The Grateful Dead vs. Archive.org 395
An anonymous reader writes "E! Online has an article about friction between archive.org and the surviving members of the Grateful Dead. They have come to an amicable understanding after some confusion involving online bootlegs." From the article: "A week after some of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead ordered a nonprofit site to remove free downloads of the seminal jam band's concerts--sparking massive online backlash and a Deadhead petition calling for a boycott of all band-related merchandise--the band has reversed its position. 'The Grateful Dead remains as it always has--in favor of tape trading,' spokesman Dennis McNally tells the Associated Press. "
WWJD (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WWJD (Score:5, Interesting)
This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.
Still, somehow the above copyright notice was revoked, and after Guthries death, the song passed into ownership of a record label, that claims ownership to it.
I am a strong beliver in the capitalist system and right to own property, but that right _must_ include the right to give property away.
Re:WWJD (Score:2)
Re:WWJD (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WWJD (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WWJD (Score:5, Insightful)
Jerry and the rest of the band were part of the idealized Haight Asbury community. Although it later collapsed into hard drugs and violence the community was visualized as one where everything was shared in common. This is expressed in their song Box of Rain, "What can I do for you to see you through ..."
The Grateful Dead like most of the others of the 60's counter culture eventually became part of the main stream, signed a record deal (for which they were chastised at the time by many Haight-Asburians as sell outs) and went to work, making money from touring, record sales and merchandise sales. The taping of the shows was a carryover from the ideal days of the late 60's. "Hey we are just here making music, if you want to sit in front with a tape recorder that's cool with us."
The tape network grew over the year as tapers traded recordings of shows. However, this was a network which required a "buy in" of having some tapes that you made your self or that you scored from a friend.
The internet and digital media changed all that. It was now easy for someone to put their recordings on a web site where any one could download them. There was no re-precocity involved. This has led to many who have never attend a show to build up a sizable collection of recordings. (Including, admittedly, Bodhicat himself)
I don't really have any conclusion to this. Should the 60's ideals be carried over into the internet? Should the "surviving members" be willing to give up profits from CD sales to preserve these ideas? Who owns music? "Its just sounds in the air, man." In the sixties there was an idea that everything should be free, can these ideals be carried over into the digital age?
Re:WWJD (Score:2, Interesting)
To extend the debate, I have been downloading and burning Dave Matthews shows like crazy. They are widely available, easy to find, and for the most part, are very high quality. I've seen one of
Re:WWJD (Score:4, Informative)
The taping of concerts is a tradition Jerry picked up from his days as a bluegrass musician. You may not know it, but Jerry started out on the banjo, and was rather good at it too. What the internet did for the grateful dead's boots, it also did for these old bluegrass tapes. Check out Bluegrassbox [bluegrassbox.com] and The Steam Powered Preservation Society [thespps.org].
Re:WWJD (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Surprisingly large protest (Score:5, Informative)
Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:4, Interesting)
The Dead made their money the right way -- by performing a service for their customers worthy of continual profits. No job requires copyyright.
I don't believe in copyright as I don't see how anyone can use Congress and the courts to enforce income on non-continuing work. It is ridiculous.
The Dead's backtrack on their standards shows how corrupting law can be. How a band that has made millions over decades could turn is beyond me. The law is culpable -- the temptation to forcibly control what isn't in your possession is that strong.
I think this could be a huge blow to that scene (as well as the aging of the fanbase and the unconstitutional drug laws). I've been supporting (financially) only bands who don't support copyright, and I'm meeting and convincing more bands to forgo the protections in order to command a higher ticket price. Give away 1000 CDs ($215), include your next 4 months concert schedule and ask for $1 more per ticket. If the music is good, you'll profit with no use of force.
The strict anarchocapitalist view hoods that property rights are what sets all other rights. Property is physical, not ethereal. Once the physical item is bartered, you lose control of that particular item. Copyright started as a 7 year protective mechanism solely for the creator. We can see that all legal coercion is bad as there are no checks on the extension of power.
