Hmm, this is from someone who played with a band that had areas at gigs reserved for those who wanted to record the concert. And had feeds from the mixer at as well.

What's up with the bloke -- not enough money coming in since Jerry went for ultimate pain relief?

(I also remember 'Home taping is skill in music')

Is Mr Grisman unhappy about the fact that people are actually daring to post fan-shot video and this is somehow hurting his reputation? The comments on the videos on YouTube are universally good and appreciative of his playing and music, perhaps some of those people actually went out and bought some of his stuff, eh?

He's also way behind the times if he thinks that there's "a difference between fan bootlegs and the global distribution of Google". There's a massive amount of global bootleg trading - on one such 'trader site' there's more than a dozen shows featuring 'Dawg' each one downloaded more than 100 times, over 400 times in the case of one 1973 show and nearly 800 for a Garcia / Grisman show from 1992!

This sounds like a case of "Google's got lots of money - I want some" syndrome.

Oh, and he should probably re-word the "Steal Solos From Your Favorite Artists" line on the Music Studio part of his site...

I have lost at least a sliver of respect for the Dead. Garcia would never have stood for a statement like this. He may have had a slightly more utopian view of society than most of us, but maybe that's the pill that we need. This smacks of Metallica's attacks on Napster, accepting "shady" copying as long as it helps you, then turn your back on your fans when you can no longer perceive a benefit, whether or not there actually is one. The Dead was primarily a live act, and why anyone would think that a person is going to consider watching a 3 inch version of Touch of Grey on youtube is going to deter people from attending the potfest that is/was a Dead show, is beyond me.

I can understand folk getting their knickers in a twist over music at CD quality [more or less], because it's easy to get something as good as the product. But youtube is nothing like napster et al.

After all, we're buying huge TVs and HD-DVD players, so much so that even PAL video looks pretty poor these days, and NTSC, well that was always crap.

The sub10 minute 320x240 pixel compressed-to-death format youtube uses isn't going to hurt that.

On the contrary, it's the best advertising any of these people will ever get for their material. They're completely hatstand to sue over it.

That said, there is a logic that suggests his material won't be watched on youtube unless he moans about it and gets some press.

He's probably right to note that his fans don't have google's distribution - it's not the size but the bias his fans have is different to the bias that google has. Unless he writes a tune called 'wikipedia' he'll probably struggle for ratings in google :)

So perhaps that's his aim - not enough of us are watching his stuff because it's lost amongst all the rest...and that might hit the advertising pay day he may get one day?

He's passing the onion because youtube have done bigger and better what they started years ago with bootlegs, and unlike Grateful dead's awful stuff [which is worth every penny they got for the bootlegs], there's plenty on youtube that's worth listening too.

Without prejudice..(for all you ambulance-chasers out there!)

All those Grateful Dead concerts I never went to...OK>....the ONE or TWO which I did attend, were rife with tape recorders and video reproduction systems (8mm film cameras!) that Jerry INSISTED were OK by him....are now going in the crapper as this newest assault over DRM's and ARM's (Analog Rights Management, my coinage) gets going.

I know Jerry would be sad to say the least...to even think that his fervent wish - nay, COMMAND to save the band's creative moments on media de jour would go unheeded now....even be considered criminal!

Sounds like David "Dawg" Grisman got hooked into this by some slick Hollywood miscreant malaprop (read: Blood-sucking leech, shyster-attorney) from the RIAA, the bastard child of the MPAA.

Go get 'em, ambulance chaser! (Again, without prejudice)

deadshow dot com

hopefully, younger people have more sense than to make heroes of their musicians as we did with ours.

I'll just say that two members of the Grateful Dead are now members of the Bohemian Club in California. The average member is a white, male corporate Fortune 1000 CEO, and I suspect their meetings are kept secret from the public for good reason.

While I'm not sure about Jerry Garcia, the enthusiasm with which the rest of Dead sold out is appalling, though their waiting until they could get the best possible price does suggest that they have far more sense than those "dirty hippies" were reputed to have.

Today's story is just another example of the Dead going from countercultural icons to eager embrace of the worst of the corporate values their music was created to attack.