Slashdot Mirror

The record industry is an endangered industry. They are big and powerful -- like a bronco. The MP3 format is an indestructable format that can crumble an empire -- like a shotgun. Musicians are beginning to realize that they don't need to be rodeo clowns, running with the bronco, fearing for their lives. They can just shoot the bronco.

There is no real need for the record industry anymore. Support good artists by going to concerts and buying tee-shirts and CDs (or go to paylars.com).

Don't say you would pay if you could. You won't.

We can, and we have.

www.fairtunes.com, $2500 (combined US & Canadian) and counting.

www.paylars.com, $500 and counting.

2 weeks ago, 60 bucks.

So, that's tipping at a rate of 100 dollars at week. That's actually more than I had expected. Call me cynical, but this sort thing is only really going to happen when the artists says "Here, try this. If you like it...." and _then_ it might get more attention.

Pay Lars has collected 500 dollars, and it's been going a lot longer than five weeks.

This could be somthing worth watching.

Maybe they decided to do this because of the runaway success of PayLars.com... :-)


--

A compressed version of a song cannot ever be clearer than the original from which it was created. At best, it can only be equally clear.

For just one idea of how creativity can be rewarded in a society without copyright, check out www.fairtunes.com (or its half-serious predecessor, paylars).

Lars Ulrich is really feeling the pain, so why don't we all help him out. Go to PayLar$.com and help out a poor, homeless rock star. Come on, guys, we CAN make a difference.

-Superb0wl

Check out Fairtunes.

Fairtunes enables the listener (only been done for music so far) to download their favorite songs via Napster/Gnutella/Scour.. And then once they've determined that they like the song and feel it is worth remunerating/compensating the artist they will visit Fairtunes and charge a completely voluntary amount to their credit card. Fairtunes will then send that money to the artist selected in either the form of a check or a direct money transfer. It is now up to the artist to distribute the funds as they see fit. This is opposed to the record label doing it because we all know the record industry is not the fairest. A similar idea has been implemented at PayLars but they only send money to Metallica. Whereas you can use Fairtunes for any artist.

Do people think this idea is completely off the wall? Will it work for music? Or will the participation rate just be too low for the artist to make any real money off of it? Do we live in the kind of society where people can be "trusted" to remunerate as they see fit? Or do we live in a society that has to have rigidly enforced pricing policies and intellectual property laws?

Matt.

I just don't get it. There are tons of valid reasons to be for or against Napster, and I respect everyone's opinion on this, but I don't understand why you - or anyone else - would waste time and energy protecting someone else's corporate profits. Hey, guess what, the companies in the RIAA all have large and well-paid legal staffs to do this job much more efficiently and legally. They don't need your help and didn't ask for it, why are you volunteering it? If you want to contribute to the music industry, send Lars a check, get an internship at Sony, or help your girlfriend write a song. Or, hell, write one yourself! There are plenty of ways to spend your time that might actually be useful.

Since we're basing the proposed system on trust and not enforcement of payment under threat of death (noble, and novel idea), there's another technique that could work even better.

Rather than tweak the MP3 system, leave it the way it is. What you need is something like PayLars that allows you to send a quarter or a buck or whatever to a band, DIRECTLY. This doesn't have to be tied to a song, music, whatever. Just set up a page (on mp3.com, but why bother with THAT even, any site will do, even the band's official page - a band is much like a business, right?!?!!) where people can buy music, or t-shirts, or whatever.

You cut the evil record companies completely out of the loop, and you get your money. Some bands are already doing stuff like this, although, I'm not sure how much of the end profit they see. (See tbe Insane Clown Posse web site.

I would love to send some artists some money.. it might even be more than they get off the CD sale; Right now, I just make sure to go see bands I like in concert when they show up, because I know they get a good chunk of that money.

The RIAA are money-grubbing sons of bitches. The MPAA are evil, but different, since it's the studios putting up the big money for the projects (and I've NEVER had a problem buying a movie for $30, and they have a good distribution system via theaters now. Their tacticts with DVD are dispicable, but, this is Corporate America).

How many of you who are so steadfastly against the record industry ("They steal from the artists and don't pay them a dime!") have ever actually sent any money directly to an artist because you appreciated the great material they produced -- that you pirated?

