Steve Gilliard offers up some interesting observations about music downloads, entitled The live, the Dead and the “stolen”. It contains some interesting ideas and one glaring mistake.
It’s late and I’m listening to one of my favorite bits of music, Live Grateful Dead.
… as a live band, they were simply awesome. They played this incredibly American music, with the Blues, Country, rock, and folk music. As musicians, they were excellent together. Jerry Garcia may not have been much of a father or husband or even friend, since he loved smack over everything, but he was a great musician.
I discovered the Live Dead one New Year’s Eve, dead drunk, and having turned on WBAI, which would play Live Dead back in the day. Unlike so many bands, you could play their bootlegs and not get a cease and decist the next day. So, every New Years for years, they would play the Dead.
When the internet exploded, I realized that I could actually access these bootlegs. Like you could for a lot of bands, especially Springsteen, which had a thriving bootleg market in New York. You’re never gonna find Live Dead on iTunes or Napster. Because these are not legal recordings to begin with. Now the band, in both the Garcia-era and in the new, Dead-era, doesn’t really care. The new band will sell you a live copy of their show as you leave.
Let’s fix the error right away. Free does not mean illegal, no matter what the RIAA would have you believe. Most live recordings of Grateful Dead shows are perfectly legal. They’re not just tolerated by the band. Instead, they’re authorized and even encouraged.
In fact, The Dead are but one of many “taper friendly” bands that actively encourage the noncommercial use and trading of live recordings. At live shows, most even designate special “taper sections” where fans with (often quite expensive) mobile recording gear can set up. Right now, I’m listening to a live recording by one of my favorite taper-friendly groups, Yonder Mountain String Band, which I highly recommend.
With that aside, Steve’s point is well taken. I am not interested in buying the latest stick of bubble gum from Britney or Avril. Give me interesting, eclectic, independent music any time. In fact, I especially like the stuff that I can’t get from the large, corporate labels.
In some cases, I can find cool stuff through online communities that use FTP servers and peer-to-peer sharing systems like BitTorrent. (Not Kazaa. Never Kazaa.) Some enlightened artists make their coolest stuff available for free as well. YMSB, for instance, is currently distributing a soundboard tape of a great live show from last year’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
And there are rays of hope for commercial servers, too. Emusic.com relaunched itself today with precisely that goal. They’re even selling live recordings from independent bands. I subscribed to Emusic for a while and found a lot of great stuff there. I suspect I’ll sign up for the new service soon.
Ed Bott 