(note I blogged about this today)
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright is a privilege that is extended to the creator of a work as an incentive to release those works into the public. The holder of the copyright is granted an exclusive monopoly on distribution for a time. This is a fair incentive, IMHO, so long as the work eventually reverts to the public domain. The current term of copyright is absurd, but unfortunately it is within the law (even if it doesn't adhere to the spirit of the law).
I'm not so sure that anarchocapitalism applies here, since we're not talking about a physical object. But I agree on your main point-- copyright doesn't need to be the main vehicle for profit. Obviously, this is something that people in IT a realizing about now; look at all the people out there making money on permissive copyrights! Amazing.
As a side note, someone came to me yesterday asking how to move raw PCM data recorded on VHS tape (44.03 kHz) to a computer. Apparently, he has amassed a large collection ("hundreds") of Grateful Dead bootlegs in digital format. He was wondering if he could transfer them digitally to his hard disk-- I really had no idea. Anyone ever heard of this before? He said that bootleggers used to show up with all kinds of crazy recording equipment.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:4, Informative)
As for the PCM data recorder on VHS, the hardware to extract it will not be cheap. I messed with these devices in the 80s as a cheap data backup for the PC:
http://www.merlineng.com/ME-981_991.html [merlineng.com]
http://www.gracey.com/descriptions/teac-5000-d1.h
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
I agree, property is all about physical objects. But we're not talking about property, we're talking about copyright. Are you saying that a monopoly on distribution can only apply to physical objects? Even if that's a tenet of anarchocapitalism (which I'm admittedly not familiar with), it seems to be wrong: we currently allow a monopoly on dist
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:3, Interesting)
You can have him e-mail me and I can probably find him a service that will retrieve the data. I'm sure he can pay per linear foot or megabyte.
I agree, property is all about physical objects. But we're not talking about property, we're talking about copyright. Are you saying that a monopoly on distribution can only apply to physical objects?
No, I am s
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:4, Insightful)
Writer? To be fair, my understanding is that many authors make a lot of their money from book signings. But if you write books on, say, "Home septic installation made easy" I somehow doubt the local independent bookstore is going to arrange a signing. Likewise, it's going to be difficult getting an advance on your work if the publisher can't be granted exclusive rights to it, and you can't sell the rights to Hollywood if there is no law against simply stealing the story.
I'm not saying that means that Stephen King's great-great grandchildren need to be collecting royalty checks on "The Shining" at 117 years old, but it's hard to see how writing would work if there was nothing to prevent someone from taking your work without compensation.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:5, Interesting)
Authors make money by taking a small percentage from the cover price of each book sold. They can't make money from live performances (authors are usually a pretty boring bunch) and the money they DO make from selling their books isn't enough to live on in 99% of cases. Therefore they teach or lecture or work as writers-in-residence or have part- or full- time jobs, all of which means they write less than they would if they were full time writers.
Yes, I'm a published author and no, I can't see how any system other than what we have now is going to work better - or even come close. Forget about six-figure advances and 'richer than the queen' - only 2 percent of books released each year sell more than 1000 copies. 1000 copies == peanuts in royalties == don't give up the day job. The occasional mega-best-seller skews public perception so that published author equals mega wealthy. As if, and if only.
The first book in my Hal Spacejock [spacejock.com.au] SF/Humour series is selling well (Reached #3 on the Dymocks SF/Fantasy bestseller list), although I'm still a complete unknown and my books are only available in Australia so far. On the bright side, anything better than 1000 copies puts me in the top 2% of all published authors
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
Funny story.
At his signing in Dayton last month, GRRM said his lowest was -4 (When he started reading the passage, the 4 people in the store having coffee left).
