Steal This File Sharing Book: What They Wont Tell You About File Sharing

Very few musicians make money from their music, and fewer still would be called wealthy. Many aspiring guitarists who can’t afford lessons or songbooks, but who still want to learn the latest Steve Vai licks, drop by the alt.binaries. guitar.tab newsgroup. This newsgroup contains scanned-in tablature showing chords, guitar leads, bass tracks, and other music for specific songs and bands. Blues legend Robert Johnson’s work, for instance, appears in Figure 15-2.

Figure 15-2: Guitar players scan in tablature from popular songs and swap them on Usenet’s alt.binaries. guitar.tab forum.

Once copied and stored on a computer, these music charts are easy to print out and carry in a guitar case or give away to friends during jams. Most importantly to starving musicians, such charts are free.