Rock stars never die, we're told; they just get really old and start bitterly complaining about everything like a bunch of old ladies in a post office queue – especially when websites start selling loads of their old memorabilia without asking them first.
All sorts of musicians that your Dad probably likes – such as The Grateful Dead, Carlos Santana and some of Led Zeppelin and The Doors – have been ganging up on website owner William Sagan, who is cheerily flogging off all sorts of band tat memorabilia that he bought when a man died in a helicopter crash. These old rock stars have got it together enough to drive out of their trout farms to file a lawsuit against William Sagan, and they'll pursue their case tooth and nail until they get bored and write a number of letters to the Daily Mail's Straight To The Point section about how much tax they jolly well have to pay these days instead.
There's a list of certain things you just don't do to old rock stars. 1) You don't look them in the eye, 2) you don't give them handfuls of loose change after mistaking their withered dishevelled bodies for a homeless person and 3) you don't sell old recordings and memorabilia of theirs unless they tell you to, lest you want to feel their wrath.
Well, that last one goes for Led Zeppelin, Carlos Santana, The Doors and The Grateful Dead – or Puff Daddy Cover-Version, Marks & Spencer Advert, Will Young Cover-Version and eBay Toilet Salesmen as we've come to know them – because they've all filed a lawsuit against a website for having the insolence to sell their stuff without their permission. MSNBC reports:
The plaintiffs … filed a federal lawsuit Monday against William Sagan, operator of Wolfgang’s Vault. The San Francisco-based Web site sells material Sagan obtained after purchasing some of the assets of Bill Graham, the famed concert promoter who died in a 1991 helicopter crash. Graham’s holdings included thousands of concert posters, shirts, photographs and recordings, which the artists never authorized for Sagan to distribute, according to the lawsuit… “We have never given permission for our images and material to be used in this way,” Bob Weir, of the Grateful Dead, said in a statement. “What Sagan is doing is stealing. He is stealing what is most important to us — our work, our images and our music — and is profiting from the good will of our fans.”
While it's hard not to think that these rock stars are just being shitty because they'd rather fleece their fans for cash than have someone else do it, who knows how the judge will rule on this one? On the one hand these dusty old million-selling rock stars have as much of a right as anyone else to make a living, but on the other hand if it's ruled to be illegal for Wolfgang's Vault to sell rock memorabilia, then where will it end? Will eBay have to remove all the old concert T-shirts that people are selling? Will Led Zeppelin start trawling around auction houses making sure that nobody tries to sell anything with their name on it?
Not that you should worry too much – we've visited Wolfgangs's Vault in the name of research and, while some of the poster art is quite cool, anyone that wants to spend $276 on a 15-year-old Grateful Dead concert ticket or a purple Shania Twain tour T-shirt probably needs to be slapped until their jaw dislocates.
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Milton says
C’mon, like Led Leppelin don’t make enough money from CD sales. And Carlos Santana deserves no respect for facial hair issues alone
Yohoho says
Did y’get all that?