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The Grateful Dead vs. Archive.org
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. "
What Would Jerry Do?
Fans pissed off at the merchanise type people put up a petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/. Theirs is one of the largest petitions on the site.
The Grateful Dead has been one (big) example of a band that succeeded without the need for coercive copyright protections. One could argue that they did still use trademark, but they are closer to the anarchocapitalist goal than most popular bands.
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)
Oxymoron?
oh boy, that is both clever AND original...for a 3 year old...
dB Masters
Zombies vs Petabytes? Hard to decide who should win this one...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
From boingboing (where I saw this initially) comes the following:
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.
liqbase
John Perry Barlow (lyricist, but he has other claims to fame outside the Dead) was not happy. In this story he blames it on the drummers (Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann). The NYT quoted him 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.
''Grateful Dead "reversal" on fan-recordings is a smokescreen
...''
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
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.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Much like Metallica and any other band that stuck their nose into this whole issue, they have every right to try to control their music any way they want to. It's their intellectual property.
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.
dB Masters
From Grateful over Ungrateful back to Grateful. The REAL news, however, would be if that transition happened with the other part of their name.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
Many of our federal drug laws were founded on discrimination and collusion with the medical boards and prescription narcotic companies. I've researched the enumerated federal powers and nowhere in the Constitution do I see any allotment for the Congress to control, regulate, criminalize or even define drug use. The 9th and 10th Amendments are very clear that the right to use drugs is protected and within the individual States or the People to control.
Illinois could criminalize drugs, but the federal government absolutely cannot. The use of force by the feds to criminalize non-violent drug use is treason and worthy of the ultimate penalty for those enforcing these unconstitutional laws.
I do not use drugs of any kind, FWIW.
You are correct sir. They only allowed bootlegs of fan recordings, with all the noise that comes with recording a dead show from the crowd via a tape recorder.
Basically you get shit quality.
They still don't want mixer board recording because those are the same quality as say a commercial live CD would be.
Thank god Jerry is dead to. Those old hippes always bugged me.
The RIAA announced lawsuits against 1244 Deadheads today. Although the Deadheads are downloading the music legally, the RIAA is going after them anyway. "These Deadheads, they're sitting there with their tie-dye t-shirts, their sunglasses and bandannas, and their downloading music! We're confident that we'll prevail, because downloading music is wrong in the strict Biblical sense. Have you ever heard of Jesus downloading music? Did Moses use Limewire? No. Let's face it, we're on the right side here." The latest set of hearings were delayed when the RIAA representative noticed that the courtroom stenographer was wearing a set of earphones, and accused her of downloading music, leading to an attack by the RIAA lawyers. The courtroom was cleared, but not before the stenographer's wallet was picked bare and she'd been served with two separate lawsuits.
"once we're done with [the music], you can have it." - Jerry Garcia= 49496
y -garcia.jpg
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
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
What a long, strange trip it's been...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Proof You see in the end no matter what you preach all your life the almighty dollar is the most powerful thing in the world.
Too bad more bands aren't like Mojo Nixon. This kerfuffle never would happen. He actively encourages you to download his music and share it. Mind you, he doesn't have to wrassle other members of the band.
Jerry came back and Smacked the shit outa the rest of the band.
Sanity has returned
live recordings made directly from concert soundboards, which are the legal property of the Grateful Dead
How many times? Copyright is not property. It's a limited, temporary privilege to restrict others from copying and broadcasting in certain ways.
Whiny Grateful Dead fans have complaining about this since last week, but it was great, since downloads of any of the other numerous bands hosted on the Archive went much, much faster. Then this whole story broke mainstream yesterday, crippling traffic. And today? It's on Slashdot. Awesome. Way to go, Grateful Dead fans. Ruin everything for everybody.
"Illinois could criminalize drugs, but the federal government absolutely cannot. The use of force by the feds to criminalize non-violent drug use is treason and worthy of the ultimate penalty for those enforcing these unconstitutional laws."
:-) The federal gov't's position is that regardless of how this is intended to be instate only, there is nothing stopping these drugs from eventually ending up out of the state and thus invoking the interstate commerce clause.
The federal gov't can if it can rationalize that drugs are an interstate concern.
This was one of the arguements for San Francisco's medical marijuna laws -- that this was grown in state and used in state (the other arguement was We're A Bunch Of Hippies And We Just Don't Care...personally, I respect that more than I do technicalities...even if I hate hippies
To be honest, I don't know what side of this I belong on...I hate drugs and I think that even the harmless ones end up being a gateway -- especially when there is no roadblock from trying more. At the same time, I think people should be given the chance to kill themselves if they want to and its of no concern to me as long as they aren't taking up too much of my gov't's (local or federal) time or resources...and getting into the emergency room when stupid people have done stupid things that could have been avoidable while I'm trying to get in for something entirely unavoidable is a concern for me (and given my current health -- f'd up genetic disease -- this isn't entirely theoretical...I've had to wait once because of someone OD'ing in the emergency room...his was a choice, mine was something imposed by causes outside of my control).
But back to the point, drug use does become an interstate problem at many levels and as such is in the realm of the federal. Nothing unconstitutional about that. Thats the whole idea of the interstate commerce clause...
Way off topic...and posted anonymously because of my current employer (I work for state gov't and occasionally consult with federal)...
>>It's not the music with the Grateful Dead, it's the experience. I always experienced the music at dead shows. I also eperienced many other experiences at dead shows. It was mostly the music, mostly.
"The Grateful Dead remains as it always has--in favor of tape trading,"
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.
Luckily, we have Donna the Buffalo which is a band with an enlightened policy.
As an old head from way back whose love of computers is only exceeded by the love of my family and my love of good ol' Grateful Dead all I have to say is thanks!