This is a great idea. I wish someone would come up with something like http://www.paylars.com for every artist. If I could easily find a listing of the addresses where I could send money to various artists (not their agents, record companies, or other corporate flunkies), I'd certainly send them money. I honestly wish that there was a way to say to an artist "I love your music, I think it's great!" without paying through the nose to someone who will most likely never give any significant fraction of my money to the actual artist. I (and I'd bet many others) would be willing to pay a reasonable price, probably even more than the record companies pay the artists, for each and every MP3 I download. I would have no problem handing over $0.50+ for a high-quality MP3 (192 kbps+) with no restrictions other than on providing copies to others. (And these restrictions must not be software-enforced. SDMI is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen, and the implementation of that idea is absolutely horrid.) But I refuse to pay $20 for a piece of plastic that costs $0.01 to make and is then marked up 200,000% so that every jackass in the corporate foodchain gets a cut, while the artist is left with almost nothing.

Now, about those figures... look here, here and since some fans even feel they are directly harming metallica, they've setup a site to pay lars back.

I eagerly await your response.

Someone said something about the crowd obediantly absorbing Linus' opnions. I know I have.

Disclaimer: These are just some thoughts from someone who probably doesn't understand the real issues.

It is difficult to argue that piracy is not wrong. It is illegal, first, but it also goes against the wish of the author, and, unless you not only disbelieve in intellectual property, but also have a thorough disregard for the desires of others, I think that it is hard to justify.

Software piracy has been around and possible in large volumes for a long time. Developers have put various forms of copy protection on their software, but I think (and correct me if I am wrong--I haven't used anything but free software in a long time) that with at best rare exception do those copy protection prove unbreakable. However, and, again, correct me if I am wrong, I have never heard of a software company's going out of business because everyone copied its software and no one purchased it.

I think shareware is the most beautiful form of software distribution conceived. Try this, if you like it, send me some money. It has been complicated recently, but at its core it is a simple, easily abused system founded entirely on faith in the consumer. Plenty of people just use the software and never consider registering (especially if it is not crippled), but there will always be some suckers who are willing to pay for something they can get for free.

Call me an idealist, but I like to believe that the suckers outnumber the others, and I like to think of myself as a sucker. I think that the enormous success some shareware authors have achieved should testify to the large numbers of suckers out there.

This relates to Napster, somehow. I believe the record companies are evil. Lars points out that besides overcharging their customers and offering minimal royalties to the artists, they do provide their clients with publicity. This "service" amounts to ensuring that the music we hear on the radio is the music they want us to hear. They tell us what music to like and then they sell it to us.

Wouldn't it be better if we could decide for ourselves what music we like, download it, and pay the artists directly? I believe that shareware is the Right Way to distribute anything electronically, including music. Why not eliminate the middleman?

Remember paylars.com? It may be a joke, but I think the idea is right.

And people who live in a Western capitalist society, where most things come about marketplace and fair competitionin(sp!) the marketplace, and that's what ultimately dictates these prices.

If people are getting MP3s instead of paying for the music, wouldn't that be the market dictating that the price is too high? You could go after the people who are pirating the music (which, if there were 300k people on Napster that were caught with just Metalica, that's a lot of people), which is a bit futile, since there will always be an underground. Or, you could go after the root of the problem, which would eliminate the need to bootleg.

Personally, if wasn't for mp3s, I would have never heard of electronic music (Prodigy/Underworld/Fatboy Slim/DJ Quicksilver/etc). This sort of music is admittedly out of the mainstream. Name the last time you heard Underworld on the radio (all we have is all Britney Spears, all the time.) By sampling this unpromoted music as MP3s, I went through the trouble of finding the CD, since it was better quality, had liner notes, helped the artist, etc.

The point of my ramble? Maybe groups like Metalica et. all should find out what is causing an underground revolution like mp3s/napster (although, i remember the days of search engines and ftps, before the dark times...) If they can realize that the market (and most people posting on this are in free market economy countries) wants lower prices, and the ability to sample music, there would be no need for a musical underground. And we'd all be happy.

And, in response to saying that MP3s are like stealing an Expedition, instead of just not buying the cd, paylars put it nicely when they said...

Until I can pay for my groceries with a pirated MP3 file... ;^)

Just my $0.02 CDN
-legolas

i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...

As a parallel to last week (or whatever was the last round of quickies)'s Pay Lars, now you can Sue Lars!

Fight the Man!

It's funny how their executive bosses who are making ten times what they are just happen to be so quiet during this ordeal. But people already are weary of the executives so they use one of the people's favorite "artists". It's just political propaganda they are feeding us over the mess. Blur the facts, confuse people as much as possible. Create FUD. Typical guerilla tactics.

