How to destroy the world’s best fan base

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More Dead recording issuesApparently things aren't quite as rosy as they appeared yesterday in the ongoing saga of Grateful Dead recordings on the Internet Archive. Boing Boing: Grateful Dead "reversal" on fan-recordings is a smokescreen 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. The spin on this is bizarre -- see below: 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...


The Dead - Fast LearnersOkay, my faith has been somewhat restored in The Dead -- apparently they're a lot faster learners than most of the record labels -- After the Grateful Dead angered some of its biggest fans by asking a nonprofit Web site to halt the free downloading of its concert recordings, the psychedelic jam band changed its mind Wednesday. Internet Archive, a site that catalogues content on Web sites, reposted recordings of Grateful Dead concerts for download after the surviving members of the band decided to make them available again. Band spokesman Dennis McNally said the group was swayed by the backlash from fans, who for decades have freely taped and traded the band's live performances. "The Grateful Dead remains as it...


RIAA Doesn’t Care If You’re DeadApparently the RIAA now feels that dying isn't a good enough excuse to not be sued for stealing music. More here: RIAA sues the dead. "Lawyers representing several record companies have filed suit against an 83-year old woman who died in December, claiming that she made more than 700 songs available on the internet... ...However the RIAA's embarrassment doesn't end there. Chianumba said that she had sent a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company lawyers in response to an initial warning letter, over a week before the suit was filed." At what point will these sanctimonious @holes embarass themselves enough? It must give the average band a real warm feeling to be associated with people like this......


Death will not save you…Apparently the RIAA now feels that dying isn’t a good enough excuse to not be sued for stealing music. More here: RIAA sues the dead. "Lawyers representing several record companies have filed suit against an 83-year old woman who died in December, claiming that she made more than 700 songs available on the internet… ...However the RIAA’s embarrassment doesn’t end there. Chianumba said that she had sent a copy of her mother’s death certificate to record company lawyers in response to an initial warning letter, over a week before the suit was filed." At what point will these sanctimonious @holes embarass themselves enough? It must give the average band a real warm feeling to be associated with people like this…...


Half a loafXeni Jardin writes in Wired about Wilco’s “suprising” success.  It’s becoming a fairly common story—artist gets shat upon by label, artist says “screw it” and puts out a solid representative sample of their music online, artist finds later commercial releases gobbled up by fans.  In this case, they even raised $15K for charity from people who still wanted to pay for the material they released for free. What a concept—let people hear some of the band’s good stuff (not just some not-ready-for-album samples) for free, and they’re more willing to buy stuff.  Nothing new here, mind you—it just used to be called “radio play”. Except of course that several whole species of moneygrubbers evolved to carefully control who got radio...