The Music Never Stopped... Except Maybe For A Week or So

Looks like the Dead are revisiting their decision to clamp down on free downloading of their shows. Bending (apparently) to pressure from Deadheads, the band's management is (maybe?) reversing course and allowing fans to continue distribute live shows online, or at least audience recordings; it seems that sharing (online) soundboards is still going to be verboten.

It's getting hard to keep up, with the story changing minute by minute.

In any event, as I noted earlier, I think it's a bit of an overreaction by fans. However nice it is to have unlimited access to a band's live music vaults free of charge, the music does belong to the artist, and if they want to sell it to you, isn't that their right? I feel differently about (the vast majority of) other artists, who clamp down on taping live shows and trading their shows and DON'T make it available commercially. To their credit, the Dead have always allowed trading, and make much more of their archives available to fans (albeit for a price).