Metallica endorsed people taping their concerts just a few years ago but these people were never kicked out of their concert much less had their players taken away. So how is that any different?

Another quirk in this fiasco is Paylars.com. Thankfully they have only recieved $261. Interestingly enough there is a line below the logo in the upperleft hand corner that states the site is not affiliated with Metallica.

IMHO, music should under some license similar to the BSDL/GPL. It would allow people who had the love do it for the love of it. Not a gaggle of suits telling us what the new trend to consume is. These "artists" don't deserve to be making well over ten million dollars a year while some government employee who designed weapons is now homeless after defense spending cuts and Vietnam vets who are missing limbs live in a cardboard box. Metallica has a lot of gaul going after their fans who have spent hundreds of dollars on albums, merchandise, and concert tickets.

The URL they want you to go to Infringe? is basically an admission of guilt on your part. Just having some Metallica mp3's on my computer doesn't mean I obtained them from Napster nor does it mean that I transfered them on Napster. Being on a 28.8 doesn't give me much overhead so I can't necessarily transfer any even if I wanted to. I had (threw them away twenty minutes ago) several Metallica albums. Maybe I just made some mp3's from the albums? Or who can say I didn't obtain them from some dime-a-dozen ratio ftp?

I tried editing my registry after deleting, reinstalling and creating a new user name but I was stilled banned. I even attempted to get on from multiple ISPs. They couldn't be banning entire IP ranges, that is too clandestine. So I did a regedit looking for any Napster entries in my registry. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Napster was the only entry to be found. I went through the uninstall/reinstall/new user process again but I am still banned. I don't want their software on my machine which I'm not using! I was never told what exactly I am guilty of. No specifics were mentioned at all. Only ambiguous mentions of infringement. What exact songs I am guilty of "illegaling" owning?

that seemed to satisfy Lars as far as i know.

In any event, with all these changes, one has to wonder: is the banner ad on the way to "dead"?

The problem with banner ads isn't just that they're annoying and consume bandwidth. The real evil is that they put the web on the same "top-down" model as TV and radio, leading us to a situation where a handful of advertisers end up with a lot of control over content.

From the blatant self-promotion department: I'm working on a "bottom-up" system for supporting websites (or other activities) where readers would be able to pay to place sponsored links on a site. I call it the sponsorpool.

It works like this: a sponsor decides how much they're willing to pay , and registers their message and payment on a sponsorpool server. Then on every page load from a sponsored site, a sponsorship message is selected from the pool. The probability of a message being selected is the amount of sponsor's payment for that message, divided by the total amount of sponsorship for the month - the more you sponsor a site for, the more often your message appears, but even a few bucks will get you some impressions.

The hope is that rather than attracting big contributions from a handful of big sponsors, this will attrach many smaller contributions from average readers. (Would you pony up $20 one month for one in a thouand Slashdot page loads to display your message?) I believe this allows a more democratic and more free-market ap proach to site sponsorship that will be much less annoying than banner ads (the links are just text, though there's no technical reason why the system couldn't be expanded to handle images as well). It would benefit small sites and sites with controvertial content that can't attract banner ads.

In addition to supporting websites, I think this could be used to support other activities - a sort of generalized PayLars.com.

I've been hacking on this in my copious spare time for a month or two, and my proof-of-concept pre-alpha 0.0 version should be ready within another week or two. It's just a couple of PHP and shell scripts, and in this first version, payments are handled with PayPal; so anyone with PHP, PostgreSQL, and some time to puzzle over my poorly documented code will be able to set up a server. If anyone would like more info, drop me a line (drop "spambefuddler" from the address above) and I'll send you more information when it's ready. (Which will be Real Soon Now. Unless it's not.)

I signed up Lars, Jon Katz, Miss Portman, AL Gore and CmdrTaco. (this is a joke, I did not sign up these people)

But you have a good point, ANYONE ANYWHERE could signup on this "legally binding document" and there is really no way to tell who really behind IP 209.272.218.128, they should atleast require a pgp signature (even though this would still have problems) or even better yet, print it out, sign it and have 2 witnesses sign it, and fax it in with 2 forms of photo ID.

I remeber like 2-3 years ago, the Internet has just one big ass "Hoax" no one took anything serious on the Internet, it was more of a "play toy" for geeks and porn haven for preverts and that was it, now we are passing around credit card numbers and "legally binding documents" on the web and just expect it to work on in the real world. I view the real world and the Internet a whole lot differant. These world are just that, too differant and unrelated worlds.