I want to see these guys continue to reap the rewards for all they have accomplished in life and I will continue to buy as much of their material as they release. I love the digital re-mastering, the artwork, the liner notes and just holding something I know was created with love by their engineers.
But, until it's released I want a copy that I can have in the meantime. I know from talking with fellow heads and reading up on forums and blogs that I am not alone here.
This is a great move by the band and the merchandising/production folks.
To Phil, Bob, Bill, Mickey and the rest thanks! Many worlds they've know since they first left home and I am glad I could and will continue be a small part of it.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Fascist.
FC Closer
that they call them the "surviving" members? it's not like the're lynyrd skynyrd.
The federal gov't can if it can rationalize that drugs are an interstate concern.
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.
You don't even drink coffee ?
so how should writers be compesated for the books they write? By performing readings of their works around the country?
If they don't have it archive try bt.etree.org, The Traders Den or FurthurNET. You may even get to talk to some cool chicks or hoopy froods... :-)
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Jerry was a gifted person with a great musical vision. Don't let his spoiled band members screw-ups wreck that memory, don't dis the band, dis the members that did it...
dB Masters
anarchocapitalism? wtf? care to point me at some references? It sounds really scary - no authority, physical ownership is all. Does that mean the biggest scariest most violent thugs with the biggest guns rule and everybody else gets to be their slaves? who looks after the non-violent and physically weak? What would be the closest modern example? Somalia?
In a related story, the Grateful Dead where arrested when they physically assaulted Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs after a 1960 Panasonic mono recorder that was concealed under his jacket fell on the ground during the concert when he got too excited. Says his friend Dwayne Nelson, "I said 'Hey' and they didn't stop, so I said 'Hey' again but they kept going. Finally on my third 'Hey' they got off of him." Rerun's friend Rodger Thomas was heard saying "This is Bullshit" to which his little sister Dee ran and told his Mama. Mama was arrested after beating the crap out of Rodger with a belt. Said Mama, "I was just enforcing the devils copyright over profanities!" After a 5 minute conversation between the police, the RIAA and a guy with Red horns, both Mama and the Grateful Dead were released.
The "War on Drugs" is an abuse of Federal power (not authority as they have none in this area) as are nearly all the other things justified by controlling interstate commerce. Prior to the "discovery" of that ability it took a Constitutional Amendment to control what people ingest, and that was proven to be a bad idea that had to be repealed.
Drugs are freely available throughout this country in that, anyone who wants drugs can get them. Therefore, the harm the drugs themselves cause is already with us. The additional harm we are suffering (gangs, drive by shootings, corrupt law enforcement and politicians, etc.) are a result of those drugs being illegal.
This country existed with legal drugs of all sorts for several hundred years. Yet, somehow we not only survived, we flourished. Only with 18th Amendment did we get the organized crime we still suffer from today.
You can get any drug you want, even in prison. As a result, it can be seen that in order to "win" Prohibition II we are going to have to ramp up law enforcement to the point where we are all behind bars and, even then, there will still be drugs circulating so total "victory" is impossible.
The harm from Prohibition II far outweighs the obvious damage too. Suppose you are 19 year old from a low income area with some entrepreneurial spirit. You are trying to get ahead but you have no money, no job, no prospect of a job, and no credit. So you deal some drugs to get started.
Unfortunately, you get caught so you have a felony drug conviction on your record. You are now officially unemployable at many places because you are an felon. You are unofficially unemployable at places that will not hire someone with a drug conviction. What are your options? Every path except professional criminal has been closed to you.
So you embark on a life of crime and, since one crime is much like another, you no longer hold back from murdering the competition in drug wars. You're human so you have a kid but you get caught by the cops and go back to prison.
Now your child grows up with the same disadvantages you had (the courts took all your ill-gotten gain) plus not having a father. And so the cycle repeats except this time more easily since the infrastructure for dealing drugs has grown thanks to your efforts.
In the meantime, the rich and powerful buy their kids out of the court system with favors and the excuse "he's a good kid, he just made one mistake.
I could go on and on with more examples of how the whole thing is wrong but I'll stop here. The drug laws in this country are so completely and utterly wrong and bad for us, I am always amazed when people support them.
While the pharmaceuticals had most of the initial influence regarding which drugs are criminalized, in today's world, I've become convinced that the drug lords themselves are the primary motivators behind the 'war on drugs' -- after all, so long as drugs that are in high demand are also illegal, this keeps their street prices artificially high, and profits maximized. Legalize (and regulate and tax) these same drugs, their street prices plummet to market reality, and the drug lords' economy falls apart overnight.
This is actually a pretty good parallel to filesharing vs the RIAA. If filesharing of these copyright-restricted materials was legal, the RIAA's distribution monopoly would lose much of its profitability.
Naturally, those currently in monopoly/cartel control of profit channels wish to maintain maximum money flow in their direction, without competition from every yahoo with a patch of weed in his back yard or a broadband connection. But why spend your own manpower to crush competition when you can get the gov't to do it for you, at taxpayer expense?!
[I also don't use drugs, but if you want to curdle your brain in the privacy of your own home, it's no skin off my ass. -- Interesting constitutional points you make.]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
so how should writers be compesated for the books they write?
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 to all media.
The problem is REPUBLICATION FOR PROFIT, not copying.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Eternal respect for Grateful Dead. The cause is http://sunpup.com/products/nfa_image.php?id=NF191A A.
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 private use within that community was justified as interstate commerce and a "legitimate excercise of federal power".
Now, I ask you: given that definition, what activity could possibly be considered as NOT a "legitimate exercise of federal power"? Hmm? Does this mean that there are NO bounds at all?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Simple solution. Don't go to any more Grateful Dead concerts! er...
