Reuters “news” service reports:
Facing a revolt by its famously faithful fans, The Grateful Dead backed away on Thursday from a move to block “Deadheads” from downloading the jam band’s concert recordings for free.
The San Francisco Bay-based band had asked an independently run Web site to stop making thousands of the group’s recordings available for free download.
Yeah, hippies have their limits, but when do we hear about them?
[W]ith the 1995 death of lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, band members no longer keep up such an active tour schedule, making the Internet an important source of revenue.
Oh, that’s when — when the gelt is on the table. How can the Grateful Dead band members possibly not have “enough” money by now? Well, rock stars only tell everyone else how much dirty lucre is too much — they have no moral limits, themselves, on either earning it or spending it. But we digress:
But the founder and director of the Web site (www.archive.org), Brewster Kahle, said in an online posting on Thursday that bootleg audience copies of the band’s concerts had been restored for free downloading.
Yes, hippies have their limits. Thing is their spawn don’t. They never do:
“It appears doing the right things for the fans has given way to greed,” the fan petition said.
Bass player Phil Lesh posted an apologetic message on his own Web site saying he did not know the band had asked operators of the site to take down the recordings.
“I do feel that the music is the Grateful Dead’s legacy and I hope that one way or another all of it is available for those who want it,” Lesh wrote.
Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally said a major concern for the band was that trading music over the Internet did not create the same sense of community as trading tapes in person.
Heh-heh. Yeah, that’s it. Community, baby. Don’t bogart that community.
I’m not a Dead fan, but they have a very good record of letting fans take pictures and make recordings of their shows. By the end of the first sentence, I guessed that this has more to do with the ungrateful heirs of dead Grateful. Gots to get more of that free money!
I agree with the prior poster. They made it a point through the years to let people record the shows. Now all these years later they want to stop it. A box set was released recently and sold out in no time the fans will still pay. Give the bootlegs away the effect is the same as it always was more new fans will find them and buy the merchandise and the music.