This is one of the times where people would need to be tracked on the Internet, to tell how the really are, but at the same time certain things we do or don't do on the Internet should remain private.

Would pgp keys work in this sisuation? I think the Internet should remain %100 anonymous, unless the user wants to be known (and can also prove that they say who they really are), but when a user does want to prove that they are really who they say there are, there needs to be a sure %100 method of doing this. Maybe goverment issused PGP or simlair? (Sorry I don't know much about pgp, so this probably sounds really fsck stupid)

The above sounds like a great idea. Gnutella is the answer and we might as well fortifying it more to protect against sue crazy lawyers and their rock-star clients.

Hey, come on, you know you've cost him, so why not pay Lars.

4) Consider researching/finding a radio plugin card that works under your OS of choice. Set it up such that a simple tap of a key starts/stops recording. With a decent radio station (that doesn't voice over the start and finish of songs) this could be an excellent source of free music for distribution via CD or server.

moderate above UP! Listen, it won't be long before $50 buys a credit card sized drive holds 4 *years* of *.mp3 recordings.. Gnapster and freenet plus exploding bandwidth will make a milennia of *.mp3 available for sharing.. deal with it!

http://www.techweb.com/wire/stor y/TWB19990824S0011
http://wired.com/news/print/0,1294 ,35079,00.html

anyway, i'm dying to record direct from radio.. does anyone know of a TiVO like device for grabbing broadcast radio signals and converting 'em to *.mp3?

(btw - yes, artists are getting royally screwed between corporations and "pirates".. it is a very bad thing .. stopping this abuse is up to us individuals.. currently i don't rip (no time) but when i start, i'll definately pay lars (it's the ethical thing to do.)

Say I get one of these units and install it in my Knight Industries 2000 (I call it K.I.T.T. for short). And this is one of thos new fangled "inteligent" cars of the future. It talks to me, orders pizza for me, and even berat's up bad guys. But I digress, if I install one of these players into K.I.T.T. and he finds a way to get on the internet and download "And Justice For All", is Metallica going to sue me or my car?

Signed,

-Concerned Citizen

I can come up with three ways...

1. Many companies chose to/had to shut down their e-mail, or were overloaded to the point where e-mail shut itself down. I'm not sure how much of an effect the virus had on disk space, but it certainly had an effect on bandwidth, server CPU usage, productivity, and security (Loveletter also mailed passwords from Windows out to someone's e-mail account -- I wasn't able to analyze this part because I couldn't get my hands on the .EXE that did it.) All of the computers it hit have to be cleaned with a virus scanner (or manually by someone who examined the virus), probably by a computer tech. I'm guessing many passwords will have to be changed also, not to mention the warnings that had to be circulated around. We weren't affected that strongly, but we did have to drop what we were doing for the day to help out clients.

2. If you're a web page designer, the .jpg and .jpeg thing could hurt. If you are big on the Windows Host Scripting thing the .vbs part would hurt. Then again, if you do either you should already know enough to be careful of attachments...

3. Employees everywhere are going to have to dig deep into their pockets and pay Lars now. This might be the break Metallica needs to get out of those cardboard boxes on the side of the road and back into the penthouse.

---

How do you manage to send the artist $5? I've often thought that doing this would be the best way for music to be distributed in the future, and that I would love to do exactly that. So... how do you find out the address or whatever of the artist to send the $5 to?

I'd like to know this, too. As regular slashdot readers know, there's paylars.com to send money to Metallica, but how do I send money to someone else, other than by buying a CD, for which the artists receives almost none of the money?

If someone were to set up a generalized site that does what paylars.com does, but for every artist out there I'd be ecstatic (and I'd have a lot less money in my bank account).

I did a little calculating. I own every album you guys released except for Re-Load. (We won't go into the whys on that, but I don't have it on MP3 either) So... I would have given you guys personally about $110. I clicked through on all of the tracks, I like em all.

So, about $110. This is also about how much I paid for all of them in record stores. Maybe I would have paid a little more, I don't remember.

My point is this... I would RATHER see you guys with my $110 than see Elektra with it. Why? Because I'm paying for YOUR music, not Elektra's paper-pushing.

I support the band. You guys have done some phenominal things. (Though I'd like it if you'd start doing instrumentals again... hehe) If you don't want people copying your stuff, then fine. I'm cool with that. But please answer me this:
Is doing it this way really what you want?

-Militant Elf (A PFY for a BOFH) Remove the sos from my email for deliverable flames

How much money have you so far received from PayLars?

