Grateful Dead Productions wants to pull MP3s 59
rsidd writes "According to latest information Grateful Dead Productions have asked www.deadabase.com to
pull MP3 files of concerts from their archives, or to
face legal action. I wonder, does this have the sanction of
the band, and if the band who pioneered free distribution
of their music does this, what else is in store? " From the tone of the information, this sounds like something that isn't at the sanction of the artists, BTW.
Sugarmegs.org (Score:1)
If you want dead tapes the REAL way(or as close as possible to it), goto www.tapetraders.com or rec.music.gdead and TALK people into letting them go.
You gotta be in the community to properly reap the rewards of the free music.
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:1)
Most rock bands play the same songs, the same way, each night. How uninteresting...
Mark
SHN format? (Score:1)
Strange trip indeed. (Score:1)
the music trading is based on the words
of Jerry Garcia: "When I'm done with
it you can have it"
But This is more an expression of Garcia's
self absorbed musical egoism (which I LOVE )
rather then a legal contract.
The real story is on the back of the ticket:
AUDIO TAPING IS FOR NONCOMMERCIAL HOME USE
ONLY. UNAUTHORIZED SALE, DUPLICATION, OR
DISTRIBUTION IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.
(Alpine valley 6-28-86 )
The Dead's music has never been free
in the open-source sense.
So they are within their rights to ask
for this. There are contradictions here
though.
My first thought was that these MP3's are not
boots. They are made from peoples crispy
legal home tape collections. Hey if folks
want to make their collections available on
the web, WTF!
It does make it pretty easy to start
a collection, and be uber-nerd at the same
time.
But on reflection ,
it changes the rituals of the tribe.
No longer will you have to spend years
asking for miracles, groveling, getting
to know people, who is reliable, and spending
the effort, time, and cost of nice nakamichi decks
required to make the tapes you are trading.
In fact all of the effort required to
take part in collecting shows. The notion
of belonging the deadhead community.
Normally, such an argument , akin to what Ayn Rand
called "the devine right of stagnation"
is not one I buy. New technology has simply
the way people share the music. Made it faster
and easier. And besides! Jerry is gone. The
Dead are no more, gimme a break!
But in this case the moral rules are
on the side of the band. The contract
on the ticket is quite clear and explicit.
The band members have worked to build what
they have. And they have the right to make
whatever choices they think are best.
Even to make the wrong choices. If they
think that they need to smash MP3 distribution
in order to protect the Dick's Picks series,
and to protect thier future net distribution
plans, I will live with it.
trades anyone?
mp3 is too good in the sight of the recording indu (Score:1)
But the rules have changed with mp3. mp3 has good quality, the quality will not decrease regardless how often you copy the music, and it is too easy distributable over the internet. And so they are afraid that we don't give them our money anymore.
thats the problem why the recording industry does this big fight against mp3. as long as we recorded there music on low-quality tapes, all were ok, but now its going to lower there profits, and so they are taking action against it.
so it seems this is another record company giving a shit on what they said yesterday. bad enough.
Got the philosophy wrong... (Score:1)
Ok, but even if they allowed people to do this high quality recordings, this was not a very big risk to lower their profits. To get a copy of one of this recordings, one had to:
And that are the points where the internet makes the difference.
I don't need to know anyone who made a record, i will simply do a search in altavista or another search engine, and will find the music. Without the internet i would have had finally gone to the record shop and bought the cd...
Second, i don't need to keep begging the person for making the copy. The number of copies these person would made is naturally limited by their spare time. In the internet they once invested some time to make the files and put them online. After this all the work is on my own. It would make no difference for this people if at all 5 copies are made or 50000.
To summarize: Internet and MP3 allows the people to make mass copies of the music with out the hassle. And i'm sure thats something the record companies dislike.
mp3 is too good in the sight of the recording indu (Score:1)
definatly NOT for profit (Score:1)
i am one of the people that work on deadabase and i can assure everyone that we definatly do not make a profit from our website. we have spent, and continue to spend, large amounts of money out of our own pockets in order to make available all of the music that we presently have. the letter did not refer to our banners at all. and the banners certainly are not the issue here.
Quick question: legal trading (Score:1)
we are doing exactly the same thing that has been done for years. the mp3's we are distributing are legal recordings of live performances...exactly what people have been trading ever since the Dead have been around.
Did you try contacting the band? (Score:1)
we have spoken with John Barlow, and from what we could gather..the band is in totaly favor of mp3's. it certainly seems like a decision of the management. hopefully, this will all be resolved.
