Grateful Dead shake down NPR over including a song in an online mix

Fred sez, "Carrie Brownstein, formerly of Sleater-Kinney, now has a blog on NPR's website. She put together a mix of songs, and wanted to include a track from the Dead (since the songs are on the NPR site, she asked permission, unlike every other MP3 blog in the world). Look what happens:"
"An interesting tidbit: This mix was supposed to have the Grateful Dead on it, whose music I really love, but they refused unless we promised to do a piece on them on All Things Considered. In addition, we would need to run a feature on The Dead on the site. Here's a sentence I've never written: Someone needs to take a bong hit and chill out. Just a simple "no thanks" would have sufficed. Are The Dead really in need of publicity? Because I swear there's a dancing bear sticker on every third car I see in Portland. And now I've written a paragraph on them anyway, for free, not even in exchange for a song. Doesn't that count?!"
Link (Thanks, Fred!)

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Cory Doctorow

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