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Metallica Wants To Ban 335,435 Napster Users
charper writes: "News.com is reporting that a firm hired by Metallica has fingered more than 335,000 Napster users (who were allegedly) trading their music. They're seeking to have them banned from Napster. " Check out our original piece, and remember - you can always PayLars!
Despite what RMS and his followers might like us all to think, information does not want to be free - information doesn't really say a lot at all. The case of tools like Napster, Gnutella and son on is not anything like the case of software, and /.ers who blindly apply the same rules should sit down and think about the issue before spouting psuedo-socialist dogma.
Music artists put a lot of time and effort into producing a work of art which they then allow the general public to enjoy. That is the important point here - they allow the public to listen to. As it is their work, they decide how they want people to obtain and use said work, and anyone that believes otherwise is just condoning theft in one of its many forms.
Record companies are there to represent artists and to provide them with a range of services which they'd find difficult to get on their own - marketing, production, distribution and often nowadays, legal representation. Sure, they make money from doing this, but we live in a capitalist society where making money is how our economy functions.
If an artist doesn't like how their music is being distributed then they have the right to stop this distribution, and in this case Metallica have chosen to exercise this right. And given that the creators of Napster have technically broken the law, they are being generous by merely asking them to block the users which have committed theft against Metallica. If anything, this action is a lot more soft than it could have been considering the sums of money which have been lost to the hordes of Napster pirates.
So before everybody gets up in arms about this, remember, it's you that are in the wrong if you engage in theft at the cost of hard-working artists trying to make a living.
You're right. There are people on the RIAA's side that firmly believe that they are right. They will also do everything in their power to see to it that their view of what is right is enforced on everyone.(as they've done for years and succeeded for the most part)
Given that, I think my opinion is just as valid as their opinion. I firmly believe I'm right. I must also do everything in my power to make sure that my view is enforced. Otherwise I'm allowing the RIAA to decide what is right and wrong.
You see the dilemma? If we're both convinced we're right, we end up with a fight. That's where we're at right now. The fight has been joined in the courts. Maybe it will be decided there, maybe not. I don't think the courts are where it will ultimately be decided. I think the fans are sick of getting screwed. They want to support the artists they like. They just don't like the current system where they have to get screwed over in order to support them.
If the RIAA was so concerned about the artists, they wouldn't be making them sign their work over for 35-40 years, or now even forever. If the RIAA was so concerned about the artists, they would have been devising new methods of distributing music that wouldn't require as much overhead cost so that the fans pay less and the artists get more. But, it all makes sense when you realize that the RIAA doesn't give a rat's ass about the artists as long as they can exploit them and keep raking in the cash.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
and never mind that noise you heard,
It's just the lawyers beneath your bed,
You use napster so you'll soon be DEAD!!!!!
Exit your rights!
Enter armed knights!
Taaaaake the cops hand.....
off to your arraignment ladd!
(Muhahahaha!)
Basically, they have 'attacked' Napster using Napsters own policy, that is, they will eject any user who infringes copyright.
By submitting 335,000 names, Metallica has accomplised two things:
- potentially scared users who thought they were anonymous
- created an administrative hassle for Napster
No doubt Metallica can afford to keep the NetPD firm indefinitely fingering each Napster user and submitting their name to Napster. If this is the case, Napster is going to be bogged down removing accountsAnd on a secondary note, if Metallica wanted to directly sue copyright infringers, can the NetPD firm supply enough info to confirm the computer from which it came and hence could Metallica sue an individual based on monitored Napster use? If so, this would be incredibly damaging to the user base of Napster as I am pretty certain that many users would shy away if they thought there was the remotest possibility that they could be sued.
Just my 2c worth at midnight :)
This is from Steve Albini, the recording engineer (don't ever call him a producer) for The Pixies, The Wedding Present, and Bush, who paid his bills for years. Steve has a sliding pay scale, he will record good poor bands for no more than joe schmoe studio (in his own state of the art studio) and charge major labels bank to record crap like Bush.
He isn't a fan of the record industry, but he shows insight as to how much things really cost. Also the artists aren't makeing any money.
Some of Your Friends are Already This Fucked
by Steve Albini
from The Baffler issue #5
Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always
end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about
four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with
runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends,
some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine
a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a
contract waiting to be signed.
Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and
besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts
to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the
contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get
to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling
furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit.
Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left.
He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says, "Actually, I think you need
a little more development. Swim it again, please. Backstroke."
And he does, of course.
A&R Scouts
Every major label involved in the hunt for new bands now has on staff a
high-profile point man, an "A&R" rep who can present a comfortable face to
any prospective band. The initials stand for "Artist and Repertoire,"
because historically, the A&R staff would select artists to record music
that they had also selected, out of an available pool of each. This is
still the case, though not openly.
