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December 3, 2005
It was Weir
Yesterday afternoon, RatDog played a live set on KBCO in Denver before their show and the station’s DJ, “Ginger,” asked Bob Weir about the Archive decision. I heard about this from David Gans on the Well, and he posted this partial transcript of Weir’s comments there:
We had to cover our asses. What they’re doing is illegal, unless there are arrangements made… particularly in the case of covers — other people’s material.
If we’re perceived to be distributing their songs without their agreement, they have every right, and really and every obligation, to sue us…
We had to take it down. We had no choice. It’s archive.com’s [sic] job to make arrangements with the other people whose material… we’re playing, and then everything’s good….
Probably a lot of it is stuff that we intend to release in the future anyway.
We need revenue. Our music division needs revenue so we can digitize all of that stuff.
The ‘information wants to be free, man’ — those folks… this is not information, this is music. It’s kind of value-added information. Some people prefer to call it art….
We had to go ahead and do the right thing, and it upset some folks. I’m really sorry about that. So they started up a petition, a boycott, and all that kind of stuff. I really hope they can stick to their guns, and boycott us, and… seeya….
Sounds like he isn’t entirely convinced by Barlow’s rap.
Posted by xian at December 3, 2005 8:23 PM
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