Note: This announcement is of interest only if you have posted a lesson containing the bass parts to a copyrighted song.

ActiveBass sincerely apologizes if you were under the impression that the lesson directory is a repository for creating tabbed basslines or solos from copyrighted songs by your favorite bands, video games, TV shows, etc.

If there's a known player who you admire, and you wish to clue in other bassists about what interests you about their playing, then we strongly encourage you to create "In the style of..." lessons, in which you present original musical examples that are similar to musical ideas that this player plays, but which are not exact transcriptions of known copyrighted songs.

If you look at our publishing guidelines for lessons, and your member agreement, you'll see that it is inappropriate to post music from copyrighted songs without permission from the author. From the publishing guidelines, and I quote:

It's important to understand that ActiveBass CANNOT be a repository for tabs of your favorite band's tunes. The music and lyrics to those tunes (and most popular music) are protected by copyright and only its authors or those who have been granted permission by the author can create alternative versions of these songs (and bass tablature, unfortunately, qualifies as an alternative version). Publishing tablature of a copyrighted tune also does not qualify as "fair use", nor can it be considered educational material. We don't make the rules, but unfortunately, we do have to live by them. ActiveBass hopes that you will respect this policy and not publish any versions of copyrighted material to which you do not have permission. Of course, you can publish any of your own musical creations, copyrighted or not, and anyone else's material to which you have permission.

Until now, we have relied on the honor system for adhering to these guidelines, and the first 100 or so lessons on the site were authored within these bounds. However, the amount of copyright infringment in the lessons has since spiraled out of control.

Because of the threat of legal action against the site, over the next several days, we will be unpublishing every lesson that does not adhere to the site guidelines. If you have authored one of these lessons, you'll still be able to view it for your own educational purposes, but it will not be publicly available. Note that this will not apply to any lessons that cover classical tunes, since they are in the public domain. You can view the current definition of "public domain" in our publishing guidelines for lessons.

Again, we apologize if you were under impression that posting tabs to copyrighted songs is OK. We know the generosity of spirit and amount of work it takes to create and publish an informative lesson, and regret if this causes you any frustration.

Thanks for listening.