Dead brings downloads back to life
Well that was brief. It looks like The Grateful Dead has listened to the backlash from their fans and decided to let the Internet Archive host live concert recordings after all.
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 always has — in favor of tape trading,” McNally said.
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.
Is it me or is that last sentence confusing as hell? I have a feeling that it’s just a clueless AP writer confusing the term “listening” with “purchase.” I can see how they’d make that mistake. If that’s the case, it’s basically what I said yesterday. But I’m not sure what the Dead’s soundboard policy was. Some bands allow limited access to the soundboard for taping. I don’t know if the Dead was one of them. If they allowed fans to tap the soundboard, it would still be a fan recording, and probably no different legally than if a fan brought his tape rig into the concert. I think that what this really means is that live soundboard recordings made by the band are not legal for sharing. That’s perfectly normal.
After all the shoddy reporting is sorted out, the fact remains that the band is a swell bunch of guys for allowing taping and trading. It helped build the community among the fans, even if the fans are smelly hippies.
