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When they released Death Magnetic, they put a flash player on their website so you can listen to the whole album to see if it's worth buying. You can still listen to it now : http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=601231

I was very surprised at the time that nobody seemed to give a flying fuck, I thought it was a very interesting move, especially coming from Metallica... It was not even mentioned in online reviews ffs! I hardly saw any mention of that anywhere, and had to add it myself to the Wikipedia page (it was deleted instead of being expanded, natch).
Really, I've no idea why, but nobody cared. At all. (Not even fans, before you say noone cares about Metallica period)

This album sells extremely well, btw.

There's a flac version ripped from Guitar Hero III which is a highly recommended download, even if (especially if) you have bought the cd (the sound is much better).

And if you want to know wether the album is worth downloading, you can actually listen to it in its entirety on the official website : http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=601231
(which I think is a pleasant surprise coming from Metallica)

The "real" Spinal Tap exists.

The Metallica argument is so misconceived. Metallica hated the fact that the very songs they sell were the ones up on Napster. Metallica has long supported audience taping and giving of their concerts.

Music is out there for free and for pay. The artists work hard all around, they give one thing and then you claim that your not harming them by downloading the sold merchandice. You are stealing, it is that simple. Same as copying a VHS tape you rented to another VHS tape, it's still the same.

Streight from their page:

Can I record concerts?
Yes, you can record concerts for your own personal use, but we ask that you please not trade, donate, or barter the recordings in exchange for other goods or money. As a fan, you know that Metallica is very particular about the quality of their recordings and anything with their name on it. This standard of quality is lost when the band's name is used and recordings are distributed without their permission. However, before you record any concert, check with the venue. Recording may be prohibited at certain venues and it is up to you to determine this.

Too funny. You have inspired me to introduce a new googlebomb target:
scumbag, swine, pig, bastard

Your argument pretty much justifies the things that I have been saying for years. Most bands don't make hardly any money off CD sales in the first place, they make their money through live shows and merch. So, I never understood why all these big bands/performers complained so much about us downloading their songs...

But, then you also have to take into consideration musicians who only produce studio work and never play live. There are quite a few people, especially in electronica, who only record music and never set foot on a stage.

I say a mixture is in order. Release all your songs online in a lossy format, with a slightly sub par bitrate, and allow them to be distributed freely (96k mp3 or even better, a Q0(~64k) Ogg). Then charge people for the "full quality" CDs or Lossless (FLAC,etc) files. I wouldn't mind paying $1 for each song if I got to download a "decent", full length version of it for free and try it out for a while first. And of course, no DRM encumbered formats would be used ;) I always "try before I buy" with my music these days. If you make good music, you have nothing to lose. If you are a no talent, one hit wonder pop star, then you don't deserve to be in the music industry in the first place. My current favorite band, Celldweller, has no record label and distributes the majority of their music from the web.

> I wonder when they'll ever figure out that suing your consumers is not an effective business

When they start losing money because of it. I don't see that happening any times soon as long as people are still paying Ben Dover $70.00 fucking dollars for a ticket to see WashedUpBackStabbers in concert. The RIAA has got to be laughing all the way to the bank. This whole "John Doe" lawsuit bullshit is just another source of revenue for them.

First, you have to obtain a copy of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF METALLICA and listen to it. (You can download the music (~280mb) using BitTorrent, by clicking here.

Second, you need to succeed in posting an RIAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for thieves" website

Third, you need to join the official RIAA irc channel #RIAA on irc.riaa.com, and apply for membership.

Fourth, you need to pay the nonrefundable RIAA MEMBERSHIP FEE of FIVE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS (US$5,000,000)
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #RIAA, the official RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is lawsuitnet, and you can connect to irc.riaa.com as our official server. If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the RIAA Java IRC client by clicking here.


If you have mod points and would like to support RIAA, please moderate this post up.

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| ______________________________________________ | (c) RIAA 2003, 2004
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Yes, well there are musicians and there are musicians who are artists. You'd have to consider which type of musicians you have encountered in your experience.

Metallica has spoken out about their views of free==piracy, where has Aphex Twin has spoken out and said he couldnt give a shit if you took his whole album and released it under a different name. Not all musicians are artists. (and to be fair, not all artists are any good :)

The RIAA has announced that Lars Ulrich will take up the reigns...