Of course, last month, there were almost 200 people there. Bummer, cause it would have been cool to have the time to sit and rap with the guy.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
To protect you against imposters, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to go after someone about how screwed up copyright laws are (especially in the US but it is having a viral effect accross the pond), then go after Congressmen and the lawyers egging them on. I like the idea put forth by a Judge in Canada (sorry, can't remember my source to cite) where he proposed limiting the length applied (it used to be 28 years max here) and change copyright to fall under tort rules. Meaning that you could never really criminalize it. Tort law litigation would mean that a plaintiff would actually have to prove they were legally "wronged" and further prove real damages. The only results would either be an order to stop the injurous activity and/or monetary damages. None of this "you will go to jail if you copy that CD" BS. I think that makes a whole lot more sense than the pseudo-criminalization we have now.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't blame the law. Humans have been hypocrites since before laws existed.
anarchocapitalism? wtf? (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:4, Insightful)
Only on slashdot will you find posts so naive and ignorant, and yet so brazen about it.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:4, Funny)
Which ironically explains YOUR comment.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you define "continual?" Say I publish a book and sell it today. Why, my work might even interest people for the whole rest of the week, selling copies for days on end. So, I worked for the last 3 years to produce the material, and then - whoa! - I'm making "continual" profit for several days following! You must be horrified by my greed and the "monopoly" on my own work. Just continuing, Monday, Tues
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:3, Informative)
Illinois could criminalize drugs, but the federal gover
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:2)
No cofee no beer no cough syrup, tea, aspirin or skin creams?
Or did you mean "drugs" as in "prohibited substances"? And not as in drugs [webster.com]?
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:3, Interesting)
The main reasons for making hemp illegal was that it threatened industry. Hearst was bringing pulp wood paper out and hemp threatened the pulpwood paper industry by producing more paper per acre and also higher quality paper.
Dupont was branching out from being mostly a pure military supplier and hemp fiber threatened their new product called nylon (also rayon
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:5, Insightful)
The Interstate Commerce clause is the most widely abused clause in the Constitution. It was originally provisioned so that the Federal government had a check on States abusing commerce between them. There was to be no taxation, tariff or other regulations in trade between States.
The clause now extends the federal government numerous powers (DUI laws, speed limits, drug use, porn, Internet controls, telecommunications controls, etc).
Reading up what the founding fathers intended isn't needed if you just read the text of the interstate commerce clause. It is also one clause I'd dump completely if I had a hand in Constitution version 3.0.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:2, Informative)
Certainly, Congr
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:2)
To be honest, I don't know what side of this I belong on...
Well, look at it this way: In the decision you are referring to, Justice Souter stated that federal regulation of the growing of a plant within single community, and given away (at no cost) to people in that community for priv
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property[OT] (Score:2, Funny)
For some reason, any time someone says something similar to this, I always envision them with a cigarette hanging from their lips and a cup of coffee in their hand.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:5, Insightful)
I am an author and I have always offered my writing (books, newsletters, e-mails) for free. As the Internet progresses, more and more books and writings will be available illegally (freely), so authors need to now adjust before they miss out as the music industry did.
Authors have many ways to make money on their books. First, authors can co-op (not in the forceway way that the MPAA and the RIAA have) to go to book sellers and agree to not provide their stores if the book sellers sell third party copies of the books. Books can be freely copied, yet MANY readers will want to buy the official author's book, as long as it is reasonably priced. When I see $2 bootleg CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. When I see $15 official CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. I won't purchase either copy. Yet when an indie band is offering CDs for $10, I know I am helping the author.
This viewpoint is something we need to work on as a society, yet we won't because the current system (protected by copyright) puts the power of media in the **AA companies, not the bands. The distributors control the radio, MTV and even the rock trades. The Internet is changing all this. Copyright isn't useful for authors, anyway. Most "bestsellers" net their authors very little. You can write a best seller and make less than $30,000.
How do I, as an author, make money? Public speaking engagements. Consulting. Distribution of new text to those who want it first. It is very lucrative, moreso than the actual book sale.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:3, Insightful)
And as a book retailer, I would...
1. Tell the author to go pound sand.
2. Produce and sell exact duplicates of the author's "official" book.
3. PROFIT!!
Without copyright laws, what would stop a book seller from doing that? How exactly does the author benefit from having no legal protection whatsoever?
I think your idealism clouds your logic.
