[michaelfeathers]

I wonder what the RIAA thinks of someone amassing a database of the chord patterns of 1300 popular songs.

[rexreed]

As long as the songs are not distributed and the database owner owns the songs, then what's the issue? Generic analysis of chord progressions are not copyrightable, altho tabs for specific songs in print probably are, but I don't think these are specific song tabs. (but if chord progressions were software, they'd probably be patentable... sigh).

[glenntzke]

It's the Music Publisher's Association (MPA) that cares about tabs and copyright infringement. The relevant wiki link for some case studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablature#Legal_issues