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
Perhaps after all those years smoking, they had forgotten what their position was. All they needed was a reminder from the fans ;)
No -- I don't.
Next question?
I will say in the past I had...I also didn't believe in what I do today then. This is not hypocritical because it was a gradual change in which I decided these were not appropriate with my value set.
Also as I have said, I believe folks should have the right to do as they please -- so long as it doesn't interfere with me. And this is where I'm conflicted...how much interference is a right to do whatever and how much is interfering with my own rights of not having someone elses habits effect me. I have admitted the conflict and I really don't know what to do about it...
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. Don't buy into this line of simple miscommunication, raise a fit until they allow it all back up.
I don't even like the GD, but this is bullcraptic.
Your
I.e., ...from someone who agrees with you.
The logic which extends the commerce clause to home-grown, home-consumed marijuana would equally extend it to anything, even, as the late Rehnquist wrote in his recent dissent regarding CA-marijuana, quilts made as a hobby by little old ladies. And if the commerce clause is unbounded in its scope, why would its authors have included it in its present form. Would it not have been simpler, and certainly less ambiguous, to grant authority over everything to the Federal gov't? Or perhaps, that "someone who actually knows what he's talking about" doesn't really know what he's talking about, but is just a reciter of facts. Sure anyone can say, "The current interpretation of the commerce clause is that it extends to everything," just as their teachers taught them, and be deemed "right" by his conforming peers. But there was once a time when the commerce clause was limiting of the Federal gov't. Unfortunately, if we abide by the generally accepted principle of stare decisis, we will be stuck with this unconstitutional garbage forever.
I agree with the grandparent. Action taken in line with current generally-accepted interpretation of the commerce clause is a violation of our constitution, & violation of our constitution is treason.
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 try this again.
Phil, be prepared for a rise in merchandise sales. You sir, show great integrity both in your music and in your belief system and for that you will be rewarded.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
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?
You can't take the sky from me...
I hate drugs and I think that even the harmless ones end up being a gateway
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.
i used to be in a band called "the quick". always thought it would be funny to open for the dead, if only because of the flyers we could print.
using anti-bacterial hand soap is like drying your feet in the middle of a shower.
I have used this archive on archive.org of Dead music with my students. I'm interested in teaching students not only that downloading music can be illegal, but that much content is completely legal (as well as free and open source/Creative Commons, etc.).
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.
I for one welcome slashdot.xxx! Porn and slashdot on one site.. I'd be set!
None, as you suggest. The late Rehnquist wrote, in his dissent of the CA-marijuana case, that even quilts made as a hobby by little old ladies would be, by the majority's opinion, regulate-able. Certainly one of those quilts could be given to one of the ladies's grandsons, who would then be out of the market for commercial quilts, diminishing overall demand, & hence affecting the interstate-commerce of quilts. It is not even necessary for the grandson to be out of state, or even for the lady to give it away. By merely increasing the supply of quilts in the world, and as long as quilts are sold legally or illegally across state lines, the little old lady's hobby is federally regulate-able. If this is not reductio ad absurdum, I know not what is.
The Commerce clause is also the reason why states and private business cannot discriminate because of gender and race. The Commerce clause is also one of the main reason for the economic development of the United States. A study of the history of the Commerce clause is a study of the history of economic development in the United States. Therefore, I would leave the Commerce clause in Constitution 3.0 unless you want to go back to having separate facilities for persons of difference races.
e z and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Morr ison as evidence of said reversal.
Certainly, Congress has overextended itself in using said clause in its legislation (like regulating guns around schools, which was revoked by the Supreme Court), and the Supreme Court has historically given Congress lots of leeway in this regard.
However, in the past decade, the Supreme court has changed it's stance on the reach of the Commerce clause. No longer can Congress simply said "Commerce clause," it now has to demonstrate a more direct link (mere numbers are insufficient). The Rehnquist-led US Supreme Court was certainly pro-States and I don't believe that will change now that Roberts is the Cheif Justice and with another conversative judge likely to succeed Justice O'Connor. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Lop
You're using "commerce" in the modern, commercial sense. It's like using "intercourse" just to mean sex. Both "commerce" and "intercourse" meant all sorts of human interactions, not just those that we today would call strictly commercial or strictly sexual. If you look into the research into what "commerce" meant at the time of the Constitution -- both to the general public and specifically in the Founding Fathers' other uses of it -- you'll see that it wasn't at all limited to what we call commercial trade. They meant it quite broadly. You may disagree with them, but playing on the modern use of a word rather than its contemporary one is not a legitimate way to discern the original intent.
BTW, I agree that drug laws abridge inalienable rights, specifically to privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Nor does the privacy right have to be "in" the Constitution; it was assumed as a background truth by the founders, as something so obvious as to not need enumeration. Without the right to be privately about your life, no other right means much anyway.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Many taper friendly bands choose to not allow their shows to be posted to the live music archive.h p
See the list of those that have opted out here (after the accepted and pending list):
http://www.archive.org/audio/etree-band-showall.p
Phish is a good example. They do allow fans to trade their recordings on bt.etree.org as well as other places. You can buy soundboards from their website. I don't think that makes them greedy or in the same class as metallica and others.
That said...the dead archive on etree is just amazing and I hope it stays. I encourage anyone that hasn't ever got the dead to download some of the higher rated shows and give them a chance. Great music to code to.
At a tangent to this story but related to Recording Industry Ass. of America issues.
r avels/2100-1041_3-5980004.html?part=rss&tag=598000 4&subj=news
CNET is reporting that plans for an iPod tax have fallen through in Japan.
http://news.com.com/Plan+for+iPod+tax+in+Japan+un
This seems to be pushed through by "industry insiders who work for corporate interests at the expense of consumers" I think we may all guess which corporate interests are being alluded at.
