Author Topic: Live Music Archive: Dead SBDs no more (Read 607 times)

kmh364 · « **Reply #15 on:** November 30, 2005, 10:57:50 AM »

FYI, here's the spiel as far as the petition against this new Dead practice as outlined in today's NY Times article:

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the online petition:

Grateful Dead Merchandising Boycott

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition
service, at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/gdm/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might
agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider
signing yourself.

Best wishes,

Kevin M. Hogan

David Houck · « **Reply #16 on:** November 30, 2005, 11:30:48 AM »

Here's the text from the link Kevin cited; there are at the moment 4,360 signatures.
__________________________

Dear Grateful Dead Merchandising,

For years, we have supported the Grateful Dead unquestioned. We have purchased countless albums, releases, concert tickets, merchandise, and more. A large percentage of our income has gone straight from our bank accounts, into yours. I assure you, there are many more like us.

You have a core group of fans that are dedicated to the music, and to the band. We followed the band for years, jumped at every release, and anxiously awaited new releases. When Jerry passed a decade ago, we trusted you would continue to make the right decisions.

You laid your rules on the line, and as fans we followed them. As traders, we never copied a released GD album. When you said not to trade released soundboards, we understood.

It is our understanding that in November 2005, the internet archive(archive.org) was asked to remove all Grateful Dead soundboard concerts from their site. The internet archive has been a resource that is important to all of us. We use it to experience the Grateful Dead?s growth and transition throughout the years. Between the music, and interviews in the archive we are able to experience the Grateful Dead fully.
This technology has opened doors to introduce new fans to the real Grateful Dead. It has allowed us to experience different eras of the Grateful Dead, and made us more anxious to purchase releases as they came out.

Now it appears doing the right thing for the fans, has given way to greed.

So here is our resolution. You want to change the rules as you go along, so will we. We don?t care anymore; We?ve lost all respect for this organization. Between the utter disgust of your decisions with Jerry?s guitars, and now taking away our access to the music we care about most, we refuse to support any aspect of GDM until we see change. No more CD?s, no more tickets, no more merchandise. We ask all deadheads to join us in this protest.

GDM, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Have you forgotten all you have taught us?

If you plant ice
Your gonna harvest wind

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

adriaan · « **Reply #17 on:** November 30, 2005, 02:22:55 PM »

Last time I was in Washington DC - perhaps November 2003 - I went to the museum where they do music - can't remember the official name, part of the Smithsonian. They had cupboards full of GD merchandise in the museum shop, just as if it were Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh or what have you. And really less attractive than any of the Walt Disney offerings you find in airport shops, to be honest - I have a 5-year old son, so I try to keep a keen eye for that type of thing - it may be trash, but you have quality trash, you have fun trash, and you have disposable trash. Trash based on hippie culture must be the lowest form I've encountered yet.

As a humble fan of Charles Ives, I was either severely troubled or enormously relieved - don't care to remember which - at not finding any of his musical legacy for sale at the Smithsonian.

Now let's resume our regular scheduled broadcast -

valvil · « **Reply #18 on:** November 30, 2005, 05:30:01 PM »

A personal post.

I'd like to point out that defending your property is NOT greed. Personally I'm not a fan of either the Dead (yep, amazing but true, an Alembic employee who's not a Deadhead) or Metallica, but I wholeheartedly support their efforts to protect their intellectual property.

To me the excuse that they have already made a ton of money is totally irrelevant.

You buy a cd and everyone complains about the cost. But people listen to the music they buy for along time, if not their entire life. So 1$ for a song that you can listen to for the rest of your life is too much? I guess people don't place much value on the work of their so-called-heroes; what is this, I love what you do as long as it's free?.

The other point that most people seem to miss is that it's not just the band members who rely on royalty income, but also studio musicians, producers, engineers, soundmen, graphic artists, composers, arrangers, publishers and so on. When you pirate, you steal from all of them. There's always this assumption among the general public that if you got a record out you must be making a ton of money and most times that just not true. On average only 1 in 100 releases makes any sort of money.

