Grateful Dead Merchandising Boycott

To:  GDM

Dear Grateful Dead Merchandising,

For years, we have supported the Grateful Dead unquestioned. We have purchased countless albums, releases, concert tickets, merchandise, and more. A large percentage of our income has gone straight from our bank accounts, into yours. I assure you, there are many more like us.

You have a core group of fans that are dedicated to the music, and to the band. We followed the band for years, jumped at every release, and anxiously awaited new releases. When Jerry passed a decade ago, we trusted you would continue to make the right decisions.

You laid your rules on the line, and as fans we followed them. As traders, we never copied a released GD album. When you said not to trade released soundboards, we understood.

It is our understanding that in November 2005, the internet archive(archive.org) was asked to remove all Grateful Dead soundboard concerts from their site. The internet archive has been a resource that is important to all of us. We use it to experience the Grateful Dead’s growth and transition throughout the years. Between the music, and interviews in the archive we are able to experience the Grateful Dead fully.
This technology has opened doors to introduce new fans to the real Grateful Dead. It has allowed us to experience different eras of the Grateful Dead, and made us more anxious to purchase releases as they came out.

Now it appears doing the right thing for the fans, has given way to greed.

So here is our resolution. You want to change the rules as you go along, so will we. We don’t care anymore; We’ve lost all respect for this organization. Between the utter disgust of your decisions with Jerry’s guitars, and now taking away our access to the music we care about most, we refuse to support any aspect of GDM until we see change. No more CD’s, no more tickets, no more merchandise. We ask all deadheads to join us in this protest.

GDM, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Have you forgotten all you have taught us?

If you plant ice
Your gonna harvest wind

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Grateful Dead Merchandising Boycott Petition to GDM was created by and written by Shawn Boyle (boycottGDM@yahoo.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.