Is Free Tablature Illegal?

According to today's New York Times, music publishers are suing free guitar tablature websites for violating the copyrights of their guitar tab books and songbooks.

"Jacqueline C. Charlesworth, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Music Publishers’ Association, would not comment on the legality of specific sites, including Ultimate-Guitar, but she said she had seen no international licensing agreements that might make free United States distribution of guitar tablature legal."

This is ridiculous. As copyright law currently stands, lyrics and melodies are protected intellectual property. Thus, sheet music or lead sheets cannot be freely duplicated without obtaining the rights to do so from the publisher (be it a company or an individual). However, chord changes are not protected. Some have argued, conspiratorially speaking, that the fact that grooves, beats, chord changes and bass lines are not protected by copyright has discriminated against African American musicians who came up with them, while songwriters and lyricists have earned well from their stake in the works. There's some truth to that--honestly, many of today's hits are more a function of the overall groove than the melody or lyric. However, that also discredits the legions of black composers who have published their songs. The implication is that music's intellectual property is disproportionately owned by corporate interests and European American writers. Well, that may be true, but in any case, I don't think it's relevant to this argument.

On the other hand, the harmonic structures of popular music are quite universal, so determining who first came up with a chord sequence derived from, say, the blues, would be difficult if not impossible.

Tablature is just a form of chord chart. The versions that are out there, mostly submitted by individuals, are of widely varying quality. Speaking as a musician, however, it's often quite useful to see lyrics and tablature online, especially for songs that are out of print or foreign. I still own shelves and shelves of music books, and often will invest in sheet music (purchased online or from a book store) once I've found something I like online. This seems like yet another desperate grab for cash from corporations dismayed by the democratization of information online.