The Dead always did try to promote music exchanges among fans while it was still an 'analog' world. I'd guess that in that context it made sense, but in the digital world it's too much, it's like going from giving a few freebies to giving away half the store.
Plus it's not like the material is suddenly unavailable; you can still listen to it, but if you want to keep it you gotta pay for it, I don't think it's unfair. And those who want to keep up with the Dead musical development can still do so. The Dead acually lost money for ages, and if it weren't for the kindness of a few friends who supported them through the lean times they wouldn't have lasted; they never sold all that many albums, and on the road you are paid a fee for each show, and hopefully it will cover your costs, but it's the venue that makes the big bucks.

Just about anyone who receives royalty checks will tell you how much they have shrunk in recent years due to piracy. The majority of these folks are not the superstars we all know, and this how they pay their bills.

As for greed, how about the greed of wanting something for nothing?

Valentino

tom_z · « **Reply #19 on:** November 30, 2005, 07:48:34 PM »

Valentino, I agree with you regarding the intellectual property of artists and placing enough value on their work to buy it. I also agree with your last observation about greed. I think the Metallica situation and that currently involving the Grateful Dead are very different. I read a lot of the posts on the LMA bulletin board over the past week, and a lot of it made me uncomfortable to call myself a Deadhead. There was a mean-spirited tone of spoiled selfishness in some of the posts not characteristic of the Deadhead community that I have known.

But, all this emotional noise is not about piracy. The Grateful Dead have traveled a very different road to musical success than the standard industry approach, which you seem to be describing in your message. As I'm sure you know, they have, from very early on, encouraged the recording and sharing of their performances - I'm not sure it had anything to do with the medium (analogue, digital, spiritual, etc.) - as long as this sharing was not done for any financial gain. The privilege of recording at the shows, and indeed, the soundboard patches were given freely by the Dead, not pirated in a clandestine or unethical way. This was and is, in my estimation, a very forward-thinking way to develop a fan base and spread your music throughout the land. Not to mention just Good Karma. And, among many other factors, not the least of which is the Dead's enormous talent, this philosophy contributed to their success.

It is my sense (and I have no data to back this up) that Deadheads have respected the wishes of the Grateful Dead philosophy, by not selling any of the recorded live music, and also by supporting the band when they did release commercial products, be it music, videos, and the endless stream of ?trash based on hippie culture? mentioned in another post above. The fans also filled sold-out stadiums for many years of the band?s touring. This has been a kind of unspoken ?arrangement? between the Dead and their fans for many, many years. One gets a sense of this even in the comments of Phil and Barlow above. So, it is for this reason I don?t believe all this noise is about piracy.

Furthermore, I believe that if the Grateful Dead wish to change or modify their policies with respect to the sharing of their music, they have every right to do so. After all, times and technologies have changed ? I?m sure no one imagined this particular internet scenario forty (or even ten) years ago. In the end, the power of their music will likely live on for a long, long time. It was a nice arrangement while it lasted, and I for one, will continue to listen to and enjoy the music of the Grateful Dead.

Tom

(Message edited by tom_z on November 30, 2005)

crgaston · « **Reply #20 on:** November 30, 2005, 09:25:03 PM »

On the Grateful Dead website is an announcement that the audience recordings will be available for download again and the soundboards will be available for streaming, implemented over the next few days.

kmh364 · « **Reply #21 on:** December 01, 2005, 05:18:23 AM »

Wow, this started a bunch of feathers flying, LOL!

For the record, I don't condone piracy. As Tom stated, the point of the LAMA was to make available the same material that had been floating in the public domain for years in a non-degrading digital format with the permission of the Dead's organization. The intent was always for personal use. I don't condone the resale of this material nor have I ever done it. I don't even trade to others, nor do I solicit anything from anyone. I just want access to it like it's always been for my use only.

As far as wanting something for nothing, I already own most of the Dick's Picks that contain this material. If you could see my record, tape and CD collection, my wardrobe, book collection, etc., as well as my credit card bills from the Dead's store, they make (have made) quite a nice living off of me personally, LOL!

I'd like to stream the stuff at work and maybe take some of it with me on my new iPod without having to spend hours uploading my cd's and 'ripping' them into MP-3's in order to download them to the player.