A lot of musicians say there's a point at which music stops being the music, but it's the money and the recording industry that motivates you. I know you guys have [sold out], and I know that you guys are cool with it, but why not capture the feeling behind your music, and embrace fans that want to share it? I love you, Metallica!

I have to agree that Katz has once again dished out a heavy load that he won't back up. Also from many other of the posts, I also have to agree that I think this situation is no longer something that /. should be concerned with. If they were looking to alter the napster src and shut napster down completly, then I might understand. However at this point, it's just another stupid lawsuit filed by once-cool rockers, now middle-aged turned-corporate investment bankers. It's a money issue and nothing more.

I personaly don't use napster, however, I think it's great way for alot of people to sample some music they may later deside to buy. Granted it isn't always used in that mannor, but what on this world is always used for it's intended purpose. Nothing.

I'd like to see the PayLars site turned into a fund not for him, but for the 300k odd users who's privacy the band intends to invade. This way those people can launch a counter suit. Sure, it would be another stupid lawsuit to stack on the fire, but at least katz would have something else to write about.

One of the reasons these artists have record companies behind them is to shield them from all the money involved - so that they just get a paycheck going into their bank at the end of the year/quarter/month/whatever. I can't honestly see a major act thinking it's really cool that they get 10,000 snail mails a month with $5 in the envelope. That would just drive you insane. You'd need a secretary, and an accountant, and people to open all the mail, and ... oh wait... all that infrastructure - might as well have a record label!

I can't speak for "major acts" but if it were me I'd rather hire a secretary to open my mail than sign a contract with a record company to accept my money for me. I think the appeal of the record labels has more to do with their marketing and distribution power. Without that I doubt anyone would want to deal with them.

Then you could potentially streamline it: build a web site that accepts payments... but wait, someone has to build the web site, pay for a Verisign certificate, market the site, pay for advertising, maintain the site, oh wait... all that infrastructure - might as well have some other company do all that, and they can take a percentage of the profits...

http://paylars.com

You see, the infrastructure thats in place is there for a reason. It appeared for a reason. It may not be perfect, but stealing copyrighted materials isn't going to change that infrastructure.

The reason is because it was the only way to distribute music. Now there are mechanisms for distributing music that are available to your average musician. Suing Napster is not going to stop the "problem" anymore than "stealing" music is going to change the infrastructure. It's already changed and that's what the RIAA is really worried about. If they can't control it, they'll kill it if they can. "Piracy" is just a convenient excuse.

numb

You can pay Metallica right now if you feel guilty.

I'm rather surprised by Metallica's reaction to MP3 and Napster. Before their release of S&M, they had the entire album streaming online for free. IMHO, it was a good example of using the current technology to promote their work.

Somehow, I expected them to be a bit more open-minded about the whole process. Metallica just might have the clout to affect real change in the music industry and to possibly bring about a new business model. I wish they would use it instead of acting on the behalf of the RIAA.

I hope that bands such as Limp Bizkit and Offspring are just the first of many that have the courage to embrace the genie. If they can remain financially successful while doing so, I'm almost certain that more will follow.

You may believe that the statement of suing Napster users is ridiculous. IMHO they are the only ones who have really violated the copyright of the artists. The reason that Napster is the target, is because it is perceived as a control point. Take it out and you have the ability to affect the highest number of users. The music industry is fighting this out as a war, and really doesn't care about anything more then buisness.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Don't get me wrong, though. I think Metallica is doing the right thing (protecting their legally recognized copyright), but they're doing it the wrong way. I suppose they'll try to sue altavista and yahoo next. A quick search on either will get you their mp3's at least as reliably as Napster would. If that doesn't work, maybe they can lobby to have ftp banned. Or maybe they can sue Netscape for making a web browser that lets you do the same thing. Or NullSoft, for making software that lets you play these 'pirated' mp3's. The effect is the same either way. If they were to win a law suit against napster, then they'd be setting a major precedence which would limit the freedom of the net for years to come.

Napster is no more responsible for the theft of their music than any retail outlet is responsible for some shoplifter stealing it. Of course, in the case of the retailer, Metallica makes their money anyways, and the store takes the loss, so that's ok for Metallica. Hell. Napster doesn't even host the mp3's.

Did Lars Ulrich or anyone else even bother to fill out the form Napster has for complaints of copyright infringement they have on their site?

BTW, searching yahoo brought up this.

