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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. "
''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
How exactly is an author going to make any money if not from selling his non-continuing work?
I am an author and I have always offered my writing (books, newsletters, e-mails) for free. As the Internet progresses, more and more books and writings will be available illegally (freely), so authors need to now adjust before they miss out as the music industry did.
Authors have many ways to make money on their books. First, authors can co-op (not in the forceway way that the MPAA and the RIAA have) to go to book sellers and agree to not provide their stores if the book sellers sell third party copies of the books. Books can be freely copied, yet MANY readers will want to buy the official author's book, as long as it is reasonably priced. When I see $2 bootleg CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. When I see $15 official CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. I won't purchase either copy. Yet when an indie band is offering CDs for $10, I know I am helping the author.
This viewpoint is something we need to work on as a society, yet we won't because the current system (protected by copyright) puts the power of media in the **AA companies, not the bands. The distributors control the radio, MTV and even the rock trades. The Internet is changing all this. Copyright isn't useful for authors, anyway. Most "bestsellers" net their authors very little. You can write a best seller and make less than $30,000.
How do I, as an author, make money? Public speaking engagements. Consulting. Distribution of new text to those who want it first. It is very lucrative, moreso than the actual book sale.
Copyright is a privilege that is extended to the creator of a work as an incentive to release those works into the public. The holder of the copyright is granted an exclusive monopoly on distribution for a time. This is a fair incentive, IMHO, so long as the work eventually reverts to the public domain. The current term of copyright is absurd, but unfortunately it is within the law (even if it doesn't adhere to the spirit of the law).
I'm not so sure that anarchocapitalism applies here, since we're not talking about a physical object. But I agree on your main point-- copyright doesn't need to be the main vehicle for profit. Obviously, this is something that people in IT a realizing about now; look at all the people out there making money on permissive copyrights! Amazing.
As a side note, someone came to me yesterday asking how to move raw PCM data recorded on VHS tape (44.03 kHz) to a computer. Apparently, he has amassed a large collection ("hundreds") of Grateful Dead bootlegs in digital format. He was wondering if he could transfer them digitally to his hard disk-- I really had no idea. Anyone ever heard of this before? He said that bootleggers used to show up with all kinds of crazy recording equipment.
Writer? To be fair, my understanding is that many authors make a lot of their money from book signings. But if you write books on, say, "Home septic installation made easy" I somehow doubt the local independent bookstore is going to arrange a signing. Likewise, it's going to be difficult getting an advance on your work if the publisher can't be granted exclusive rights to it, and you can't sell the rights to Hollywood if there is no law against simply stealing the story.
I'm not saying that means that Stephen King's great-great grandchildren need to be collecting royalty checks on "The Shining" at 117 years old, but it's hard to see how writing would work if there was nothing to prevent someone from taking your work without compensation.
"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.
"The Dead's backtrack on their standards shows how corrupting law can be."
Don't blame the law. Humans have been hypocrites since before laws existed.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
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.
"First, authors can co-op to go to book sellers and agree to not provide their stores if the book sellers sell third party copies of the books."
And as a book retailer, I would...
1. Tell the author to go pound sand.
2. Produce and sell exact duplicates of the author's "official" book.
3. PROFIT!!
Without copyright laws, what would stop a book seller from doing that? How exactly does the author benefit from having no legal protection whatsoever?
I think your idealism clouds your logic.
"How do I, as an author, make money? Public speaking engagements. Consulting."
If the majority of your income comes from consulting and speaking engagements, you are not an author by trade.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I don't have a problem with this. Yes they took it away. But if you already have it you can still trade it/give it away. The audience tapes turned downloadable files were the real issue for me. They were made by someone besides the band with the band's blessing. People spent a lot of time taping them, converting them and then putting them up on archive. Let us keep them.
Their vault from the sbd is theirs to do with what they will and although I feel I may need to wait a while before I'll be able to buy many of them "from the vault" I will do so as much as I can.