Strangely, I don't recall this tax being suggested when the $Sony$ Walkman first came out...
Copyright helps protect the owner from several bad things including: keeping someone else from modifying your work in a way you do not want it to be and then attributing it to you (What if someone changed Schindlers List to be favourable to the Nazi's and then stamped Speilbergs name on it? It's copyright law, among others, that protects against this. In most of Europe, the original copyright owner cannot give up his right of "creative control" although in the US you can sell that right and it is usually demanded), knockoffs and forgeries (I am all for sampling, etc. and so are some copyright holders, but full fledged forgeries are out and out stealing. It takes a lot of work and money to make a brand or name, etc. and when someone co-ops that for financial gain, it is theft of real value.)
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.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
The clause now extends the federal government numerous powers (DUI laws, speed limits, drug use, porn, Internet controls, telecommunications controls, etc).
DUI and speeding is not governed by interstate commerce. The transportation funding bills contain provisions that restrict funding to states who do not set DUI/speeding guidelines that the feds agree with. This is called "The Power of the Purse". No speed limit? No federal dollars. Ouch!
"The site will restore fan-made recordings; however, the more pristine soundboard recordings will remain off-limits for now."
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, 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.
--
make install -not war
Actually, no, it is not why business "can't" discriminate. The Civil Rights Act, passed in the 1960's, says that we *must* discriminate, to give additional privilege to groups that are decided to be disadvantaged. That act might have been possible due to the Commerce clause, but the clause was not what requires it. There was also that whole amendment to the Constitution that guarantees voting to everyone, and makes any form of poll tax illegal.
There is no reason to prevent a business from refusing to hire based on race. They would be shaken down in the market, since they would not be hiring the best people. What we've had since passing the Civil Rights Act is that people use their race to get privilege over others. Look at how ridiculous school aid is, or the quotas for different races and genders. Look at how hard it is to fire something if they are female or black, etc. This is not a good thing.
The people pushing for the Civil Rights Act wanted government to be barred from making any law giving favor to a race over another. Instead, they got a law that required it.
Realistically, you would not have segregation in the US today. People by and large don't care. You may have private individuals exercising their right to freedom of association in some cases, but that's all. It is disadvantageous to business to hire based on race or gender; that includes "giving a change to disadvantaged groups".
I, for one, do not welcome our Ungrateful Undead overlords.
It does not really make sense for them to have giving the Federal the ability for such broad powers. They were trying to keep the Federal small, and this is contradictory to doing so.
For other examples of that which we've destroyed in the last hundred years, we used to have State representation in Congress (removed via 17th amendment), and we limited the taxation of the Federal to excise and tariff (removed via 16th amendment).
The intent was to keep the Federal small so that it could not exert more than minimal force over the States and citizens.
So the Dead built up a huge amount of goodwill with their policies. Goodwill can be converted into money, just like anything else. Some of those with a financial interest in the remains of the Dead have decided that this is the way to turn that goodwill into money. Greed, or good business sense? You decide.
Hippies suck.
nowhere in the Constitution do I see any allotment for the Congress to control, regulate, criminalize or even define drug use
In fact, an amendment was needed to prohibit the production of alcohol. Somehow an amendment was not needed to prohibit marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or even caffeine.
All of the shows put on Archive.org were put there by the fans. Many of the shows had gone through several lineages such as a a cassette tape made from a patch at the soundboard then transferred to another cassette then edited using an audience patch for dropouts then to a lossless format. Thousands of hours had gone into preserving and restoring and deducing lineage of these shows. Many times, the dead themselves did not have a copy at all, having lost/broken/misplaced/ never recorded in the first place.
So: How do you decide WHO owns that multigeneration, edited, fanbase cataloged (yes the Deadheads have a system that keeps track of all the lineages, the tapers, the recording equipment used, the show dates, diginoise intriduced. etc. etc.), hand passed around long before the internet, show?
More importantly, if you upload that to a website with the intent to share it with others following a policy by the band and by the website, does this band have the right to take that away, claim its thiers, and then sell that back to you?
As a veteran of 300 real dead shows (all with garcia) all i can say is that my heart is aching. I don't listen too much anymore, and i don't download. Those years were amzing, confusing, scary and sometimes depressing, but always the best. Its just sad that the dream is nothing left but shattered remnants. If you get confused, Listen to the music play. Garcia-Hunter
The "surviving member" is nobody but the woman who inherited control of the trademark and partial interest in the songwriting and performance rights.
Nobody in the band can stand her. She's why they started performing as "The Dead", so separate themselves profesionally from what was left of the management organization that found itself under control of Garcia's widow.
Archive.org got threats and responded to them, but Phil didn't know this was going on. See, Phil actually has the right to permit this material to be distributed, and he's not too happy about someing going over his head, essentially, abridging his own rights as one of the artists involved. I predict this incident will have the effect of reducing Debra Koons' influence again, and also, another resource for this material will manifest, better than Archive.org was, perhaps under control of someone like the Rex foundation, or someone like that who won't be disposed to cave in the first time they get a letter from a lawyer.
Personally I think Archive.org should have insisted on a court order, since they have powerful enough allies who have equal claim to the distribution rights of this material.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
An important bit of context: John Perry Barlow co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
His position on the issue shouldn't be surprising.
Thats because usually folks like this understand what a gateway drug is -- and its hard enough to give these up without even going for the harder stuff.
