But here is the ethical rub: most of these books are dead . They are out of print. The rights have reverted to authors who have since passed away, or the publishers don't even exist anymore. VK acts as a preservation society for orphaned works.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just found a PDF of a 1978 guitar method written by a session musician in Leningrad. The exercises are in Cyrillic. I have no idea what "Бенд на целый тон" means, but it sounds fast. Do you use VK for guitar tabs? Or do you think it’s killing the industry? Sound off in the comments (but please, no DMCA notices). guitar books vk
Then, around 2010, something changed. Russian users of VK began scanning everything. VK is different from Western platforms. While Reddit bans links to copyrighted material and Facebook auto-flags PDF uploads, VK operates on a different cultural logic. In the post-Soviet digital space, information—especially educational information—is viewed almost as a public utility. But here is the ethical rub: most of these books are dead
No, I’m not talking about the social network where you share memes with your cousins in Minsk. I’m talking about VKontakte as the digital Alexandria of guitar pedagogy. It is the largest, most chaotic, most legally ambiguous, and most comprehensive guitar library the world has ever seen. VK acts as a preservation society for orphaned works
The standard workflow for a guitarist for the last 30 years was: See a cool book > Check the price > Realize it’s out of print > Check eBay > See it listed for $200 because some guy in Ohio hoarded five copies > Cry.