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Yeah, but it raised the dead

A few of the organizations that use Drupal on a large scale successfully:

http://www.mtv.co.uk/
http://www.theonion.com/
http://dead.net/ (The Grateful Dead site)
http://goingon.com/ (Forbes. Yes, that Forbes.)
http://playboy.de/ (Playboy Germany, NSFW)
http://www.fighthunger.org/ (The UN)

And that's just the first few I remembered. Drupal scales just fine if you know what you're doing. If you don't, then you won't be able to make anything scale.

http://dead.net/

Perhaps a comparison to permitting the recording of live concerts from the audience is apropos.
The Grateful Dead constantly sold out their concerts and have permitted audience recordings since 1984. They began releasing their own archive recordings on CD and made huge profits there as well, now offering full shows online.
Just further proof that connecting to fans through more touch points will only increase their interest and loyalty.

Yes, it could never work. (FREE MUSIC!)

Or is it that the guy on the subway platform isn't that good?

Did anyone else read that and think that maybe she was swapping Dead tunes ?

There is no controversy. Technology is not illegal. Uses of it are. People like etree make such a mockery of the RIAA's claims that filesharing is only used for evil that it's not even funny. Perhaps the RIAA is pissed off that so many bands are content with giving their music away for absolutely free.

• Massage Girls in Bikinis
• Flying Fish IPA on tap
• La-Z-Boy Recliners
• Dual 2.5GHz G5s for all
• Sweet aromas all day
• Foot spas under all desks
• Killer game room
• And the soothing sounds of the dead all day long

How could I have been so ignorant...apparently piracy is a "new method of distribution" for the artists...

Well, authorized piracy (ie, musician-sanctioned file/tape/cd sharing) in fact is the favored method of distribution for many musicians, not the least of which are the Grateful Dead, along with many smaller bands (which for whatever reason happen to be the musicians I enjoy listening to, so politics and taste coincide here for me).

Jerry died but the bootlegs live on FOREVER. Can listen on the web at GD Radio or download using Furthur

And the other guys are still putting out some cool tunes. So I really don't see the problem. The Dead got music as close to perfect as humanly possible, so there really isn't much room for innovation.

Patents have nothing to do with the real world. They are a legal tool for businesses, so prior art has nothing to do with it.

Anyway, the dead's policy can be found here. And yes, I remember this, its been going on since 1965 (the year the dead started). And yes, the grateful dead are the most successful touring band in the history of rock. Yes, I have hundreds of CDs worth of their shows. For those of you that are into bands that are into playing music vs. making a buck off of a hit or two there are thousands of great sounding shows to be downloaded. Its legal, its fun. (Thanks for not spelling grateful "greatful" :).

Hey, way to be absolutely, completely, dead wrong.

Hey, way to be absolutely, completely, dead wrong.

Hey, way to be absolutely, completely, dead wrong.

Hey, way to be absolutely, completely, dead wrong.

Don't be naive.
The Grateful Dead may be no more, but "The Dead" is till touring.

What software do you use to play those recordings? iTunes was a music player before the store came out with the same name. iTunes (the player) is the best music organization system I've ever used. I use it to listen to my legal Grateful Dead concert recordings. If you want to find recordings, use google. There are tons of sites that have live recordings for download -- often with the artists' permission.

Yes.

How many fans would they have if the only airplay they got was by begging a college radio station to play their demo tape?

Lots.

Trust me. There's plenty of content, especially free music.

I'm lucky, because I listen to that silly hippy music where the bands allow people to download concerts thanks to ppl like this. Also, the quality of audience (microphones on stands) recordings are amazing with good mics and a preamp.

Back on topic. However, I have a $15/month dialup connection because, as others have already pointed out, the broadband connections are asymetrical. I refuse to pay more for any connection unless I get full upload speeds. Yes, those are available. No, I cannot justify the price. I have incredibly fat pipes at work and a laptop. I can download whatever I want and transfer it at home easily.

On the other hand, for the hippie jam bands that let you non-commercially for your friends, obviously you want to rename the files .420pm instead...

If you're interested in free music, go here.

The Jamband/Grassroots scene is one viable alternative. The scene, which has its roots in bands such as the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band, the jamband/grassroots scene is based on the principles of "tour lots, play well, allow tape trading".

Bands like Phish, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer (three rather different artists) have become very popular primarily because of tape trading and putting on a good live show which varies night to night.

Some sites of particular interest are Homegrown Music Network and Jambase, the latter of which has a huge database of members interested in and willing to promote the bands it serves. Bands seeking to promote shows in certain cities pay Jambase to allow them access to all the members in certain zip codes, cities and states. These fans get promotional material to spread around their area, thus gaining more interest in the concert.

Another great site is archive.org's etree archive which has full concerts of lots of bands (from big names such as Dave Matthews to the unknowns like the Motet) in lossless SHN format.

Of course, the limitations of this scene is that it's basically all wrinkly old hippies noodling away on covers of Grateful Dead songs, but there are innovators such as the New Deal and Disco Biscuits, who play live, improvised trance/breakbeat house. Or Howie Day, a singer-songwriter playing Radiohead influenced songs using loops and samples to create a unique sound. OAR play (somewhat turgid) reggae-rock, and Illinois' Umphrey's McGee present us with an alternate universe of "What if Phish listened to Pink Floyd and Genesis rather than the Grateful Dead?". There's something for [mostly] everyone.

I noticed that at google has free gourmet lunches for all its employees couresy of Chef Charlie. My question is how good is the food and has Charlie told you any interesting stories from his days with the Grateful Dead?

I have been using Etree for three or four years now. For those not aware here, etree site-op's release their server content on the etree-announce mailing list periodically. Users can download, through FTP, high quality concerts from folks like The Grateful Dead and other microphone friendly bands. I think what keeps etree pure currently, is that with only a (relatively) few site-ops, control over content, is easily implemented. This will undoubtedly collapse under the massive abuse inherent in peer-to-peer networks.

It would be quite sad to see .shn's of Brittney Spears 2/18/02 Cleveland Show being traded alongside some of music's most influential live bands. For what it's worth check out what is being traded on etree at their database site

I think that the reason Nintendo goes after these people is because with a trademark or copyright, you have to enforce your trademark/copyright or else you face some sort of danger of losing the right to defend it.

This is only true of trademarks, not copyrights. Trademarks are completely different from copyrights -- the purpose of a trademark is to associate products with manufacturers.

If a trademark is abandoned, someone else can adopt and use that trademark. This is why trademarks must be defended. If other people start using your trademark, and you don't defend your trademark by suing them, then you can lose your trademark completely. Examples of lost trademarks are "Linoleum," "Escalator," and "Nylon." This is why companies like Xerox fire off letters when people refer to photocopiers generically as "xerox machines." They have to, or they can lose their trademarks. Companies also have to be very careful about how they use their trademarks, or they can lose them. For instance, here is an interesting page on the DuPont web site about proper use of their "Tactel" trademark. that summarizes the general rules of using trademarks.

On the other hand, copyright holders are free to allow or disallow the copying of their works, and this has no effect on the validity of the copyright, or their ability to enforce it in the future. For example, rock bands like The Grateful Dead and Phish explicitly permit the non-commercial copying of concert performances by their fans. They would not do this if doing so would result in the loss of their copyrights on either the songs or the performances.

I suppose to us he is known as a founder of the EFF and WELL memeber, but to everyone else in the world he is the lyrical genius behind the Grateful Dead.