Banners are not the issue (Score:2)
It seems that most people think deadabase is being threatened because of the use of banners. The truth is that banner advertising was never an issue. We have been in contact with John Barlow and have given him access to our revenue information. Our costs to maintain the web/ftp servers are far greater than our income from banner advertising. I have also been informed that another website, similiar to our own, has received a threatening letter from the same law firm. I'm sure they will be posting information when the time is right. Hopefully this is not a trend that will continuing for very long.
Got the philosophy wrong... (Score:1)
But the rules have changed with mp3.
Not at all. For many years DeadHeads have been taking direct mixing desk feed into portable DAT machines, and burning CDs from them - producing better quality "live" albums than many commercial offerings.
The underlying philosphy of the band is that each and every live performance is different - even two nights in the same arena on the same tour can have a markedly different feel to them - so preserving that moment is a worthwhile exercise for the fans.
This is radically different to most "live" bands who either mime to tapes or perform the shows script so mechanically that you might as well be watching a video.
Now to the MP3 ban. Unfortunatley, I can understand where the reasoning comes from. The original idea of the band was for people to record live shows and trade them for other live show recordings. Deadabase is not adhering to the spirit of the idea.
Who is right and who is wrong? Don't know.
Quick question: (Score:1)
This sounds like RIAA-induced. (Score:1)
the distributors of music, with RIAA being
one side, and independant labels or such on the
other, and it looks like GDP is picking their
side, without being informed of what MP3 is,
or if they are informed, they are doing this
to 'protest' the use of MP3 for music piracy,
even though it's well known the Grateful Dead
encouraged free music themselves.
Oh well, we already know the revolution has started, and most likely what the winning side
will be.
mp3 is too good in the sight of the recording indu (Score:1)
What the hell are you talking about? The quality is about the same as a cassette tape. Low dynamic range, loss of definition...
Bleah.
Trading Dead recordings... (Score:1)
This is (I suspect) where Deadbase got into trouble - I checked their site and they have ads on it. I suspect that the Dead's lawyers interpreted this as Deadbase making money on the Dead's recordings. Thus, the action.
The musicians have little to do with GDP anymore (Score:1)
From what I understand, the band members have little or nothing to do with Grateful Dead Productions anymore, sadly. I don't know when or how that happened. But I have heard that the GDP office parties are now populated with suits who complain about the unkempt manner of other guests, who happen to be old-time members of the GD family.
I hope the band now has good, trustworthy help in the legal, promotion, and accounting departments. (And don't tell me the band is no more. That would just show you haven't been paying attention!)
One way or another, this darkness got to give.
James
james@jmarshall.com
Jerry's 2 widows (Score:1)
speaking as a Deadhead... (Score:2)
Of course trading tapes and DAT's is no different at all than trading mp3's. I think maybe where Deadabase got in trouble is that they tried to portray themselves as the "official site on the net" for downloading Dead shows, a big no-no.
I will be really worried if they go after Sugarmegs. [sugarmegs.org]
They can have my 4-6-69 Set II when they pry it from my cold dead fingers!
Was taping the label's policy as well as the band' (Score:1)
Seriously though, of course the execs are going to be against distributing recordings. They're not making their money, so it's not acceptable. To hell with what the band supports, and to hell with what the consumer wants. If the corporate monkeys don't get their money, it's gonna be a problem. That rule applies to almost anything out there in corporate America.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:1)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:1)
It's not the band that is upset at the trading, it's the Legal department REPRESENTING the band. Since they have a contract, the Legal department has the final word.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:1)
they still tour (Score:1)
May wana go look at sugarmegs (Score:1)
you don't need drugs (Score:1)
Banner ads != for profit (Score:1)
Sugarmegs.org (Score:1)
That's like saying you have to be in the GNU community to reap the rewards of free software. Where would GNU and Linux be today if you had to buddy-up to some guy who once met RMS to get your copy of emacs on CD?
Clear up some misunderstandings... (Score:2)
1) They trade in live recordings, not in mp3s ripped off CDs, and I quote:
the mp3's we are distributing are legal recordings of live performances...exactly what people have been trading ever since the Dead have been around.
2) Evidently the banners and profits are not the issue:
We have been in contact with John Barlow and have given him access to our revenue information. Our costs to maintain the web/ftp servers are far greater than our income from banner advertising. I have also been informed that another website, similiar to our own, has received a threatening letter from the same law firm.
3) The band itself isn't involved in trying to shut them down, evidently, and they've been in contact with John Barlow:
we have spoken with John Barlow, and from what we could gather..the band is in totaly favor of mp3's.