For the same reason that you'd go see a concert of a band that allows you to trade bootlegs of their concerts.

Why would I do that in the first place if I know they're just gonna make a big move later on to stop file sharing after they're successful?

And, in the end, this is better for Moby. Musicians don't make squat off of CD sales, at least not until they move into the megastar U2/REM category. They stand to get about 4-5 cents per disc sold, minus the millions they have to reimburse the record label for producing the album and the marketing to support it, including videos.

Musicians typically make most of their money from concert tickets and T-shirt sales from the concerts. If due to people pirating his music Moby sells fewer CDs but gets a larger distribution he still stands to benefit overall when those people pay to see his concert. The record labels may or may not get hurt by the rise of file swapping. I tend to believe that it increases sales. But that debate aside, you'll find few musicians who will object too loudly, unless they're completely clueless.

You mean all the IP piracy in the world can be traced to one single 15-year-old warez dood? Wow, this guy has some pretty eclectic tastes, ranging from Metallica to knitting patterns. You'd think the BSA could just track him down, then they could shut down all piracy overnight ...

Yesterday we saw that many artists are upset about how they're being treated by the content distribution companies. Well, except some of them.

i don't condone it. it's evil. but the media companies are trying to survive the paradigm shift in content distribution that the internet has started. corporations are considered people under the law; like people, they're just trying to survive as best they can, and they'll do whatever it takes. thus, if they can get legislation passed that lets them live, they'll do anything they can to ensure it gets passed.

But you see, that's the problem. They haven't done everything under their power to remain profitable. They have seen online distrobution methods flourish, but haven't created a competitive alternative method. They would do well to offer their content online, at a price that is fair. I sure wouldn't pay $1-$2 per song, in a lossy format. Make the payments less, and add some value to the sites that sell the music (maybe someday we'll see Metallica selling music alongside their
online content). Why would anyone bother with P2P apps when they can get more from the artists websites themselves?

so, the big question is: if YOU were a major media corporation's CEO, and YOUR family's livelihood depended on keeping your corporation afloat in the face of underground distribution channels, what would YOU do?

i'll bet your answers, if you're truthful, aren't that far from what's happening now.

One of the main things that I would do if I were a CEO of a major media corporation would be to try not to alienate the customer base. If these types of laws end up passing, that is bound to happen sooner or later. Once the general public finds out about large issues they do tend to react. If that happens, I wouldn't be CEO much longer.

next on /., an essay where several renowned musicians are quoted supporting a "flowering carnation" development model. This development model is powerful and interesting for several reasons, as Britney Spears, members of the band Metallica, and popular rap artist Eminem point out to us.

I think that it is mainly a question of getting the thing off of the ground. The music industry should be full of the dedicated types of people who could make this work. It's strange that nobody has stepped up to the plate (not even a any rich over-the-hill superstars).

I wouldn't look for the impetus to come from over the hill superstars. The real fight is going to come when an activist, highly successful, at the peak of their talent group/star finishes a contract. They'll have enough clout to make true independence work: capital to fund the operation, demand to get some economies of scale, leverage to force distributors to pay attention to them, and a very strong motivation to set up a system that gives the lions' share of the profits to artists.

Imagine that, to pick a band completely not at random, that Metallica decided to tell their current distributor to go to hell. They've already suggested interest in using the web to distribute their music, and they obviously have some idea of what is possible using the web. They also clearly have enough demand for their next CD to force some distributor to accept it. If they decided that they really wanted to give the finger to the music industry, they could probably convince a bunch of other musicians to join them in some kind of Co-op pressing and distributing system. It's just a matter of A) making a business case to some big star that they're better off doing things themselves and B) making a political case to them that they can say screw you to the big labels by sucking other artists away. I'm sure that there are at least one or two major stars who hate the big labels enough to want to destroy them, and presenting a do it yourself label as a way of doing so might be a good way of recruiting. It might take only one or two to really get the ball rolling.

Bad sci fi movies titled "Reloaded"? Well, no.. But, I can name at least one bad metal album with that title <g>.

(fwiw, I still enjoy their earlier works, just not the recent junk).