As the original poster to which you are responding -- Coffee? Gave it and all other caffeen drinks a long time ago...and then came back to them -- not because of the caffeen, but because of the flavor. I go long stretches with just water as well. I've never heard anyone that smoked claim without a laugh they only started smoking because of how it tasted and smelled -- or they wish they could get all the flavor without the nicoteen. Never smoked, obviously. Filthy habit. I don't like the taste of coffee -- its pretty much solely a vehicle for go juice. I like tea...had a white tea the other day -- almost naturally decafinated. Same with the red (roboos) teas...drinking a coke right now, but if they had decafinated, I would have grabbed that. Point is, I don't drink to get anything other than taste.
But why is it so hard for folks to realize someone can hold a belief without being a hypocrite. Is it because you live in the US where 99% of all people are hypocrites? Christians that think the death penalty is a fine institution and gun ownership is what the lawrd wants? Leftists that hate the death penalty as barbaric, but have no qualms about hacking up a third trimester child and sucking its brains out of a womans wombs? We get upset about politicians that go against what they believe and do the will of those that elect them calling them flipfloppers or 'slick', yet when someone has personal views that they decide to live by, we scream that only 33% of there electorate support them?
Is it really that hard to believe some of us think on our own and don't just parrot what others tell us to and dispense with the talking point?
No, I have a hard time not envisioning sarcastists like yourself as being anything but overeducated trailer trash trying against all might to delay the eventual return to the doublewide. But thats wrong of me, and I apologize in advance for my failings...
Well, the Dead certainly ran with people who embraced any number of communal and Marxian based ideals over the years. Watching the Dead-Heads engage in a little Marxian revolt against their leaders is funny as hell. I guess what goes around comes around.
I do not use drugs of any kind, FWIW.
You pussy
When you put the Commerce Clause in historical context, it actually makes perfect sense. One of the reasons Federalists such as James Madison wanted a constitution in the first place was because of the confusion of interstate trade under the Articles of Confederation. There were separate currencies in the various states, and regulations by each state regarding what could and couldn't be transported over state lines.
Yes, it's abused. For instance, I'd say that a drug dealer could legitimately claim that his case could not be tried under federal law if his products did not cross state lines when the drugs were in his posession, because his activities did not qualify as interstate commerce, and thus could not be legitimately regulated by the federal government. I don't think that argument has ever won a case, but IANAL or Paralegal, so I don't have the case law either way on that one.
The better arguments against drug laws include:
1. They're overly invasive (notice the curbing of Fourth Amendment rights in the name of fighting drugs)
2. The choice of which drugs are illegal is racist (opiates were illegal in part because they were used by Chinese-Americans, marijuana because it was used by immigrants from the carribean, while tobacco and alcohol were fine because they were used by rich white guys)
3. Enforcement is arbitrary and racist (rich and/or white gets rehab, poor and/or non-white gets jail time, see also the difference in treatment of cocaine and crack).
I am officially gone from
The illeagalization of hemp was protested by the AMA, at that the only ones who showed up at congress to argue the illegalization of hemp were doctors.
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).
Hemp seed oil competed with the oil industry.
Also there was a lot of unemployed G-men after prohibition ended who needed a new job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
and I like hearing the crowd roar and such, it puts you more in the place than a board.
The Archive now offers files for streaming, which is a bandwidth hog for music files. People keep playing them again and again. (Especially Deadheads, who are notorous for listening to the same content repeatedly. Possibly due to drug-induced memory degradation.) This is interfering with other queries.
While the pharmaceuticals had most of the initial influence regarding which drugs are criminalized, in today's world, I've become convinced that the drug lords themselves are the primary motivators behind the 'war on drugs' -- after all, so long as drugs that are in high demand are also illegal, this keeps their street prices artificially high, and profits maximized.
I've heard that drug lords do have lobby groups to keep drugs illegal.
However, I do not believe that drugs are that expensive and I doubt they would change significantly in price if they were to become legal. The only thing that I think might go down in price is high quality marijuana. To put it in comparison to legal drugs like alcohol, illegal ones are about the same price. Now, habitual use of any drug, including alcohol, is going to hurt you in the pocket book, but so will an addiction to pocket books or shoes.
Oh, and here I thought it was called black mail.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
Well, before we get all huffy about The Dead cracking down on trading, let's look at the facts (as near as I can tell).
Archive.org is a centralized clearinghouse for distributing live music. The Dead asked them to stop distributing(since converted to stop distributing digital copies of soundboard recordings). As near as I can tell, they did NOT ask ANYONE to stop trading these recordings on a personal level. They did not take anything away from the fans, just made it a little less convienant to get some shows. As a long-time fan of the dead & tape-trader, I sometimes miss the good ol' days before archive.org & highspeed downloads when I actually had to communicate with other human beings to get copies of shows.
Just my $0.02 worth
Have you ever met a hippie with a profit motive? This whole thing makes me sad - it is a story about people growing old and losing all of their youthful ideals. It happens to most people, and sometimes it is for the better, but these guys are the fucking Greatful Dead, and they symbolized an entire era that was fundamentally opposed to this sort of thing.
I mean seriously, it doesn't matter that the Internet exists now - these guys are wiping their asses with their own band's history.
No cofee no beer no cough syrup, tea, aspirin or skin creams?
For me, I'll occassionally use green tea, but that is caffeine free. Yes, that means no sodas for me as well. And I'll only take drugs on the advice or prescription of a doctor. If it's not bad enough for me to see one, it's not bad enough for me to drug up. Oh, and I would love for all drugs to be legal, though I'd not take them even if they were. You don't have to be an addict to realize that prohibition is as dismal a failure as Prohibition was.
