The Grateful Dead as a precursor to Creative Commons licensing
Format: Thought-leadership essay (PDF) · Published: OpenSource.com · License: Creative Commons
A piece for OpenSource.com arguing that the Grateful Dead’s taping culture — fans allowed and encouraged to record and share live shows — prefigured the ideas behind Creative Commons and, before it, free software. It is here to show range and voice: a personal, narrative style built around an argument rather than a procedure. The essay goes on to connect the band’s approach to my own decision to release two books under Creative Commons licenses.
Excerpt:
From their founding in 1965, the Grateful Dead was an unusual band. They arose during and out of the counter culture movement in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Grateful Dead played music that had its roots in multiple styles and genres, but which did not lend itself to easy categorization. Were they psychedelic? Folk? Blues? Country? Yes, all of these and more. Frequently, they performed songs that were public domain and well-known, but made the songs their own.
Members of the band could flow across many traditional and diverse styles easily. This facility often lead to songs being played at concerts in ways that seemed familiar at first, but which grew and evolved across styles and genres. Frequently, songs became long jam sessions, where the musicians played off of one another, discovering new musical motifs and expanding them together.
Fans of the Grateful Dead learned early in the band’s existence that no two concerts were ever the same. The band built up a large repertoire of songs, many of which would never be recorded for a record company. When they played a known and recorded song, it was played differently than it had been in done in the recording.
This gave the band’s music a life beyond its origins. But fans quickly began to lament that the commercially available recordings of the band only captured a glimpse of the band’s live sound and feel.
While it was not uncommon for bands at the time to permit fans to record shows, the Grateful Dead took the idea a step further. Fans who purchased special “tapers” tickets were permitted to attend in a special area set aside near the sound board. The band allowed and encouraged tapers to share their recordings, as long as no profits were made on the sale of their tapes.
Excerpt from “The Grateful Dead as a Precursor to Creative Commons Licensing,” OpenSource.com. Back to all writing samples.