Bad sci fi movies titled "Reloaded"? Well, no.. But, I can name at least one bad metal album with that title <g>.

(fwiw, I still enjoy their earlier works, just not the recent junk).

Not at all!!! It is about loosing control to state and corporate entities. Once you start to loose options, you start to loose your ability to choose, which in turn means you begin to loose your freedom.

People won't pay because they're angry.

(Warning: this post will break the long-lived social belief that opinions should be entirely devoid of human emotion lest those opinions lose their credibility. If you happen to be someone who believes this adage to be true, then you shouldn't read this post; and instead should please yourself watching the bevy of security camera footage tapes that I'm sure exist. The rest of us human beings can read on.)

That's right, angry... and for a whole lot of reasons, too.

See, when I want a new shirt, I can go to the store, look at it, try it on, ogle at how it looks on me in a mirror, and decide whether or not I want to purchase.

When I want a new car, I can go to a dealership, drive the car around town, inspect every part of it, and make up my mind as to whether or not I really like it.

When I want an apple, I can pick the one I think looks, feels, and even smells the best out of a huge stack of apples at the grocer or at one of many farmer's markets around town. (At the markets, in fact, I'm encouraged by the mom-and-pop vendors to taste the product. But I wouldn't really recommend putting produce up to your nose and smelling it in public.)

However, suddenly, when the product I'm interested in happens to fall into the "information" category, I'm now expected to pay to even find out if a bit of information I want is even available, much less find out what the quality of that data is.

If I want to know what a particular band sounds like, I'm told (by the artists, on more then one occasion) that I should "buy the CD and find out." (A CD costs anywhere from $15-$20 brand new; that much money routinely feeds me nutritiously for a week. I refuse to spend a week's worth of food money only to find out that a certain group's latest offering sounds like crap.

When I want to know whether or not Word XP will fill my word processing needs, I have to not only buy the CD's, but also call Microsoft to get permission to USE the farking things. And that permission only lasts a year or two! (Just when you thought that only shareware was time limited...)

And yes, there are ways around all these problems - but you utilize these methods at risk of being branded a criminal (and possibly persecuted as one) by greedy people with too much free time©.

If a department store hired bouncers and enforced a cover charge at every door - so you'd have to pay ten bucks before even being allowed to go in and see if there are any clothes you might want - how long do you think they would stay in business?

If you bought a book, but were told that several armed police officers would come to your door after a year or two and arrest you if you hadn't paid for that book again by that time... how many bookstores would stay in business?

If your only choice of produce were limited to several small, online pictures and word-of-mouth reputation vouchers, how long do you think it would be before your online-only grocery store went out of business? (Oh, wait... we know the answer to that one already.)

As a people, we're angry. Angry that someone went out there went and changed the established, customer-is-always-right, service-with-a-smile rules around. Angry that the new system of commercialism is based on blind purchases, leaps of faith, zero-privacy, and other, similar systems designed from the ground-up to screw the customer at every turn. Angry that a group of well-funded, shiny-toothed suits have decided to try and turn what was designed to be a free system of communication into yet another way to make money. And angry that anyone who thinks this is a total crock and peacefully subverts this mockery of a system (even for perfectly legitamate reasons) is branded a criminal and consequently sent to jail and/or robbed of their (legally purchased) equipment.

At this point, it's a wonder people aren't routinely sacking and pillaging the nearest Virgin Records Megastore. I know for me, on a personal note, if Anger were People, I'd be China.

--WorLord

No, actually, Kid Rock, Korn and lil Joe C filled in for James Hetfield, who aggravated a back injury in an accident.
Check out Metallica.com for details.
Incidentally, Metallica is giving a second, FREE concert to the cities that got the shaft last week. Atlanta, somewhere in KY and Texas... (I just know about Atlanta...sorry...)


BTW, I'm going to see them at the LA Coliseum this Saturday. Ahhh...maybe Ill make a live bootleg...and then distribute it as MP3s.
heh heh heh.

"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)

Here's a link to the Lars's testimony to the Senate Committee: Lars's testimony.

Check out Slashdot2.org. It's like Hotgrits, but it dosen't suck! Rock!