Learn to love Alaska
Exactly why the Federal was never supposed to have the ability to levy direct tax! They took away from the ability of States to levy tax, and because of that, the Federal exerts control over the States. This is the direct result of the 16th amendment. The check that kept the Federal from doing much with it was then removed by the 17th amendment.
They do worse than what you mention by far, too. The Federal ends up with direct control over all aspects of State and local government operation because of the threat of revoking Federal monies. That means that every level of government is forced to operate the way the Federal wants.
Sure, to get rid of copywrite completely would be a great way to go, and as you point out it doesn't seem possible. That doesn't mean you can't fix the problem though. Why not just limit copywrites to the original 4 years? Books are driven by popularity, so doing so wouldn't hurt new sales.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I'd say the biggest reason that drug laws are ridiculous is that they destroy the most important property right of all: your ownership of yourself. As much as people do things that many don't like, we shouldn't be legislating what you can do to yoursel Drugs are a social problem, and the law has always done a horrid job at dealing with such things. We didn't learn from Prohibition, and now we have something much worse.
How many drummers does it take to change a light bulb?
:)
20 - One to change the bulb, and 19 to say the Neil Peart could have done it better.
--
Those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves
y of the Commerce clause is a study of the history of economic development in the United States. Therefore, I would leave the Commerce clause in Constitution 3.0 unless you want to go back to having separate facilities for persons of difference races.
Gross exaggeration, and fallacy of the excluded middle.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Actually, no, it is not why business "can't" discriminate. The Civil Rights Act, passed in the 1960's, says that we *must* discriminate, to give additional privilege to groups that are decided to be disadvantaged. That act might have been possible due to the Commerce clause, but the clause was not what requires it.
Actually, yes it is. In the Civil Rights Cases, 109 US 3 (1883), the US Supreme court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional because while the 14th amendment prohibited the denial of equal protections by the states, it did not give Congress the power to regulate private acts. In other words, the 14th amendment applies to the states; it does not applies to individuals (and hence businesses).
It wasn't until the Passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, where Congress used the Commerce clause as the basis of its legislative powers (hard to believe given the amount of legislation passed every year, Congress has limited powers delegated to it by the Constitutions. Henceforth, and similar to federal courts, jurisdiction is not assumed and must be stated in order for Congress to enact its laws), that private parties were prohibiting from discriminating based on race. So not only the Act would not have been possible if it wasn't for the Commerce clause, but it would not passed judicial review becuase of the Commerce clause as well. See Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964).
The Federal can control them under the current arrangement by use of the FDA. The legality of the FDA is certianly questionable, but if the FDA says "no", then the drug isn't legal.
The Federal frequently oversteps it's boundaries by various devious methods. We just have little way of forcing them back in line with all the changes that have been made over the last 100 years. It's possible, but a long and arduous process.
Having a political leaning like yours is difficult. I feel similar, but you have to be consistent. My stance is that my body is my property, and the only say the government has over it is through arrest and trial. By making doing something to my body a crime, they have removed property that is guaranteed to me as an innate right. I don't like these drugs, and I wish people wouldn't use them, but it is their choice.
I feel that the law shouldn't come to bear until you have harm to another involved. If you drive a car into your own house, that should not be illegal. To cross your neighbor's property to do so should be illegal. Going out to the road and punching someone for yelling should be illegal, but someone asking you to hit them and getting such should not be.
In the case of your hospital example, though unfortunate, that's the right way. An injury is an injury even if it is your actions that caused it. If you don't want to wait for the addict with the OD, spend the extra money to get better care. I know that you almost certainly can't afford it, but you probably see what I'm getting at. Your example would get worse the more you turn health care into a government thing, and that seems to be the way people are pushing it.
It's a shame that people are so short-sighted, but we are, as a whole, just that. You can't legislate morality and expect something functional and proper. The only way we're going to get rid of drug addicts is to convince people to not do drugs. Making it illegal doesn't work, and is never going to work. It doesn't fix the actual social problem, but it does make things worse for everyone.
listening to the radio today i heard about a show called sleeper cells, a group of terrorists, they were describing how they would take capital made in one country, the U.S., I believe and use it to demonstrate chaos on the same country, how did they make their money, well, by selling bootlegs of cd's and dvd's brought over the mexican border is this abuse of the recording industry and hollywood influence on citizens and turning this one issue, copyright infringement, into an issue of terror or making use of the culture of fear, you are more of a criminal than you think, i guess is the point, anyways i just sat there lauhing for a bit, am i wrong in my viewpoint.
Yes, that's what I said. :) The Commerce clause doesn't stipulate civil rights, but it allowed a law to be passed that did. I don't mind having the exact case references, of course, they end up being very useful!
Seriously, the Federal should not be passing laws that govern individuals or businesses anyway. That should be for the States to decide independantly. Legislating to the individual is how we ended up with the inoperative, unmanagemable, and overbearing Federal that we have today.
Also, remember that the Civil Rights Act does not prohibit discrimination, exactly. The wording was such that it allowed programs, such as Affirmative Action, to come into existence. The wording also made it trivial for someone to sue an employer or business until Title VII, with often no evidence of discrimination. The Act is the cause of a great deal of discrimination, and it is used to often mandate discrimination.
It's easy to volunteer someone else... a non-profit at that... for a lawsuit. But a takedown notice is serious and can cause great harm in court if it is ignored. It would be like disregarding a cease and desist, only it would affect both you _and_ your network service provider, in this case the university which provides Archive.org's bandwidth. It's not nice to drag someone providing you with free bandwidth into court.
I'll only take drugs on the advice or prescription of a doctor.
Allright, I can see how that would mean that the doctor uses the drug on you, not that you use drugs. Semantics. Well, good on you.
You can't take the sky from me...
Which is that they support trading, but not downloads.
