Fakebooks still persist these days in the shape and form of PDF torrents of songbooks. Just go on Amazon and search for your artists (e.g., Adele/White Stripes/Eric Clapton) and chances there is an official songbook for their albums and corresponding seeded torrent. With YouTube version/lessons of the songs and PDF of the song tabulature, someone can learn to play a lot of classic's and modern songs. I should also add, Eric Clapton shouldn't get mad as that's exactly what he did back in his teenage days (source: "Clapton" autobiography), playing back to the blues greats on his recorder and replicating their songs exactly without paying any royalty.
I'm a jazz musician, and even within the last few years, I've seen musicians pull out pages copied from those old Tune-Dex cards.
>>>>> The law had attempted to express a prohibition but that prohibition had been repeatedly ignored, and hereafter it would be permanently ignored. There were no further federal trials surround-ing bootleg fake books. Compared to the new problems raised by record and movie piracy from the 1970s onward, prosecuting fake-books was no longer worth the effort.
Today, the most common mechanism for enforcement of performance rights for copyrighted songs is to go after the venues that host live music, rather than the musicians themselves. A restaurant or bar that hosts live music will get a visit from a representative of ASCAP or BMI, to arrange for a license that covers the performances of musicians.
Reminds me of the time in grade 3 my music teacher told me about Mozart and how he was arrested as a kid for transcribing a song he heard because people thought he "stole" it. I thought no way adults are this stupid.