To keep (or rather, place) this on topic, Lars Ulrich's address to the Supreme court (from the 11th) is up on Metallica's site. It's actually rather interesting (and easier to read than his interview here at /.).

-Heywood_Jablowme
_________________________

Agreed, but this is something for the reiserfs crew to implement. FWIW, I'm unaware of a free util for resizing ext2 at all, is there one?

Well, there's ext2resize and GNU Parted but I've never used either.

Hmm.. sounds like S.T. should could use some help, being so swamped and all. There must be _somebody_ who has the skills/desire to help him out. Unless of course, he doesn't _want_ any help (Hubris, anyone?). A backward compatible journalled fs is to much of a good thing to let languish like that.

I'm not sure on this one, there has to be someone else, sure, but I don't know if people have asked to help, submitted patches or not, etc. We need a journaling filesystem, it's too long in the making...

vi or EMACS, Perl or Python, Gnome or KDE, man or info, ad nauseum.

Pico, C, enlightenment, text. :)

The flame wars break out because people take things as personal attacks and egotism contributes to the lashing out in response.

I agree with you, but I'm not so sure the case is so cut and dried here. I think someone doesn't want to include RFS, not based on its technical merits, but for some other reason. I mean there simply is no reason NOT to include it. I've read through the lkml archives and I haven't seen one, not one good reason not to include ReiserFS in the kernel and flag it experimental.

I spent a good amount of time as an audio engineer (no more, thanks), and as far as I can tell you the hackers ain't got nuthin' on the "rock stars" when it comes to egos.

I think we all know this from the rantings that unnamed rock band. Thank god too, if we had people as bad as THEM in our community I think we'd have a full blown civil war.

-- iCEBaLM

Well... Metallica fans have struck back. www.metallica.com was hit by a DDoS, and is still feeling the effects. They've yet to bring the site back up. The DoS hasn't gotten much publicity, but it killed our network. I'm just wondering when and what they will announce once the site is back up.

--Chemguru

I do not understand what the good in Lars Ulrich delivering over 335,000 'usernames' to Napster's office for banning. If the users are banned, they'll re signup. It's not like they can IP ban alot of the users also, for most of them come from ISP's like AOL, or other dialup services where your IP is not static. Metallica should think about things first....and has anyone ever noticed how cheesy they look in all their pictures at Metallica.com?

While I'm not a big fan of yours, I'm glad to see that finally an artist such as yourself is finally taking a stand for their rights regarding the distribution of their music. I hope more artists step in and request themselves also removed from napster to the point where there really isn't any music left there... There really is no benefit in my eyes that Napster can serve that a band couldn't receive by distributing songs from their own websites... At the very least bands could choose which songs they wanted to distribute, and have a reasonable way to gauge interest in their music.

Anyways, to the question. Have you recieved lots of support from fellow musicians for your decision, and if so, do you think that by your doing what you're doing, many other artists will take the same steps? Were they already contemplating it but afraid to step forward, or were they just being blissfully ignorant of the rampant theft of their work that was occuring on Napster?

PS Slashdotters, if you haven't i strongly encourage you to all go read their interview here!

The problem here is determining when an MP3 is illegal. How can it be said which of these are trading illegally. Is it a legal requirement that for me to have a legal copy of something I already own, I have to have made the copy personally?

It's less about the copying (that's an offence by the individual, not Napster) more about unauthorised publication of copyright material.

If copyright material were posted to Slashdot by someone other then the copyright owner, then Slashdot would be required to remove the material from the site. If they refused to do this then I'm sure similar legal procedings would take place.

By compiling a list of users trading their songs, Metallica are trying to get Napster to follow through on the promise to ban users which do so. If Napster fail to do this then the band has a stronger leg to stand on.

I think the standard schpeel on CDs says a lot... "Unauthorized copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcast of this record is prohibited".

There are specific situations where direct authorizatrion isn't needed (backup copies of already purchased products, for example), however what Napster (and it's users) are doing certainly doesn't fall under that, as they are broadcasting the material over the net without Metallica's consent.

Granted, IANAL, but this sure as hell ain't legit.

See a Note from Metallica and On-Line Chat Transcript.

The problem here is determining when an MP3 is illegal. How can it be said which of these are trading illegally. Is it a legal requirement that for me to have a legal copy of something I already own, I have to have made the copy personally?

