Kindle"Archive.org has been forced to take down over 1000 soundboard recordings of the Grateful Dead by Jerry's wife and a few (perhaps one) remaining member of the band."John Perry Barlow, EFF co-founder and former Grateful Dead lyricist, tells Boing Boing:
You have no idea how sad I am about this. I fought it hammer and tong, but the drummers had inoperable bricks in their head about it.Here's Barlow's blog. Today, news that Deadheads are boycotting the Dead, according to this Rolling Stone article:What's worse is that they now want to remove all Dead music from the Web. They might as easily put a teaspoon of food coloring in a swimming pool and then tell the pool owner to get it back to them.
It's like finding out that your brother is a child molester. And then, worse, having everyone then assume that you're a child molester too. I've been called a hypocrite in three languages already.
How magnificently counter-productive of them. It's as if the goose who laid the golden egg had decided to commit suicide so that he could get more golden eggs.
This is just the beginning of the backlash, I promise you.
This is worse than the RIAA suing their customers.
All of the downloads were pulled last week at the request of Grateful Dead Merchandising (GDM), the group that handles official products for the band and is overseen by its surviving members.Link.Deadheads have answered in protest. In an online petition, fans have pledged to boycott GDM -- including CDs and concert tickets -- until the decision is reversed. (The band itself broke up in the wake of leader Jerry Garcia's 1995 death, but in recent years guitarist Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann have toured simply as "the Dead.")