Not a bad idea, except that I think the RIAA actually wants to see legalized MP3's fade into the night. Without companies acting as agents to assist people pursue their fair use*, the only thing left will be dirty, low-life music pirates! That's right, PIRATES. Storming the high seas and information highways and byways, waylaying unsuspecting artists of their gold and raping and pillaging helpless villages full of recording industry execs...

At least that will be the impression that they give once every trace of respectability is gone from music online. Remember noone ever got fired for buying a CD! FUD!

Anyway, my point is that they want us to pirate, at first. Sure they will lose some market share at first (after all they lost -15 billion-qaud-zillion last year alone), however once they convince every ISP out there that it's better to cease, desist and start harrassing their users rather than face a bag full of lawyers then it's pretty much curtains for everyone. Especially the independant artists that rely on the internet to get distrobution (even if there aren't that many now, why take the chance?)

Perhaps instead we should start grinding our own FUD-gears now. I already put up that picture off the paylars site here at work where napster and gnutella have been deemed inappropriate(read:will get your ass fired), and I think there are other things that we can do as a community to help. Take some of the posts here and Jon Katzize them, make a flyer and pass it out, especially at the Universities and all. It's probably too late to get napster re-legitimized, and perhaps it's actually better that way, however I think that the recording industry is doing more than going after pirates here. I think they want to paint everyone who ever listened to music on computer speakers with a beard, a peg-leg and a damn parrot on their shoulder.

> This is rather amusing hehehe.

Indeed it is, but check your links!

Should be http://www.paylars.com/paranoia.jpg :-)

Cheers,

Andy

This is rather amusing hehehe. Wonder if someone could change that to GNU, BSD, Linux, or heck lots of things apply there.

What I want to get at is that I'm really glad that people slashdot sends questions to in interviews get seriously answered. And these are people with rather busy days that need to answer these questions. Good job /.

Damn my idiocy. I take it you can't specifiy a target in URLs. (Take it easy on me, I'm new.)

Metallica still reeks.

J

1. Napster put advertising into their program.
2. Allow only MP3s that have a certain signature that can be used to positively identify the artist.
3. Allow MP3s to be freely traded. Each time a particular MP3 file is downloaded to completion, the transaction is recorded, and advertising revenue from #1 is used to pay the artist.

So the idea is that Napster than can be used to trade music freely, the artists get paid, the users don't pay anything. It's sponsored music trading. 4. Possibly restrict the MP3s to be under a certain bit-rate.

Problems: 1. How to do the advertising.
2. Must modify all MP3s to add "signature".
3. Omnipresent user profiling possibilities.
4. How much do the artists get paid?

If Napster just capitulates a little bit and allow something like this, or partially so, then maybe, just maybe, there wouldn't be all these people suing. Then we wouldn't have a site to Pay Lars.

CmdrTaco, maybe you should read this before you posted this article..

http://www.paylars.com/paranoia.jpg

It's seriously the funniest thing I've seen since "We hear you! - Your National Security Agency".
==
"This is the nineties. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first."

It's not serious in that it's intended to be very tounge-in-cheek and to point out how stupid Metallica's suit is. Check out the more info link on the page.

The page is sponsored by August Nelson and says, in part "At August Nelson, we think that industry fears of rampant piracy ruining the music business are nothing but paranoid propoganda. Industry representatives have failed to point to any data that shows the extent to which MP3s and CD burners, by making copying music so easy, have hurt industry revenues. That's because there are no such data, because sales keep going up!" (The cool propoganda link inside the quote is copied as well. Check it out.)

It's not serious in that it's intended to be very tounge-in-cheek and to point out how stupid Metallica's suit is. Check out the more info link on the page.

The page is sponsored by August Nelson and says, in part "At August Nelson, we think that industry fears of rampant piracy ruining the music business are nothing but paranoid propoganda. Industry representatives have failed to point to any data that shows the extent to which MP3s and CD burners, by making copying music so easy, have hurt industry revenues. That's because there are no such data, because sales keep going up!" (The cool propoganda link inside the quote is copied as well. Check it out.)

Did anybody actually read the secondary link off of their webpage? The link titled 'Read more'.

Granted their goal is still the same, it offers a lot of reasoning behind the site, and it really affirms a better description to them than 'stupid moron'.

Check it out.

If you click the Read More link, it reveals this.

from the site:
"Until I can pay for my groceries with a pirated MP3 file, I think that Q Prime's position is nothing but hype, and does nothing to endear Metallica or its associates with their fans."