It's less about the copying (that's an offence by the individual, not Napster) more about unauthorised publication of copyright material.

If copyright material were posted to Slashdot by someone other then the copyright owner, then Slashdot would be required to remove the material from the site. If they refused to do this then I'm sure similar legal procedings would take place.

By compiling a list of users trading their songs, Metallica are trying to get Napster to follow through on the promise to ban users which do so. If Napster fail to do this then the band has a stronger leg to stand on.

I think the standard schpeel on CDs says a lot... "Unauthorized copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcast of this record is prohibited".

There are specific situations where direct authorizatrion isn't needed (backup copies of already purchased products, for example), however what Napster (and it's users) are doing certainly doesn't fall under that, as they are broadcasting the material over the net without Metallica's consent.

Granted, IANAL, but this sure as hell ain't legit.

See a Note from Metallica and On-Line Chat Transcript.

Jason Newstead

Drinks: Bordeaux, Barolo, Barbaresco wines. Evian, Metrx Shakes
Eats: Thai Curry, Frosted Flakes, Bananas, Ginseng

Lars Ulrich

Drinks: Dry white wine, Evian, tea
Eats: French food, tuna, sushi, frozen yogurt

Kirk Hammet

Drinks: Martinis, Sky Vodka, green tea
Eats: Sushi, Mexican food, pasta, Indian food, Thai food
Sports teams: None ("I hate sports!")

Boy. These sure are tha hard core bad asses they make themselves out to be...

Dusty Hodges

Jason Newstead

Drinks: Bordeaux, Barolo, Barbaresco wines. Evian, Metrx Shakes
Eats: Thai Curry, Frosted Flakes, Bananas, Ginseng

Lars Ulrich

Drinks: Dry white wine, Evian, tea
Eats: French food, tuna, sushi, frozen yogurt

Kirk Hammet

Drinks: Martinis, Sky Vodka, green tea
Eats: Sushi, Mexican food, pasta, Indian food, Thai food
Sports teams: None ("I hate sports!")

Boy. These sure are tha hard core bad asses they make themselves out to be...

Dusty Hodges

Jason Newstead

Drinks: Bordeaux, Barolo, Barbaresco wines. Evian, Metrx Shakes
Eats: Thai Curry, Frosted Flakes, Bananas, Ginseng

Lars Ulrich

Drinks: Dry white wine, Evian, tea
Eats: French food, tuna, sushi, frozen yogurt

Kirk Hammet

Drinks: Martinis, Sky Vodka, green tea
Eats: Sushi, Mexican food, pasta, Indian food, Thai food
Sports teams: None ("I hate sports!")

Boy. These sure are tha hard core bad asses they make themselves out to be...

Dusty Hodges

Well, for all you suckers out there, Metallica has once again demonstrated their naivety by posting live pics from their "chat".

Ok, so this isn't a very long post, but hey, is there really any commentary needed on this?

I don't know about you, but these pics and just the fact that they have been posted, is suspicious.

If they really wanted to prove to us they were live, they should have answered some real questions, and addressed the real issues, instead of wasting everyone's time with bs.

As if you needed any more proof that the Metallica events of the last week revealed a band full of old guys, out of touch with new technology and in the last days of a failing career, the Band is now doing a VH1 Special.

I was surfing around the Metallica website and found that most of the banner ads that were loaded were from MP3 sites. Rather ironic don't you think?

What kind of a position do you take on applications such as Napster?

I discovered there are 15+ different unix/java/perl/etc. implementations of what appears to be the same or equivalent Napster application. I'm sure you're aware of what the music industry thinks of Napster.

Upon doing a quick search at freshmeat.net:

http://freshmeat.net/search.php3?que ry=napster

one finds the music industry will have a hard time fighting something that is already open source and free, not to mention how many different entities there are.

In particular, I see GTK Napster carries a standard GPL. I'd just like to know what happens when someone like Metallica wins a lawsuit against Napster who has a GPL'd counterpart such as GTK Napster? Can they touch it at all?

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Greg Donald

It'd be nice to see just how he defines 'commodity' because it's already pretty clear where his definition of 'art' is at.