"How do I, as an author,
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Tell the author to go pound sand.
2. Produce and sell exact duplicates of the author's "official" book.
3. PROFIT!!
No you wouldn't. Retailers who work like this would lose authors. That is a reality. When I submit my writing to a publishing house, I can't copyright it. In fact, if you say "(C) 2005" on your "book" they'll put it in the circular file (trash).
Publishing houses don't steal works, they NEED the works. Retail stores need the authors as well. In fact, if a
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:4, Insightful)
Without copyright laws, why would retailers need any kind of business relationships with authors to begin with? If The author distributes his/her works freely, as you suggested they should ("Books can be freely copied"), what would stop the retailers (or anybody for that matter) from simply downloading, printing, and selling it from their stores?
If you are going to advocate anarchocapitalism, you'd better be willing to accept that freeloaders have a lot to gain from such an unregulated system.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
the problem with books is they remain in copyright for longer than 7 years because you're allowed to renew it. copyrights should end with no chance for renewal after a
Re:Non continuing work... (Score:2)
Book signings and question-and-answer session are very lucrative. I just met with one of my favorite authors at a $50 a plate dinner and he did very well with only about 200 people showing up. He said he's going to do more of them as he makes more money than his book selling in borders (all 7 of his books have sold in Borders).
Also, copyright-free books will STILL SELL. The average consu
Right to REPUBLICATION FOR PROFIT, not copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
How about, by being the only ones allowed to publish their material for profit?
It's not the act of private copying or private downloading that is inherently unfair for authors --- after all, each copy taken makes them better known, which is what all upcoming authors want. It's the act of taking their material and then selling it for your own personal gain without having done the work that the authors did that is inherently unfair. This applies t
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:3, Insightful)
and let's not forget about bootleg recordings of bands that never allowed it...
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
And why should a writer automatically be payed by how well and much something sells? Most people working does not get payed more based on how many cars was sold of the type the manufacture and so on.
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:3, Insightful)
This is completely untrue. Publishers that steal stories from authors would not have authors negotiating with them. Publ
Re:Forgetting the most basic right: property (Score:2)
Not quite reversed (Score:5, Informative)
He said the band consented to making audience recordings available for download again, although live recordings made directly from concert soundboards, which are the legal property of the Grateful Dead, should only be made available for listening from now on.
They are not reopening it back up fully. They are removing something which was granted to them earlier.
Re:Not quite reversed (Score:2)
Re:Not quite reversed (Score:2)
Re:Not quite reversed (Score:2)
but yes, that's where those sbd copies came from, however, those aren't even the quality that an official sbd is.
Re:Not quite reversed (Score:2, Insightful)
Their vault from the sbd is theirs to do with what they will and although I feel I may need to wait a while before I'll be able to buy many
Re:Not reversed at all (Score:2)
There are many MANY legitimate fan-recorded board tapes out there.
The ones that gd doesn't want traded are 'official' board tapes of shows.
Granted, there can still be a big quality difference, as usually fan recorded board tapes come off a straight stereo mix, often off of monitor lines, so is not typically levelled correctly for recording.
This is a very important distinction: Board levels for a live show are obviously set for optimal live sound, NOT the same at all as for a
Quotes from the band (Score:5, Informative)
John Perry Barlow (lyricist, but he has other claims to fame outside the Dead) was not happy [boingboing.net]. In this story he blames it on the drummers (Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann). The NYT quoted him [nytimes.com] as having had a "pretty heated discussion" with Weir, guitarist and his songwriting partner. Robert Hunter (Jerry Garcia's lyricist) was reportedly not happy either but is silent.
I'm just disappointed, that's all.
Re:Quotes from the band (Score:5, Informative)
You are clearly not a Grateful Dead fan... or at least have not listened to the long jam sessions in their live shows. The reason they have two drummers is because they are real percussionists -- rather than being in the band because they were "Nick's friend who owns a kit". The two of them work together and do some very spacey and complex stuff.
