I disagree with:
every one who should make money from the grateful dead is making it san rhino through other ventures, Ratdog, phil and friends etc.
But again, I can see how someone would feel this way if they had decided that the surviving members of the Grateful Dead should never make another dime from the work they did when the band was together and performing regularly.
Based on the 5% comment, I think there may be a mixing metaphors here. The TOTAL royalty paid for both performing and copyright usage when you buy a CD is usually about 15-20% give or take depending on the net price paid at the point of sale, the vagaries of your particular distribution deal, manufacturing costs etc. Either way, 5%, 20%, maybe people think they both suck and hate paying all those other people because the people they "like" only get a small fraction of the money. But, to steal the music through illegal downloads doesn't do anything good for the artist. In the end, this behavior screws the artist that one "likes" in order to avoid paying money to some people they "don't like". I am not sure I would be comfortable in a world where people decided for me whether or not I should be paid for my work based on whether they "liked" me personally or not, regardless of how efficiently or effectively I completed my work. I also wouldn't like to get screwed out of my next paycheck because someone decided they "liked" me but didn't "like" my co-worker in the next office. This sounds like a ticket to never get paid at all.
Some comments on a Sound Board download, not directed at anyone in particular, just a general response to the negativity toward Rhino and a variety of comments by a variety of posters: The overwhelming majority of those recordings are OWNED by Grateful Dead Productions. It is my understanding that the overwhelming number that were, and maybe still are, available for free download by people not affiliated with GDP were acquired through nefarious means. In other words, one way or another, they were stolen. I understand how the guys at website X might THINK that what they have is totally cool because it has been passed around the GD community somewhat before they came to have it, and they came to have it because it was "shared" with them and they are simply willing to "share" it with other people. However, this is not reality. If someone came over to my house and stole my guitar, then passed it around to all their friends saying that this is all hippie good that we are sharing this wonderful guitar, and I found the guy who was currently playing it, would you blame me for wanting MY guitar back? If I told the guy who has my guitar "look, just give me my guitar back now, and I won't prosecute you for receiving stolen goods", would you say "fuckin Mick! He won't let us have his guitar for free anymore, what an asshole!"? This is fairly analogous to the sound board recordings, but we can improve the analogy somewhat. What if it wasn't a guitar, what if it was a financial instrument, like a bond, that gave off payments every 6 months, it was gone for 3 years so someone else got 6 of my payments, but when I found out who had it, I still offered to not prosecute, nor try to recoup the payments that were taken from me, as long as I get my bond back now and any future payments that may be left. Would you still think me an asshole? If so, I would be very interested to hear why.
The whole resistance to GD trying to make at least some money off of the old recordings is the only thing that really bugs me about the "Grateful Dead Community". It smells of a really ugly "sense of entitlement" that I think is really unfounded given that IMO, the GD gave away more stuff for free than any other band in freaking history. As far as I know, NOBODY is trying to stop the trading of recordings of shows that were made by members of the audience. That was given away for free decades ago, and as far as I know, no one is trying to take that away. I fail to see why people can't be happy with that, and shell out a couple of nickels for the band if they want a higher quality recording, and the band was forward thinking enough to make a higher quality recording at their own expense at the time of the performance.
The whole GD position makes a hell of a lot of sense to me, in that if you went to the trouble and expense of making your own recording of the show while you were there, you are free to share that recording with your friends by pretty much any reasonable means without paying the band anything more than what you paid when you bought your ticket. BUT, if you want the recordings that the band made, on much higher quality equipment, which of course carries a much higher cost, then you have to pay the band a couple of nickels for it. Why is that bad? Can someone fill me in here? Also, since the GD made those recordings at their own expense, if they have no ability to sell those recordings, which they own, how are they supposed to recoup their investment? How are they supposed to sell the recordings when bunches of websites are giving away the stolen content for free? I am seriously baffled by this whole thing, as anyone can probably tell.
Mama Mama many worlds I've come since I first left home.
