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Or just took a book from English and translated it into French. Who owns the copyright on that?

The original author. Translation is not creating a new work.

https://copyright.uslegal.com/enumerated-categories-of-copyr...

It is trickier than you present - both original author and translator own copyright, and you need get permission from both (unless you are in one of cases where copyright does not matter).

In some cases original copyright expired but translator copyright still applies.

To put another way, if you do not have permission of the original author it is a derivative work, there is no valid copyright(at least in the US, but also in many other countries). It is only if the translation(or any derivative work) was made with permission that it is protected by copyright

Are you sure? I agree that if original work has an active copyright then in usual case you need permission from whoever owns it.

But if I make translation, then I may be unable to distribute i. But in exactly the same way original author would need to have my permission to distribute translation.

>Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work. The owner of a copyright is generally the author or someone who has obtained the exclusive rights from the author. In any case where a copyrighted work is used without the permission of the copyright owner, copyright protection will not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully

https://copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

if I create subtitles for a film in a different language, who's the author?

You, but it's a derived work, you can't distribute it legally without permission from whoever owns copyright on the film. (not a lawyer)

You can't distribute song text either. The difference is most of the people are not musically literate, easier to oppress.

I disagree with your book comparison. Tabs describe a piece of music, in particular, a specific part of it (guitar). A rewritten book based on another book is not a description in this sense. In my (non-legal) opinion, tablature should not be copyrightable because several people could write the same exact sequences without each other’s knowledge and there would be no way to prove who created the work first.

But in this case he’s not writing his own song that just happens to sound exactly like another song (which is an entirely new can of legal worms); he’s stating that his intention is to create a print representation of an existing song. So your argument falls apart on those grounds.

My argument doesn’t fall apart at all. Creating a “print representation”, in this case tablature, of an existing song is and should be perfectly legal. If no one was allowed to transcribe someone else’s music, be it chord charts, musical scores, or tablature, then musicians could not function unless they all played by ear and memorized everything. The issue here is that he’s monetizing the tabs, which brings into question who “owns” the tabs. Nobody does, because copyright law does not define tablature as derivative work, although lots of music publishing industry lawyers would have you believe otherwise.

> If I took a film, and re-enacted the scenes, does my film infringe upon the original film?

There’s a good movie about this premise:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Kind_Rewind

First hour is brilliant, then they didnt know where to go from there so can skip the last 30min (in my opinion)

Yeah, it’s good, not great. I think it’s light and fun enough to give a watch.

If I sing a song copyright belongs to author. If I play a music copyright belongs to author. If I read book copyright belongs to author. If I draw a character copyright belongs to author. If I play a scene copyright belongs to author.

Obviously there is a difference between copyright and infringement. Or DMCA should take down playgrounds.

Can one make a business by printing copyrighted music score/tabs? No.

Can one educate playing music with copyrighted tabs? Yes, fair use allows with limitations [1], somewhat similar to libraries not ready for digital age.

[1] https://nafme.org/my-classroom/copyright/copyright-law-what-...

In the book analogy it's closer to transcribing an audio book.

In the film analogy, it's closer to Shrek Retold[1](ignoring parody).

[1] Shrek Retold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM70TROZQsI

> If I took a film, and re-enacted the scenes, does my film infringe upon the original film?

You'd be infringing on the copyright of the script.

You need to delete the FBI warning! And be kind, rewind

> If I took someone's game, recreated it from scratch, and made a youtube video tutorial, "how to make this game including indistinguishable graphics, textures and gameplay" would the resulting video be infringing?

Key on this one is indistinguishable but there are many Minecraft clone type games by fans and Satisfactory is basically Factorio in 3D and the authors admit being inspired by Factorio. The other reality is that its also at the copyright owners discretion to make it an issue. Course if its fully original graphics it makes it harder to argue for copyright infringement I am sure.

Those aren't very good examples. They're way different and I don't think anyone is claiming satisfactory is infringing anything.

I would go to OpenRCT2, which specifically has you copy over the graphics from a genuine copy of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, and OpenTTD, which includes new graphics in place of the ones from Transport Tycoon Deluxe. However, no one actually knows if this is enough of a difference to matter. It's more about convincing the original creator to ignore it than actually being legally robust.

And then for non-game software we have Java in Android.

> who owns the copyright to my creation?

It is better to think about whose rights would be infringed if your edited version were published. If you were to publish your edited version, then you would infringe the original author's rights in the original. However, if the original author were to publish your edited version, then he would infringe your rights in your edits.

> if the language stated "similar to" and the resultant product was distinguishable in some way, I think it wouldn't infringe.

The question of infringement isn't whether the alleged copy is distinguishable from the original, it is whether the copy contains elements that are "substantially similar" to copyrighted elements of the original. (Note: "Substantial similarity" is a specific legal term of art in copyright law.)

I think you're right about straight transcriptions (which the person you replied to was indeed talking about), but the guy in the OP link creates his own arrangements for solo guitar. Although these use all the essential features of the original song, they are very different from note-for-note transcriptions of the recording.

So now he’s violating the songwriter’s copyright instead of the artist’s.

Possibly; I don't know the law. I didn't mean that as any kind of legal defence, just a note that the discussion around direct transcription/reproduction doesn't have so much direct relevance here.

Actually afaik in Germany the music itself (not just the perfomance) is protected. If you go on stage and sing a song you have to pay the (holder of the) composer(s copyright)