In the meantime however, there are plenty of folks who have copies, the Dead don't DRM their stuff and we are all still free to trade what we have. All in all I think it is a perfectly acceptable compromise.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
And as a book retailer, I would...
1. Tell the author to go pound sand.
2. Produce and sell exact duplicates of the author's "official" book.
3. PROFIT!!
No you wouldn't. Retailers who work like this would lose authors. That is a reality. When I submit my writing to a publishing house, I can't copyright it. In fact, if you say "(C) 2005" on your "book" they'll put it in the circular file (trash).
Publishing houses don't steal works, they NEED the works. Retail stores need the authors as well. In fact, if a retail store steals the work, they're accepting way more work than if they just accepted a book and sold it. Can you imagine knocking off 500,000 different books a year? Maybe the top 50 would be stolen, but if they DID get stolen by Borders, that popular author would never offer Borders the first right to sell future best sellers.
The market doesn't work the way you think it does. It works through voluntary exchanges of products and services -- until government comes in and forces unvoluntary exchanges.
Only on slashdot will you find posts so naive and ignorant, and yet so brazen about it.
before P2P, people would request songs on the radio and then tape them. people have been recording music off the radio long before P2P existed. don't blame the internet. music has wanted to be free for much longer...
and let's not forget about bootleg recordings of bands that never allowed it...
please me, have no regrets.
Jerry and the rest of the band were part of the idealized Haight Asbury community. Although it later collapsed into hard drugs and violence the community was visualized as one where everything was shared in common. This is expressed in their song Box of Rain, "What can I do for you to see you through ..."
The Grateful Dead like most of the others of the 60's counter culture eventually became part of the main stream, signed a record deal (for which they were chastised at the time by many Haight-Asburians as sell outs) and went to work, making money from touring, record sales and merchandise sales. The taping of the shows was a carryover from the ideal days of the late 60's. "Hey we are just here making music, if you want to sit in front with a tape recorder that's cool with us."
The tape network grew over the year as tapers traded recordings of shows. However, this was a network which required a "buy in" of having some tapes that you made your self or that you scored from a friend.
The internet and digital media changed all that. It was now easy for someone to put their recordings on a web site where any one could download them. There was no re-precocity involved. This has led to many who have never attend a show to build up a sizable collection of recordings. (Including, admittedly, Bodhicat himself)
I don't really have any conclusion to this. Should the 60's ideals be carried over into the internet? Should the "surviving members" be willing to give up profits from CD sales to preserve these ideas? Who owns music? "Its just sounds in the air, man." In the sixties there was an idea that everything should be free, can these ideals be carried over into the digital age?
"No you wouldn't. Retailers who work like this would lose authors."
Without copyright laws, why would retailers need any kind of business relationships with authors to begin with? If The author distributes his/her works freely, as you suggested they should ("Books can be freely copied"), what would stop the retailers (or anybody for that matter) from simply downloading, printing, and selling it from their stores?
If you are going to advocate anarchocapitalism, you'd better be willing to accept that freeloaders have a lot to gain from such an unregulated system.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
A writer works hard to complete a story or a novel or a picture. A pubisher takes that and produces a book. The publisher sells the physical object for whatever price they can for years and years and years. If there were no copyright, what obligation would the publisher have to pay the writer or the artist any income at all from the on-going sale of the object they were responsible for?
This is completely untrue. Publishers that steal stories from authors would not have authors negotiating with them. Publishers are good at distributing, authors are good at writing. They both need each other, even in a copyright-free world.
There have been publishers who printed more books than the author knew about and the publishers didn't last long.
In a non-law world, we'd still have ways to moderate the actions of people and companies. In fact, in a non-law world the business of action-moderating would be a decent career. You'd pick a company to moderate your transactions, a publisher would do the same. You do a job, you tell your customer "hey, go and moderate me!" Others can see how you handle yourself.
We're seeing moderating systems come into existance already. MySpace has changed the dating life of teenagers (instead of hiding your cheating, it is now considered OK as long as you're honest, which is a good thing). Slashdot has changed the commentary system on the web. Ebay changed the way items are bought and sold. Moderation by private companies for transactions is the future -- why worry about credit checks and the like?
