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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 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.
Only on slashdot will you find posts so naive and ignorant, and yet so brazen about it.
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
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