I'll tell you what, tabs are handy when teaching. And, as far as I know, it's legal to use tabs when teaching. I could be wrong though. But when I taught guitar (I wanna start up again some time soon) I could have up to 40 songs every week to work out for students who wanted to learn their favourite songs. Sometimes I'd do it by ear, but tabs made things much easier when I was stuck for time. It would suck big time if that resource was no longer there.