So further speculation should be perhaps that it is just upper management being 'misled' by the RIAA that this is piracy, when it was always sanctioned by the bad, or they fear loss of control of the music, or something...
AS
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:3)
I believe it's that more than anything that has RIAA freaking out. For the first time ever an artist or group has a medium to distribute their music themselves and make it instantly availible to a world wide audience, cutting RIAA completely out of the picture.
Your argument that I dont use MP3's because music is protected by copyright would be akin to saying I dont listen to music on CD's because alot of people have CD Burners at home now and can make their own copies, or tapes etc.
It's not the medium that's at fault for the actions of a few pirate sites on the web and college kids trading music across their lan network. The truth is MP3 music "pirating" isn't any worse than "pirating" that has allways existed with other distribution formats of music.
RIAA doesn't really care about pirating itself, in fact alot of times it helps them as someone downloads a new single on mp3 and says thats cool now I want the whole album on CD. You can see this in it's attempt to attack MP3 as a technoligy so hard.
The true fear hear is that if MP3 becomes too popular, and widely accepted as a standard then music artists will no longer need the big label record company's at all. Groups like public enemy are showing others that there are alternatives to being locked into a 5 year contract with a label company that jacks up album and concert prices sky high and then takes the majority of the profit. RIAA see's this and thinks what happens when all those 5 - 7yr contracts we currently control our big money making artists with come to term? If MP3 is acceptible then those artists have a chance to finally leave and distribute their next album themselves via mp3 downloads and direct cd sales off their web site.
MP3 doesn't take rights away from the artist it gives them way too many as far as RIAA is concerned.
If you still want the music... (Score:1)
Was taping the label's policy as well as the band' (Score:1)
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:1)
Got the philosophy wrong... (Score:1)
>know the person which made the record
Not really. Digital copies are pretty good. I'm guessing there's a pretty good-sized amount of people that are -really- into tape trading with DAT decks and CD burners.
2.
>get this person to invest some time for making the copy
True, but the majority of "die-hard fans" are pretty generous about it. Lots will do it pretty much for free, or help people get started by offering 2-for-1,3-for-one, etc trades.
3.
>invest some money for the medium
True, but blank tapes are super-cheap, the price of blank CD's has gone down a heckuva lot in the last couple years. Ultra-purists can use DAT, but honestly, I don't have slightest clue how DAT prices have been. The recorders sure aren't cheap, though. 90 minutes of decent-quality blank cassette tape is still a heckuva lot cheaper than the hard drive space to record 90 minutes of 128kbit
I'm guessing you're not a Dead fan... It's really not that hard to find good quality recordings, either on the Internet or at record stores or "head shops". Granted, some of those copies were illegal (eg, live shows copied onto CD with laser-printed cd jackets, then sold for $50+ at some swap-meet show)... Last I checked, there were a couple stores in the area with a list of a couple _hundred_ shows that they would copy for you for free, provided you brought them decent blank tapes to put them on. Heck of a deal.
Bands that allow taping of live shows tend to develop pretty loyal followings, it seems. Once people start collecting tapes/mp3s, they tend to accumulate them in huge quantities; but they still go out and buy the new studio releases. (Not really applicable to the Dead, I suppose, but for Phish, Dave Matthews, etc.) The bands that do it are (AFAIK) bands that really put on a better show live, have lots of songs, and do extended jams in concert. I really have to wonder how much the record companies figure on losing on people taping live shows compared to getting a huge, loyal fan base.
dead mp3 (Score:1)
Let's hope this is isolated. (Score:1)
Let's hope Red Light Managment (Dave Matthews Band) doesn't follow this lead--it'd rock quite a few people the wrong way.
Trading Dead recordings... (Score:1)
Personally, I think it's foolish for GDP to ignore copyright law in many circumstances, but to want it enforced when it comes to the Internet. Perhaps a bunch of geeks downloading shows from the Deadabase doesn't conform to their ideas of "community". 8)
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:1)
definatly NOT for profit (Score:1)
MAKING a profit is totally different from a for-profit operation. I saw a banner ad, that violates the "NON-COMMERCIAL, HOME-USE ONLY" terms of the joint copyright license.
I'm interested to see if GDP would mind an unrelated ftp site? Probably not.
But who really cares, MP3 blows.
Let's hope this is isolated. (Score:1)
grateful dead and mp3 (Score:1)
The bigger question (IMO) is why people are so fascinated by the Grateful Dead? Boring, boring, boring. But i don't indulge in drugs, so that may explain it.