At least that's how I read the statement.
I think this whole thing is sad.
I consider Garcia my biggest influence, and I think that wherever his soul is out there -->
He is crying.
This is a bad decision, because from my limited experiance, setting things free tends to build interest and community, and they have set themselves back a taste.
Its a sad day here.. a cold winter rain falls.
Ponder a moment will you, how things change.
My my, how things change.
Come on guys (The Dead) don't go down like this.
Just one little mans plea, what you set free, let be.
DB
Myself, my best friend, and a colleague spent most of 2003 working with the Grateful Dead (however they are now known simply as The Dead for legal/business reasons).
:) I'm not even a Dead fan and (before that experience) I couldn't name you two songs by the Dead...I just thought it'd make a good story to tell my kids some day.
We pitched an idea to them in early 2003 that eventually came to be known as the 'Official Concert Recording Series' (OCRS) and allowed folks to buy any concert during that 2003 tour for about $25 -- not a bad deal for 3 hours of music.
There was some community backlash at the time to what we were trying to do -- the Dead weren't trying to stop tape traders at the shows, but they were trying to offer folks who are not in the uber-connected 'tape trader world' an opportunity to buy high-quality recordings of their shows that were official and sanctioned, as well as profiting from their music.
Tapers were still allowed, but those that wanted to show their support for the band, or wanted to buy a keepsake of their favorite concert that year could do it. All in all, we ended up being far more successful than any of us thought we would and it was a great experience for all involved...though I'll probably never do something like that again.
The moral of the story is that I don't believe at the end of the day that the online "free music" community that people tap into for some of the Dead's music takes away from people who want to buy music from the Dead -- in my experience, people wanted to buy concert CDs as keepsakes of their first show with their girlfriend or child, or as gifts for fellow Dead Heads.
It's true "they" (there are a lot of people involved here) own the lyics, sheet music, and performance copyrights, but there are also copyrights in recordings and those are owned by the person making the recording. Unfortunately "they" don't all agree about what terms should be given, and not all of them have even weighed in on the issue. What we're seeing is the public surface of this private disagreement.
Also, they have given a blanket license to trade these and for sites to offer them for MP3 download. They can't retract that permission. They can prevent trading of new recordings since they made those statements, but not ones before.
Unless you were not speaking of legal rights, in which case I kind of agree. People should respect the artist's wishes, even if they are assinine.
BS. It doesn't matter how popular they are if no one actually buys their books.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
agreed. but, it seems that some who have been on the road following the Dead from town to town have no problem boycotting personal hygene
Netcraft confirms it, The Grateful Dead are Dying.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Admittedly most people get it wrong in the opposite way from you. But yes, if I create a story and someone copies it they're still violating a few laws. Even if I gave them a copy.
As a matter of fact, copies of books are given out all the time. You still can't make a movie based on them without obtaining the rights from the author.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
So how should we define "for profit". For an example, if a teacher copies 50 pages from a book, and gives it to his students, would that count as "for profit"? The students perhaps get a better education, and that might be defined as profit for the students, the teacher and the school.
/.karma? How about publishing a book on my website for better google pagerank? Or publishing copyrighted pictures on my blog, so that more people will visit it. Or showing a movie about the harmful destruction of the rainforests, for free in a theatre, in order to raise people's awareness about the issue?
While I agree with your logic, I'm wondering where we should draw the line here.
Would it be publishing for profit if I were to insert the text of a book in this reply, for better
Are we just speaking about financial gain, or should the author also have the exclusive rights to other qualities of life that could be derived from publishing?
My other UID is 1337
"They have come to an amicable understanding after some confusion involving online bootlegs."
It seems the confusion occured after members of the band ate some brownies and began negotiating with the invisible pink ballerina in the corner rather than archive.org.
Jimmy the bootlegger is back selling SBDs on eBay..
Whistling his favourite tune..
RIAA caught a mp3 in his player
Come get more, all right here
Get back online where you belong
and don't you think no more
Don't hang your head let the tape roll
eBay closed account lets make more
Ask the price? Baby I don't know
Come back later, we'll let it show
And I say go, Jimmy go
Gonna get rich?
I don't know
Seems the easy way to go
Get online, go, go, go
go, go
But yeah, a number of my friends are in small bands that perform lots of gigs, sometimes paid, sometimes just for tips, and selling the CDs at the gigs is often what makes the money, and they're often the format that your friends use to tip you. If you're a medium-sized band that can get 500 people to get $10-20 concert tickets, cool, but if you're playing in bars and weddings or DJing at dances or playing at local music festivals with lots of other bands, the economics are a lot different.
The Grateful Dead (and similar bands like Jefferson Airplane) had a few early albums that went through the learning curve process on "what happens if you give a bunch of creative hippies artistic control, relatively unlimited budget, cool recording equipment to do creative things with, no clear deadlines, and access to lots of psychedelics". ("What do you mean, you're trying to record 'the sound of thick air'?") The record label folks had to learn how to get the bands to finish projects so they'd have something to ship, and the bands had to learn how the economics of record labels ripping off bands work, and in their cases they mostly figured out how to put out enough shippable product fast enough that there was something to sell to make up for the costs of the earlier work.
These days, equipment is so much better and cheaper, and bands can do stuff on a Mac in their garage that previously required highly expensive equipment which came with a bunch of record company engineers. Of course, that doesn't mean that the average band necessarily knows enough about engineering or music production to do it themselves, so they may want to hire specialists, but of course record companies have more expertise in making music that they think is commercially sellable than in music that expresses some artistic vision.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Seriously, the Federal should not be passing laws that govern individuals or businesses anyway. That should be for the States to decide independantly."