Unlike in most bands, the bassist doesn't simply repeat six notes and the drummers not only actually work hard, they use more than just the one drum kit in one song (another reason for two drummers -- so one can keep the beat while the other is running to a new instrument). Much of the quality that people like about the Dead is the fact that the underlying music is complex and slowly rotates across a long jam.
--
Evan
Re:Quotes from the band (Score:2)
Re:Quotes from the band (Score:3, Informative)
The drummer is the least significant component of any rock band.
Uh...
Tommy Lee?
Lars Ulrich?
Mick Fleetwood?
John Bonham?
Alex Van Halen?
Better let those guys know they weren't/aren't significant. So, how much rock music do you listen to?
Re:Quotes from the band (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, Hetfield's guitar was cringingly flat and his voice was all over the place. Funny how those problems disappeared on official "recordings" and when I watched it on TV...
Re:Quotes from the band (Score:3, Funny)
"Mom, when I grow up, I want to be a drummer."
His mother scoffs and replies... "Well, you can't do both."
What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?
A drummer.
What's the difference between a drummer and a drum machine?
You only have to punch the information into the drum machine once.
Why are orchestra intermissions limited to 20 minutes?
So they don't have to retrain the drummers.
How do you get a drummer to play an accelerando?
Ask him to play in 4/4 at a st
Let them eat Stream (Score:5, Insightful)
Yesterday, I blogged stories about various Grateful Dead spokespeople and band-alumni making promises to reverse their attack on fan-recordings that are hosted at the the Internet Archive (these recordings were made by dedicated fans with the band's explicit blessing, and have been the core of an decades-old evangelical unpaid promotional campaign by Deadheads that has returned a gigantic fortune for the band).
However, it appears that all the talk about "communications SNAFUs" was a smokescreen for a half-assed compromise that leaves the highest-quality recordings available only as streams, meaning that they can no longer be simply downloaded from the Archive and traded on.
Whole article [boingboing.net]
Re:Let them eat Stream (Score:2)
Re:Let them eat Stream (Score:4, Informative)
The recordings that are no longer available were lossless. The streams are lossy.
Re:Let them eat Stream (Score:2)
Exactly, while there are some high quality AUDs out there they just aren't the same as the SBDs. The Dead made millions on tour and they likely didn't need any more money to be coming in from the sale of their music so they never cared a
SUMMARY (Score:5, Informative)
Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were greedy because they felt the 50,000,000 per year that the band earned while Jerry Garcia was alive just wasn't enough to retire on. They threw a tantrum. Archive.org attempted to do what they though the Dead wanted and removed all the music.
John Perry Barlow, Phil Lesh and others disagreed, holding true to Garcia's attitude about trading. Live-recorded music (by fans) is restored to Archive.org; studio recordings are not.
Deadheads are freaking out and suffering from disillusionment. The question of whether the more pristine studio recordings should be allowed is not yet answered.
Re:SUMMARY (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SUMMARY (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SUMMARY (Score:2)
Let's face it: The spirit of this band died with its leader. The Grateful Dead have turned into a bunch of ingrates.
Barlow and Lesh need to be very vocal about this if they truly disagree. It is the only thing that can hold them together at this point.
Re:SUMMARY (Score:2)
They have every right (Score:3, Interesting)
That saidm as the Grateful Dead has always stood in favor of tape trading, going so far as to set up special areas at shows for "tapers", they really should have seen the backlash and shut their mouths. I am a life long deadhead, with many tapes of shows...the unique thing that set them apart from the pack is the fact they were not a studio band, they were a live band. No recording, audio or video, will ever capture the moment of a show. I have seen many, the vibe in the room, among the people and the band, the long shows, long free for all jams inspired by the moment can be replayed and replayed again, but those same notes, same chords, same jams on tape will never match standing there, beer (or whatever) in hand, watching it unfold live.
It's not the music with the Grateful Dead, it's the experience.
