Posted by Napster Faker on June 18, 2001 at 06:33:24:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: The "I like beer" polka. posted by Greg Crider on June 18, 2001 at 00:39:57:
The real fake books were sold in back alleys and by petty slime people who had gotten unauthorized copies of the tunes as described above. They were the 1930s and 1940s version of Napster. The money properly going to the composers was never paid and went in to the pockets of the crooks who copied the music.
Eventually a service (I think it was called TuneDex) was started that legitimately put these lead lines and changes out in a weekly service so entertainers could keep up with the new releases. So the next fake books' generation was copies of the TuneDex "cards" (they came as 5x8 cards), two to a sheet, reproduced and three holed in to a looseleaf binder. While TuneDex paid royalties, the copied books didn't so more theft of intellectual property occurred. There was a time when people were arrested for using fake books but this is all been legitimized, now and they are used quite openly.
Geeze, we sure had fun in the old days, didn't we? If any of you young wise guys ask how this was different than Napster, I can't answer except for scale. The theft was not so frequent but it was theft, all the same.