-----Original Message-----
From: Black, Chris
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 2:18 PM
To: 'market@marketplace.org'
Cc: 'questions@pri.org'; 'mail@mpr.org'; 'uscnews@usc.edu'; 'kmapp@kuhf.org'; 'president@kera.org'; 'jluchsinger@kera.org'; 'kamu-fm@tamu.edu'; 'webmaster@dead.net'
Subject: RE: "Grateful Dead and The Bootleg"


Dear Marketplace management,

I listen to Marketplace regularly and also happen to be a collector and trader of the Grateful
Dead's live music. I am appalled that you would air a feature so slanted and devoid of factual
content. One of the articles you aired on Monday's program
(http://www.marketplace.org/shows/2000/09/25_mpp.html) was ostensibly about the Grateful
Dead's attempts to shut down sites offering their music for SALE. However, it came off as a thinly
veiled attempt to brand them as hypocritical and money grubbing.

The reporter spent three minutes misrepresenting the arguments of Grateful Dead Productions and
their lawyers, allowing only one brief statement (perhaps ten seconds) by the band's attorney at the
end that attempted to explain the situation from the band's perspective. The lawyer said essentially,
"Hey, we made 2500+ live shows freely available, why should we let people SELL those shows or
our studio albums and give us nothing?" He made the distinction very clear and stated flatly that this
was in no way contradicting or amending the trading policy that has been in place for over 20 years.
Your reporter or producer (I don't know which) was either too feeble minded to understand that, or
else bent on portraying the band in a bad light. The result was the same.

The entire piece appeared to be a rather snide attempt to imply that the Grateful Dead were betraying
their publicly professed values and being hypocritical by opposing the SALE of their music by
unauthorized parties. This from a program that gives Financial News!

Please explain to me, how I am supposed to trust your reporting on the complexities of the most recent
G7 meeting or WTO findings, if you can't even get something as simple as this right?

Perhaps I should rethink my loyalties.

Please issue a correction ON AIR as soon as is technically possible. I will be listening.

I am forwarding copies of this letter to PRI, Minnesota Public Radio, USC, Grateful Dead Productions and
my local public radio stations. I think they should know how badly you got things wrong and how many
"Deadheads" there are to offend with such irresponsible reporting. Don't forget, we are also baby boomers
and make up a large part of your target demographic. Though it may be a bit crass, I am sure I need not remind
you upon whom you depend for financial support.

Christopher Black
Retriever Payment Systems
20405 S. H. 249, Suite 700
Houston, TX 77070
Phone: 281-376-3399 (wk)
cblack@retrieveronline.com

Here is the Grateful Dead policy statement for your edification:

NOTICE FROM GRATEFUL DEAD PRODUCTIONS

The Grateful Dead and our managing organizations have long
encouraged the purely non-commercial exchange of music taped
at our concerts and those of our individual members. That a new
medium of distribution has arisen - digital audio files being traded
over the Internet - does not change our policy in this regard.
Our stipulations regarding digital distribution are merely extensions
of those long-standing principles and they are as follow: No commercial
gain may be sought by websites offering digital files of our music,
whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from
their traffic, or any other means. All participants in such digital exchange
acknowledge and respect the copyrights of the performers, writers and
publishers of the music. This notice should be clearly posted on all sites
engaged in this activity. We reserve the ability to withdraw our sanction
of non-commercial digital music should circumstances arise that
compromise our ability to protect and steward the integrity of our work.
-END

Perhaps if you had read it before running the story, we could have avoided this.