Re:They have every right (Score:2)
Nice transition (Score:5, Funny)
It's just a matter of time... (Score:5, Funny)
Jerry wanted the music to be free... (Score:5, Informative)
Bassist Phil Lesh echoed that sentiment--quoting Garcia in an interview with Charlie Rose on CBS's 60 Minutes in 2004: "Jerry put it the best, as he frequently did, 'Let 'em have it. When we play it, we're done with it."
from: http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id
The Dead also released a disclaimer about their live music:
MP3 STATEMENT TO MP3 SITE OPERATORS
The Grateful Dead and our managing organizations have long encouraged the purely non-commercial exchange of music taped at our concerts and those of our individual members. That a new medium of distribution has arisen - digital audio files being traded over the Internet - does not change our policy in this regard.
Our stipulations regarding digital distribution are merely extensions of those long-standing principles and they are as follows:
No commercial gain may be sought by websites offering digital files of our music, whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from their traffic, or any other means.
All participants in such digital exchange acknowledge and respect the copyrights of the performers, writers and publishers of the music.
This notice should be clearly posted on all sites engaged in this activity.
We reserve the ability to withdraw our sanction of non-commercial digital music should circumstances arise that compromise our ability to protect and steward the integrity of our work.
Jerry Garcia did not care about people taping or downloading their music, he thought any live show could be shared and traded by anyone for their personal use, but not to copy and sell for profit. I would think the rest of the band would respect his wishes. Long live Jerry.
http://www.people4peace.net/pix/people4peace/jerr
Re:Jerry wanted the music to be free... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Jerry wanted the music to be free... (Score:4, Informative)
It's a shame it only took 10 years for the rest of the band to start squabbling about downloading their music. They are all very wealthy and probably get many things for free from their beloved fans, so why not return the favour?
On a side note, I have many Dead bootlegs, but I have actually purchased Dick's Picks in order to help support the band, and to get an undoubtedly clean copy direct from the master tapes.
If anyone is curious: http://stores.musictoday.com/store/dept.asp?band_
Re:Jerry wanted the music to be free... (Score:2)
Re:Jerry wanted the music to be free... (Score:2)
Re:Jerry wanted the music to be free... (Score:2)
Only one way to describe this farce... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only one way to describe this farce... (Score:2, Funny)
Be Like Mojo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Be Like Mojo (Score:2)
What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Except for last week, when we were against it.
It's a dead giveaway (no pun intended) when someone claims they're not about money, that they're most likely about money.
No amount of backtracking will change that now, you've shown your true colors guys.
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
Not true, the Dead never said anything about trading recordings of their shows, that was still kosher. What they yanked was the ability to go to a single resource, archive.org, and download a copy. bt's were still viable, as were regular old snail-mail trades/B&P's. Now, to the best of my knowledge, you can still trade the sbd's, you just can't download from archive.
It's not really that big a deal since there are plenty of bands that allow taping but don't allow their shows to be hosted on archive.org (phish, DMB, ABB to name a few).
-samRe:What? (Score:2)
is there any reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:is there any reason... (Score:2)
v.tr.
1. To live longer than; outlive: She survived her husband by five years.
Re:is there any reason... (Score:2, Informative)
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboard/vocals): Dead
Keith Godchaux (piano/keyboard): Dead
Brent Mydland (keyboard): Dead
I am sure I missed someone.
Note to self: Don't play Keyboards for the Grateful Dead
Long live bt.etree.org! (Score:2, Informative)
Boycott! (Score:2)
Wrong Wrong Wrong (Score:2)
This article is out of date, and is just the sort of BS the GD PR men are trying to get dispersed. They have not reversed their position, rather, they've made allowances for a small portion of the songs hosted at at archive.org to be downloadable and the rest to be streamable. Now maybe you and I can rip a stream to mp3 but it's not in the regular joes vocabulary.
This is bullshit, all of that music was made available by the band for the fans, and now the greedy bastards are trying to renege on the deal.
there goes the illusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Bob, Bill, Mickey, I had great respect for you but now I think it's time you guys move on as it's gone now and there's really no way to get it back. Don't expect any sales of your collaborative works as I refuse to support you should you decide to
Re:there goes the illusion (Score:2, Insightful)
Morals established
Glad it's back - for music education! (Score:4, Interesting)
The Dead music has one of the clearest statements that non-commercial sharing of their live recordings (save a few dates that were listed in the agreement) is legal, and I like to have my students make a mix CD of great tunes, with liner notes, etc. Fun, legal, and the music is also interesting to talk about.