Side note: Anyone else think it was interesting that they're claiming napster violates the RICO act?

I can't believe you people! When did music piracy go from something done late at night on IRC and ICQ or by passing CD-Rs around at an underground party, to a god-given constitutional right?!??

...The sooner Napster dies, the better; all napster does is make theft accessable to the terminally lame... (emphasis mine)

Translation: "I can't believe you people! When did freely sharing digital information go from something which took above-average computer skills and was thus Ok, to something which non-nerds could do?!??

"...The sooner Napster dies, the better; all napster does is make the power of the digital revolution available to everyone."

How pathetic.

Look, I'm not going to rehash the reasons why duplicating something is not a theft but a gift, and why the music distribution industry is so obviously antiquated by the existence of the Internet as to make propping them not just futile but actually against the interests of society.

Instead I'm going to relate a little anecdote. After I saw this ridiculous story posted to news.com early this morning, I went to www.metallica.com, which I correctly guessed was the official Metallica website, to see what the reaction there was--whether Metallica fans would be swayed more by their allegiance to the band or by their allegiance to common sense. (Well, mostly to see whether there were actually still Metallica fans...)

Unfortunately, when I got there I found that www.metallica.com's message boards are only available to "members". Ok, registration required, fair enough. Only one problem: to become a member, you need to pay them $25!!! Just to post in their message boards!!!!

And I thought to myself, wow--how could they possibly not get it any more??

See, Cid, ask yourself this: do you think that $25 message board is worth it? Of course not; indeed, it's almost guaranteed to be one of the worst message boards on the face of the Internet, because it will only consist of people who just paid $25 to post in a message board.

The point is this: elitism doesn't work anymore. On the Internet, everyone is equal, but everyone's power is additive. That's why Napster is so powerful--not because it does anything that hasn't been done before; like you said, it's pretty much just IRC and ftp tied together, automated, and made easy. But by virtue of being so easy, it gains critical mass, and it gains its own power; when the history of the end of the commodification of ideas is written, Napster will have no small part.

Meanwhile, you and Metallica and everyone else stuck with your outdated elitist worldview will sit on the side of the road and watch the world pass you by.

I can't believe you people! When did music piracy go from something done late at night on IRC and ICQ or by passing CD-Rs around at an underground party, to a god-given constitutional right?!??

...The sooner Napster dies, the better; all napster does is make theft accessable to the terminally lame... (emphasis mine)

Translation: "I can't believe you people! When did freely sharing digital information go from something which took above-average computer skills and was thus Ok, to something which non-nerds could do?!??

"...The sooner Napster dies, the better; all napster does is make the power of the digital revolution available to everyone."

How pathetic.

Look, I'm not going to rehash the reasons why duplicating something is not a theft but a gift, and why the music distribution industry is so obviously antiquated by the existence of the Internet as to make propping them not just futile but actually against the interests of society.

Instead I'm going to relate a little anecdote. After I saw this ridiculous story posted to news.com early this morning, I went to www.metallica.com, which I correctly guessed was the official Metallica website, to see what the reaction there was--whether Metallica fans would be swayed more by their allegiance to the band or by their allegiance to common sense. (Well, mostly to see whether there were actually still Metallica fans...)

Unfortunately, when I got there I found that www.metallica.com's message boards are only available to "members". Ok, registration required, fair enough. Only one problem: to become a member, you need to pay them $25!!! Just to post in their message boards!!!!

And I thought to myself, wow--how could they possibly not get it any more??

See, Cid, ask yourself this: do you think that $25 message board is worth it? Of course not; indeed, it's almost guaranteed to be one of the worst message boards on the face of the Internet, because it will only consist of people who just paid $25 to post in a message board.

The point is this: elitism doesn't work anymore. On the Internet, everyone is equal, but everyone's power is additive. That's why Napster is so powerful--not because it does anything that hasn't been done before; like you said, it's pretty much just IRC and ftp tied together, automated, and made easy. But by virtue of being so easy, it gains critical mass, and it gains its own power; when the history of the end of the commodification of ideas is written, Napster will have no small part.

Meanwhile, you and Metallica and everyone else stuck with your outdated elitist worldview will sit on the side of the road and watch the world pass you by.