Dead Heads Get Their Music Back

The Grateful Dead free live music downloads are now back on the Live Music Archive at www.archive.org. The downloads were taken off the site last week by Grateful Dead Merchandising. The band's lead singer, the late Jerry Garcia, was known for saying that after his band finished performing, the fans could have the music. Fans rallied to get the band's music back on the site, putting together a petition signed by over 5,000 fans. The Website responded saying, "We at archive.org now realize that our mistaken attempts to move quickly were based on what we thought the Grateful Dead wanted. For this we apologize to both the Grateful Dead and their community." While all of the band's live audience recordings -- and there are thousands -- are once again available for free download, soundboard recordings will now be available only in streaming format. Archive.org notes that there could be future changes and thanked the Deadhead community for "helping guide this process." Grateful Dead guitarist Phil Lesh also apologized to the fans on his official Website.