OLGA

For other uses, see Olga (disambiguation).

OLGA is an acronym for On-line Guitar Archive, the oldest internet library of guitar and bass tablature, or "tabs". Born from a collection of guitarist internet-forum archives, it has been a useful resource for musicians of all genres for over a decade.

History

The website began its life in the newsgroups rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature[1] and alt.guitar.tab[2], where users would post tabs they had written or requests for tabs of certain songs or artists. The problem was that after a few days, the contents of the forum would be aged (i.e. removed). Around 1992 the posts were collected together by James Bender at UNLV into an ftp site that later became www.OLGA.net, the project's current home. In 1994 Cathal Woods took over the project as archivist and is still in charge today.

In 1996, EMI Publishing filed a complaint with UNLV, claiming that the archive was in breach of copyright law with songs they had the rights to. Although OLGA was never threatened directly, UNLV kicked the project off its server. Then in 1998, after a new home for the site was found, OLGA received a similar copyright complaint from the Harry Fox Agency. As a result, OLGA was forced to shut down, re-emerging later as OLGA incorporated, a registered non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the archive and providing for its bandwidth. The site prior to this final move is preserved as "the old archive," and contributions since the move are stored in "the new archive".

In June 2006 they received a take down letter from lawyers representing the NMPA and the MPA[3].

The future of OLGA is in doubt as the Harry Fox Agency has begun a contract with Musicnotes.com to license many popular songs for free chord sheets, tablature, lyrics, and sheet music dissemination.^[1]

Contributing

As in the newsgroup days, OLGA is still a volunteer-run non-profit project; tablature is provided free of charge, and anyone can submit tabs they have written to the site. To be a candidate for the archive, a file must be the author's own work (i.e., interpretation of how to play the song) and cannot have been derived from a published music book, otherwise inclusion in OLGA would constitute a copyright violation.

The site accepts music in strict ASCII format, with file suffixes: *.crd, *.tab, *.pro and *.txt; they do not accept *.doc or *.wps files. See the site's submitting FAQ for details.

Current status

In 2006, the Archive removed all 34,000 tablatures on the site.^[2] A note posted on the site indicated that those running the site had received "a 'take down' letter from lawyers representing the National Music Publishers Association and the Music Publishers' Association", according to the linked letter on the front page.^[3] In the letter it is stated that OLGA "makes available tablature versions of copyrighted musical compositions owned or controlled by members of the NMPA and MPA" ^[4]

Although in late 2007, the site indicates that the shutdown may only be temporary while OLGA attempts to resolve legal issues, the long time archivist for the site has indicated that the situation is permanent. On a personal web site he states, "For twelve years I ran OLGA - the On-Line Guitar Archive. RIP."^[5]

See also

• Trade group efforts against file sharing
• Guitar
• Sheet music
• Music notation

References

1. ^ Legal guitar tabs return to the web
2. ^ "Discord over guitar sites" by Jonathan Duffy from the BBC News, Sept. 1, 2006
3. ^ The On-Line Guitar Archive
4. ^ http://www.olga.net/060621-nmpa-p1of6.jpg
5. ^ comment at Cathal Woods faculty page (retrieved 11-28-2007)

External links

• The OLGA homepage