Which is exactly why, in your opinion we have
"the inoperative, unmanagemable, and overbearing Federal that we have today."
Congress doesn't just sit around and decide "Hey, let's pass a law today" (for the most part). They do it in response to their constituents. If the states had done a good job, there would be much less incentive for the federal government to step in. One could suggest many ways to fix this, but probably not any GOOD ways on balance.
I think it roughly sums to this-you get the representation that the general electorate deserves, which is the problem.....
Studio recordings were never an issue, nobody trades those and most are pretty lame anyways. It is soundboard recordings, some of which are made at concerts via patches supplied by the band to those in the taper's section. Others being released through the "band" or given out to friends who sent them out in the wild. The obvious evolution was putting recordings up on TLA, no longer do you get a muddy audio tape or hissy soundboard back in the mail, you sample them first which is very nice. The problem is, there was never a problem with audience or soundboard recordings, they just don't want them all in one categorized place. They obviously want to open their vault up a la iTunes and there was a problem with the "band" doing this in the past with an outside entity, Microsoft being one making an offer.
Sure, this will not stop downloading, since the trading policy is in effect. However the lamest part is not being able to sample the sound quality. Some peoples version of great quality is not too accurate and makes replacing old tapes difficult when finding a better source.
The lack of foresight of the band is amusing, because their tapes would be much better than some of the crappy soundboards floating around with cuts, dropouts, spliced with audience sources, bad pitch, etc. They could even have started by filling in gaps that have not been circulated, poeple would have bought those! They also better be loseless shows because nobody in their right mind would pay for them, and that is a lot of work for a company not sustaining itself on tour revenue anymore.
--
Do deadheads really need Dick's Pick #538 anyways?
Copyright helps protect the owner from several bad things including: keeping someone else from modifying your work in a way you do not want it to be and then attributing it to you (What if someone changed Schindlers List to be favourable to the Nazi's and then stamped Speilbergs name on it?
That's an important issue, but addressing it with copyright law is overkill. All you need is a law against fraud: if you claim that your modified version of the movie is Steven Spielberg's work, you're lying to the public, just as if you pieced together a crappy car in your back yard and tried to sell it as a Toyota.
OTOH, if you want to change Schindler's List to be favorable to the Nazis, and then put your own name on it (while noting that it's based on Spielberg's original work and that you're unaffiliated with him), I say go ahead. You're presenting your product as exactly what it is, a remix of someone else's work.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Check the RIAA members list. See who's on there? Allow me to abbreviate it for you...
Why is anyone here still listening to them? You all read slashdot. Surely you know what the RIAA has been doing for the past few years...
Boycott the RIAA. ALL OF THEM.
I agree with you, I would just add that this is exactly why we used to have the Senate to represent States right's. Before the 17th amendment, you had a check against the Federal taking power away from the States. Between the 16th and the 17th, it's nearly impossible for the States to be able to do what they need. We *did* have balance, and then we screwed it all up.
Since Jerry sang all the songs, Wrote all teh songs and played all the songs too.
Where did you get your statistics from? I think you are very wrong.
The Greek Book Centre says the average print run for a Greek book in the Greek publishing industry is 3000 copies.
"THE TRADE MARKET
"Trade publishers in Greece have to contend not just with a small population, but one that has very little tradition of reading for pleasure. Despite this, there is a reasonable and well-published market for literary as well as mass market fiction. In Greece, literature means paperback, as hardbacks do not exist beyond some childrens titles and imports. Trade publishers are heavily reliant on translations, which account for nearly 60 per cent of literature titles and bring in big names. A successful trade title sells over 6,000 copies a year, and a bestseller sells more than 10,000 copies a year." (source a Doc file on my hd I found somewhere)
You seem to be dead wrong on your statistic of 1,000 copies since I have a bunch of docs and pdfs from the Greek Book Centre(some of which are in English) saying that in the Greek market alone that 3,000 copies is considered the average print run and 2 print runs or more(over 6,000) is considered a success. On top of that the Greek book market per capita is smaller than other EU-15 members.
shouldn't that be ??AA ?
Those categories of personally-owned property have developed over time. Indeed, past concepts have included that many of those physical objects belong to God, to your feudal lord, or to no one in particular or to everyone.
Nomadic hunter-gatherer cultures generally don't have so precise definitions of land ownership as agrarian economies, for example. The Native Americans probably though it was ridiculous to be so anal about property rights that the new immigrants were so concerned about.
As for non-physical objects, there are still areas where we have implicit rights that we expect but which we haven't found the need to claim yet. These could give rise to "property" rights, potentially.
For example, suppose I invent a device to make the thoughts in a particular head conform to my wishes (say, in order to sell a product). We regard our thoughts as our own, but there's not much legal precedent protecting our rights to our thoughts inasmuch as there haven't been sufficiently intrusive technical measures available for exploiting the thoughts of others.
We might think that "rights to thoughts" are ridiculous, but it's not ridiculous - only an artifact of how our society is structured based on supply, demand, and what technology makes possible.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I don't understand the concept that soundboard recordings that were made by GD personnel or permitted by GD personnel (by making direct to sbd patches available) somehow "belong" by moral or legal right to anyone except the authorized copyright-holders of the music--even if they permitted some form of limited distribution through trading of soundboards (either made by fans or "ripped off" from the GD organization) back in the day. It doesn't seem to have sunk in at GD management until recently that they had high-quality product available for nothing on the archive that competed with their own commercially released products. I am sincerely amazed that anybody would think that those who have legal rights to the music, including those who were performers of it, should have to think twice before restricting distribution of their livelihood. It really IS "their" music. Fans have the right to pay for it and to listen to it. Under appropriate conditions, to perform it.