Of course, if you were person had bad moderation, they could theoretically dump their old moderation company and pay for a new one. Now you come across Mr. George Jones, who is 29 years old and has zero moderation. What do you do? Trust him? You come across Mr. John Michaels who is 29 years old and has 910 positives and 14 negatives.
That is how a free market would work. Publishers that cheat get negative moderation. Authors who cheat get negative moderation.
by performing a service for their customers worthy of continual profits. No job requires copyyright.
How do you define "continual?" Say I publish a book and sell it today. Why, my work might even interest people for the whole rest of the week, selling copies for days on end. So, I worked for the last 3 years to produce the material, and then - whoa! - I'm making "continual" profit for several days following! You must be horrified by my greed and the "monopoly" on my own work. Just continuing, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - all week!- to make money on years of work that I'm no longer doing. Shameful.
The strict anarchocapitalist view hoods that property rights are what sets all other rights
And you say that as if it matters. Why, the strict slave-holding view holds that if I point a gun at you, I can make you clean my toilet, too. You're my property then, aren't you? Frankly, I don't care how benignly you try to use the word "anarcho" as a prefix for anything. Actually practice it for real, and all bets are off. May the best armed win.
we see that all legal coercion is bad
But we don't see that at all. You don't make that case, and the very concept is irrational. If your neighbor wakes up each morning and shoots one of your cattle for fun, any sensible legal framework must include the ability for the rule of law to coerce different behavior on the part of your neighbor. If no body/institution is invested with those constitutionally structured powers, then we're back to The Best Armed Guy Wins. And while I am the best armed guy in my neighborhood, I prefer to reserve that for coercing venison and pheasant meat into my freezer.
(note I blogged about this today)
Whew! That's good news. I'd hate to think of the dreadful loss to intelligent, reasoned discourse if you hadn't. And to think that I was going to spend my day writing so that, during some distant week when I wasn't going to be providing a service in real-time, I could realize some income as a return on my investment. But now I see that I should become a wandering lecturer/trubador, working for room and board as those opportunities present themselves, and spend today reading your blog instead.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Morals established in the 1970s are, for the most part, being carried today. If the band really wanted to be pricks, they would find every single GD torrent site and shut those down too. It would be really easy to police GD downloads, and they choose not to. In fact, they are STILL encouraging the trading of GD shows. This isn't good enough for you? A lifetime of on-demand free material, and you still aren't happy? Give me a break.
It's a reasonable suggestion the Grateful Dead wouldn't be more than an interesting 'Hits of the Sixties' or 'Where are They Now' trivia question if it weren't for those Haight Asbury ideals of community and sharing. The Dead invited the audience to be part of the group and gave freely, getting a liftime of adoration, appreciation and financial benefit in return. Given the long-unpopular style of music the Dead played they'd could have been just another Quicksilver Messenger Service otherwise. The Dead are one of the best counter-arguments against DRM. Real artists, as opposed to what media companies today term 'product', can survive and flourish, give to society freely and get a lifetime of riches in return, under the notion of copyright as first intended - a limited license on commercial distribution instead of property, or 'music ownership'.
I find it hard to believe that fans of the Grateful Dead could boycott any band related paraphernalia for any length of time.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
I said "their song" meaning a song the band played, not one that Jerry wrote.
...at all.
Anyway, I think the line I quoted ("What can I do for you to see you through.") can be generalized to encompass the concept of a culture of sharing which many in the 60's talked about, even if it wasn't always practiced.
Reading that, I can't help but quote a scene from "This Is Spinal Tap":
MARTY: You play to predominantly, uh predominantly a white audience, you feel your music is racist in any way?
DAVID: No!
NIGEL: No, no, of course not....
DAVID: We pro...we say, we say "love your brother", we don't say it, really, but..
NIGEL: We don't literally say it.
DAVID: No, we don't say it
NIGEL: No, we don't literally mean it, but we're not racists.
DAVID: No, we don't believe it either, but...that message should be clear anyway.