I was truly disappointed in the news initially, and think that this is an acceptable compromise.
The Dead == The Man (Score:3, Interesting)
That article is full of PR - known to Deadheads as "BS". The band has not reversed its decision: they are keeping the soundboards off Archive.org, just like they originally did. Obviously their lawyers told them it would be much harder to control audience mic recordings that they sanctioned, which they authorized people to make, and which people likely own their own copyrights on.
Phil Lesh, the best musician (bass) in the band after Garcia, and long the innovator in their archives, said " "I was not part of this decision-making process and was not notified that the shows were to be pulled". This is the guy who instigated Grefolded [google.com], probably the best production of GD recordings, and also the only post-GD performer consistently worth seeing (if you're into that kind of thing). Not only did the band change their policy against his own, but they didn't even ask or even notify him that his "legacy" was now interrupted.
David Gans, professional Deadhead (selling "official" Deadhead books and ads on his Deadhead radio show), spewed doubletalk:
'"First of all, when Jerry said that...tape trading was an important aspect of life in the Deadhead community. It was a one-to-one affair, for the most part...largely a manifestation of our love for the music and our desire to enlighten the world and turn our friends on.
"That is a far cry from what is happening now. The Internet Archive and all the other online distribution sources are high-speed, mass-distribution systems that make the best quality recording available to all who know where to look for them. That is a good thing, of course, culturally--but there is an economic element to this that must be taken into account."'
Even as he admits the Archive.org soundboards are "good culturally", he introduces his own vested interest opposing that culture: the "economic element" that appears nowhere in Garcia's original policy, or anywhere in the love for music or desire to enlighten the world or turn friends on. FWIW, Gans never respected archives except when he could profit from them. The archivist of Bill Graham Presents (long their show producer in the SF area, NYC and beyond) was shocked to find that Gans, after being left alone with the BGP archive of GD material (photos, posters, letters, etc), had cut them up and stolen a lot of irreplaceable material, to make his 1980s book. This guy doesn't care about the legacy, the archives, the music, or anyone else's access to it, except after he has taken his cut, regardless of the damage he does.
The fact is that the Grateful Dead lasted a lot longer than anyone expected: 30 years. Along the way, lots of people got a ride on the gravy train. The Dead's commercial recording releases were never that good, never made them as much money as their neverending tours. They mismanaged most of their careers, paying for a huge, fun extended family that required 200 performances a year for decades, rather than creating a self-perpetuating system to profit off the vast audience that has outlived the band (and several of its members). Free distribution among fans kept the dream going, promoting music that the music industry, including the band, never could promote commercially. Deadhead traders have always been at the forefront of field recording, reproduction/remastering, the Internet itself, as well as psychedelic frontiers for which they're better known. But now that the drummers and some hangers-on can't sell tickets to their shows, haven't invested their totally unexpectedly profitable youth in sustainable champagne and caviar for their old age, they're grabbing at any profits they see dancing away. They have become just like the rest of the poser hippies-turned-yuppies who lied about seeing them at Woodstock. Too bad they're trying to fight the Internet they helped create: just another gang of Baby Boomers who won't even be noticed as the Net drives over their carcass, roadkill on the Info Superhighway.
Re:If it wasn't the music, then what was it? (Score:2)
It was mostly the music, mostly.
I'm used to reading self-contradicting posts on Slashdot, but you sir must be posting live from Dead concert!
Re:Ahh dammit (Score:2, Informative)
I find the GD complaints to be a bit much. The Internet Archive was probably not meant to be a Grateful Dead repository, but over the past week or so, it's been good for little else.
I could care less about Jerry's v
Re:Ahh dammit (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, that couldn't be because that's what the Dead WANTED to happen or anything.