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Ultimate-Guitar stealing our work
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…and I also seem to remember, from the dim and distant past, this subject came up before and there are tabs on BBT that were lifted directly from U G, so who's going to cast the first stone?
Actually a bunch of them were lifted from bassmasta.com right before it went offline. I personally, have never taken, manually or programmatically, a single tab from UG.
Me either. My shit's all original, yo.
Also, I spent the last hour on UG and found another dozen or so tabs of mine they've stolen.
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Actually a bunch of them were lifted from bassmasta.com right before it went offline. I personally, have never taken, manually or programmatically, a single tab from UG.
Is it worth you contacting UG, tab site to tab site to try and come to some sort of understanding?
I know how you blokes feel, I really do, let me tell you a little story. My dad was a professional entertainer, he started out doing stand up in WMCs in northern industrial towns, singing, playing the piano and telling jokes, he eventually won a national tv talent show and had some small tv parts, he had a couple of parts in Britains longest running tv soap, Coronation Street, he also wrote scripts for them. He encouraged me to do some scriptwriting and eventually I got an idea for a plot line, it involved bringing back a popular character from the 70s who returned to the street with a terminal illness so he could be near his family when the end came. It had been on my mind for weeks and I wrote it out in no time at all. I posted it to the script department, coronation street, Granada tv, Manchester. I was amazed to receive a reply which only took a couple of weeks. They said thanks for your interest in their show but they had a team of pro writers and never used input from the public. So I rolled the letter up and tossed it in the bin and forgot about it. About three months later while I was at work my wife rang me to tell me she was in the newsagents, the front page of the TV Times announced the return of my character to Coronation Street, they used my storyline, they even tracked the original actor down who'd moved to California after leaving the show, the used my story word for word! I wrote to the twats but they denied any knowledge of receiving my letter. They stole the idea that came from my head, I made it what it was, I wasn't re writing something that already existed, it was mine. I felt sick and it's still painful to go through it all again.
So cheer up lads, it's not the end of the world
I have an almost identical story. I grew up writing and drawing my own comics. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a damn good artist, and had won a number of art competitions all through grade, middle and high school and into my early ‘20s. I spent most of my youth studying – poring over books and magazines on anatomy, creative design, perspective, architecture. Anything that I thought would make me a better artist, I poured myself into it. Back in the mid-90s, when I was about 25, a comics company which I won’t name was advertising for new pencilers. They provided a sample script, asking for artists to submit three complete, polished pages of pencils. It was my dream since childhood to be a comic book artist, so I drew up my three pages, some of the best work I'd ever done, and sent it off. Got a very polite “we enjoyed your work but it's not what we're looking for” response. A few months pass. I pick up an issue of the comic the sample script was based upon and what do I see but my three pages. Not my art – but the exact number of panels, the exact page layouts, panel arrangements, close-ups, building designs, character poses, everything. Essentially, they had one of their artists redraw my three pages, but in his own style – a style which, incidentally, was vastly inferior to mine. Seeing my three pages hijacked by an inferior artist effectively murdered my desire to be a comic book artist. So much for what had up to that point been my life's dream.
So maybe now you understand why I get so fucking pissed when people steal my shit and try to take credit for MY hard work. And tabbing is hard work, when you want to do it right. I put as much attention and detail into my tabs as I used to put into my artwork, and some fucking punk-ass bitch comes here, hijacks my shit and tries to take credit for it somewhere else? @$!# that. Maybe some of you guys think I'm overreacting. I don't care. From my own subjective perspective, my anger is justified.
When a moderator breaks the forum rules to get his message across then you know he's not kidding! Yes, something needs to be done about it but what? If UG have no scruples about publishing work from someone else and claiming all the credit then we are all screwed. The worst part is that UG are guitar oriented and don't have bass tabs for all their songs, the fact they come to a specialist site to rob them is unforgivable.
When I watched Ray Langton draw his last breath in the Rovers Return…along with eight million other viewers I felt like I'd been butt fucked. I'm on your side mate
I've thought of an idea but how much effect it will have I don't know, it's what we should have done with our artwork Lon. Print off all your future tabs and post them about ten at a time to yourself in a sealed envelope and don't open it. Also, write, ‘Warning, copyright exists’ at the top of your tabs and if any turn up on UG, threaten the bastards until they remove them.
Straws and clutching I know but worth a shot
Unfortunately “poor man's copyright” doesn't hold up well in court, but I appreciate the input. I wish the person doing it was my next door neighbor. Then I could just walk over and tell him, “Hey, @$!#-face, steal my shit again and I'll put your teeth down your throat.” Online, all you can do is cry about it like a little girl with a skinned knee. But since that's all I can do, I do it lol
My only advice is when you submit your tabs in here, submit them to UG too. I know it may suck to do so but at least you know it's you doing it & not someone else. You can still add the tabbed for BBT on your tab. By doing that you stop future stealing of your tabs.
Also any tabs that have yet to be stolen from BBT, add them to UG quick smart. Out smart the thieves.
The reason I left UG in the first place is their restrictive tabbing standards. After having several tabs rejected based solely on format (despite my format being clean and easy to follow, if I say so myself) I started looking around and found this place.
What's odd is that the thieves are basically copying and pasting my tabs – with my format intact – and UG is accepting them. They won't approve my format when I submit, but they'll approve my format when a thief submits it? How does that make sense?
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