involves some skill/effort (and for beginners like me a lot of time). If others copy or otherwise profit from this work, I believe they should at least acknowledge its source.

I see a couple of solutions ...

1. A sort of "Harptabs" etiquette document which somehow deals with the issue of acceptable copying, acknowledgement of sources etc. This could supplement a document describing a standardized nomenclature for tabs (every one seems to use their own - but that is another issue).

2. A possibility to comment on tabs ... "Thanks for that!" , "looks like a duplicate of www.xxxxx.com/AbwSSe3x" etc.


* It may be OK for "poster 2" to copy a tab from an obscure and little known web site to make it available to the larger audience of Harptabs (open for debate) but it is hard on "poster 1" if his objective was to use his post on Harptabs as a sort of bait to get people to go to his web site. Doubly so if his work has been copied wholesale without any acknowledgment of his own contribution.

Hello all I have copied and pasted some lyrics & part tabs to Complete partial tabs for my own & other peoples benefit..
I have also spent many many hours producing original tabs which I post on this site only.
Many of the tabs I have spent Hours working out have been copied & pasted to sites all over the world...."SO WHAT" I wanted to share the tabs anyhow..I don't care if someone wants to share a tab,or copy & paste it on their own page or site,or call it their own good luck to them...as long as its not duplicated on Harptabs.....totally pointless.
The only one who can take credit for the song is the "Original Artist"
The tabs we produce are only interpretations of the Original Song..

Hi dino, it is always good to hear from you, and hearing this from you is better than me giving my opinion.

meanon, we do have a tab guide (on the left side of the page) posted by mmolino54, that gives guidelines on how to post a tab, not exactly what you are referring to though, if you have something in mind as to how you would word it, then post it here in the harptabs forum so that we would all be able to give you our comments and suggestions on this and if something is acceptable to the majority of the members then you could get in touch with Nick (the webmaster) and see how to get it posted on the homepage if he agreed to it.

As for commenting on tabs, as gene said send a PM to the person or go to Nick and let him decide, I believe that a comment section to tabs is not a good idea, because like some features that are here, it would not get used much, and when we do get our occasional new member that is just looking to cause problems they could use that to make their attacks on whomever they decide to attack leaving a bunch of rude comments there and then Nick would end up spending time going through and clearing out all the needless comments. I have had people send me a PM thanking me for tabs that I have done and I have also gotten them where someone asked if I was sure that it was right, at which point I sent them a message back saying, yes I am right or I made a mistake and I will correct it, so at least for me the PM system has worked. This helps keeps it more private and not as confrontational.

Another thing is that someone who is copying and pasting just to get credit, if you look at their profile you will find many if not all their tabs are copies and there won't be many tabs (as they seem to get bored quickly and then move on), poster 2 (as we call him) has over 300 tabs and has been active here for 4 years, he doesn't fit the profile of someone who is trying to get credit for others work, just one of our members that has kept this site going with his great works.

Yukon....
all this 'looking at profiles' stuff makes you sound like a detective. lol

Meanon, welcome to the site, good to see a post that has urged us into a good discussion, well done.

I initially thought, when meanon suggested it, that commenting on tabs would be a good idea but....having thought about it, I do think as Yukon has said it can attract rude comments. An example of this is youtube, it encourages , I will say people, but they are morons, to leave offensive, useless and hurtfull comments.
In the time I have been here we have had a various breeds of wasters who have nothing better to do than post offensive and nonsense comments.

meanon said .............'I don't believe it is right to copy the original author's work and present it as one's own with out any acknowledgement of the work of the original author.'

Neither do I but it happens everywhere on the net, example...... google images, how many times do we copy images without acknowlement to the original author? I just think if people don't want anything to be coppied don't put it openly on the net. Most of the time they don't mind.



Post Edited (2010-10-04 16:02:35)

There has been a history of tabs being posted here without permission. The tabs you see with the reference to other websites with only a partial tab are generally like that from the early days when we had issues with other site owners coming here and demanding their work be removed. I would have them create an account and anything which they determined was their work and proved to me it was theirs I would assign to their user account. This gave them access to do what they wanted with the tabs and they often only did a sampling and link to their site... basically using it as free advertising for them.

Now that the site has grown so much it is just impossible to track all of the tabs which have been posted so unless I receive a complaint I don't even look for duplicates and copied tabs.