The point of all this is that the Dead allowed taping and PERSONAL use of their intellectual property, nee' unofficial concert recordings, REGARDLESS of media type (i.e, analogue, digital, tape, CD, MP-3, whatever), and now they've renegged. The agreement of GD, Inc. with LAMA, as posted conspicuously there, was to allow unrestricted personal usage of non-copyrighted stuff UNTIL it was commercially released by them.
they've apparently decided that this no longer suits them.

I've personally done my part to support the Dead and their members in any way possible, whether via concert tickets, records, merchandise, etc., over the past 28 plus years. The availability of free personal use concert material has always been what set the Dead apart from all others as a Thank You to all the fans who have made their 40-plus year existence possible. Taking it away now smacks of greed IMHO.

Just my $0.02

laytonco · « **Reply #22 on:** December 01, 2005, 09:11:02 AM »

Has anyone seen Phil's reponse to all of the on www.phillesh.net? Apparently he was unaware of this recent event and none too happy with it! I think all of us want the boys to do well financially. But it was a major change after the fact. All in all, it probably should have been handled more openly and perhaps more slowly...over time. Based on the 177,000 registered members of archive.org, there's a lot of us out there, and if you shock us all at once, well, you get this kind of response. But, all's well. And I'll be in front of Mr Weir tomorrow night at the Fillmore in Denver having the time of my life!!!!! Woohoo! Cowboy Fancy is back out BTW.

David Houck · « **Reply #23 on:** December 01, 2005, 09:25:36 AM »

Hi Gil; Phil's response is shown above in Tom's post dated November 30 - 7:35 am. Have fun tomorrow night!

laytonco · « **Reply #24 on:** December 01, 2005, 09:32:28 AM »

...I can see clearly now the rain is gone....Thanks Dave!

David Houck · « **Reply #25 on:** December 01, 2005, 09:35:58 AM »

It's a long thread!

tom_z · « **Reply #26 on:** December 01, 2005, 11:11:04 AM »

Really Gil, Bobby's pulled out the Ibanez? I always loved that guitar. I hope he cracks it out it next week when Ratdog plays here in Vegas. =)

Tom

811952 · « **Reply #27 on:** December 01, 2005, 11:15:57 AM »

Not long ago I was chatting with my A-list guitarist friend from Nashville about the whole intellectual property thing in terms of file-sharing and such. He says that it is changing the industry in ways that are not good for the future of studio musicians. He is seeing this already in tangible ways, though he didn't elaborate much other than to say that he is worried about the industry at the musician level and whether or not people will be able to make careers out of studio playing in the future.

Although the Dead recordings are live, this still seemed relevant to the thread..

John

kmh364 · « **Reply #28 on:** December 02, 2005, 05:36:03 AM »

Just an observation:

When CD's came out in '84, they cost about $8-$9 to make and were $12.99-$13.99MSRP. Now they cost PENNIES to make, and they list for $16.99-$18.99! The artist (if he's lucky) gets a few bucks from that, a portion is for advertising, distribution, packaging and delivery, and the vast majority is for record company PROFIT.

Downloads are on the rise because consumers are notably unwilling to shell out $18 for one decent song and the rest filler, when they can download the song legally for $1-$3, or steal it on an illegal site.

Personally, I'd be willing to buy a lot more CD's if it weren't for the ridiculous profit margin the record companies are demanding that have driven the price of CD's through the roof. Their excuse is that piracy is killing their sales, hence the high CD retail prices. Personally, I think their greed is what's killing their sales, IMHO.

Just my $0.02. I now return you to our regularly scheduled rant, LOL!

811952 · « **Reply #29 on:** December 02, 2005, 10:49:48 AM »

What's killing the recording industry is the near-complete lack of innovation. When groups like King Crimson and YES have a hard time keeping a label while still producing excellent new music, and Ashley Simpson has a contract to lip-sync and dance a crappy jig, you know things are messed-up. Perky breasts do not listenable music make.

edited to add: I don't think downloading is nearly as significant a factor as my friend does, although I'm certain it does have an impact..

John

(Message edited by 811952 on December 02, 2005)