If you go to all this effort and expense to make a record and that's all out the window, you're going to think twice about doing it again. Various solutions have been considered, from shutting down sites like Napster, to somehow tracking the files and accounting for them, to letting file swapping go unchecked. But when it does get sorted out it's gonna have to land somewhere halfway in between. I hope so, and that's one of the reasons why we're pursuing Internet distribution. Another is that it will make music more affordable.
CDs are now more economical to produce than records or tapes and they still cost twice as much.
There's no way to justify that. There have been rumors of plans to put the vast Dead, Ratdog and other Dead spin-offs catalogues online. It will be happening sooner than not, but there is no infernal rush to get this stuff out there because, as far as I'm concerned, the audio that's currently available is a bit shy of what we like to release our music on. Weir says one of the things he uses the Internet for in his personal life is shopping. I also check out the headlines to see what's going on.