These guys are universally young [about the same age as the bands being
wooed], and nowadays they always have some obvious underground rock
credibility flag they can wave. Lyle Preslar, former guitarist for Minor
Threat, is one of them. Terry Tolkin, former NY independent booking agent
and assistant manager at Touch and Go is one of them. Al Smith, former
soundman at CBGB is one of them. Mike Gitter, former editor of XXX fanzine
and contributor to Rip, Kerrang and other lowbrow rags is one of them. Many
of the annoying turds who used to staff college radio stations are in their
ranks as well.
There are several reasons A&R scouts are always young. The explanation
usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip" to the current musical
"scene." A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust
someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative
rock and roll experiences.
The A&R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and as
such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to promise
them the moon than an idealistic young Turk who expects to be calling the
shots in a few years, and who has had no previous experience with a big
record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band he's duping. When he tells
them no one will interfere in their creative process, he probably even
believes it.
When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of angel
hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they sign with
company X, they're really signing with him and he's on their side. Remember
that great, gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we have a blast.
By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry
scum. There is a pervasive caricature in popular culture of a portly, middle
aged ex-hipster talking a mile-a-minute, using outdated jargon and calling
everybody "baby." After meeting "their" A&R guy, the band will say to
themselves and everyone else, "He's not like a record company guy at all!
He's like one of us." And they will be right. That's one of the reasons he
was hired.
These A&R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present
the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which loosely states some
terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract
has been agreed on.
The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little "memo," is that it
is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once the band sign
it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label. If the
label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all
the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to
sign the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength.
These letters never have any term of expiration, so the band remain bound
by the deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that takes.
The band cannot sign to another label or even put out its own material
unless they are released from their agreement, which never happens. Make
no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will
either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be
destroyed.
One of my favorite bands was held hostage for the better part of two years
by a slick young "He's not like a label guy at all,' A&R rep, on the basis
of such a deal memo. He had failed to come through on any of his promises
(something he did with similar effect to another well-known band), and so
the band wanted out. Another label expressed interest, but when the A&R
man was asked to release the band, he said he would need money or points,
or possibly both, before he would consider it.
The new label was afraid the price would be too dear, and they said no
thanks. On the cusp of making their signature album, an excellent band,
humiliated, broke up from the stress and the many months of inactivity.
There's This Band
There's this band. They're pretty ordinary, but they're also pretty good,
so they've attracted some attention. They're signed to a moderate-sized
"independent" label owned by a distribution company, and they have another
two albums owed to the label.
They're a little ambitious. They'd like to get signed by a major label so
they can have some security-you know, get some good equipment, tour in a
proper tour bus-nothing fancy, just a little reward for all the hard work.
To that end, they got a manager. He knows some of the label guys, and he
can shop their next project to all the right people. He takes his cut,
sure, but it's only 15%, and if he can get them signed then it's money well
spent. Anyway, it doesn't cost them any thing if it doesn't work. 15% of
nothing isn't much!
One day an A&R scout calls them, says he's "been following them for a while
now," and when their manager mentioned them to him, it just "clicked."
Would they like to meet with him about the possibility of working out a
deal with his label? Wow. Big Break time.
They meet the guy, and y'know what-he's not what they expected from a label
guy. He's young and dresses pretty much like the band does. He knows all
their favorite bands. He's like one of them. He tells them he wants to go
to bat for them, to try to get them everything they want. He says anything
is possible with the right attitude. They conclude the evening by taking
home a copy of a deal memo they wrote out and signed on the spot.
The A&R guy was full of great ideas, even talked about using a name
producer. Butch Vig is out of the question-he wants 100 g's and three
points, but they can get Don Fleming for $30,000 plus three points. Even
that's a little steep, so maybe they'll go with that guy who used to be in
David Letterman's band. He only wants three points. Or they can have just
anybody record it [like Warton Tiers, maybe-cost you 5 or 10 grand] and
have Andy Wallace remix it for 4 grand a track plus 2 points. It was a lot
to think about.
Well, they like this guy and they trust him. Besides, they already signed
the deal memo. He must have been serious about wanting them to sign. They
break the news to their current label, and the label manager says he wants
them to succeed, so they have his blessing. He will need to be compensated,
of course, for the remaining albums left on their contract, but he'll work
it out with the label himself. Sub Pop made millions from selling off
Nirvana, and Twin Tone hasn't done bad either: 50 grand for the Babes and
60 grand for the Poster Children-without having to sell a single additional
record. It'll be something modest. The new label doesn't mind, so long as
it's recoupable out of royalties.
Well, they get the final contract, and it's not quite what they expected.
They figure it's better to be safe than sorry and they turn it over to a
lawyer-one who says he's experienced in entertainment law-and he hammers
out a few bugs. They're still not sure about it, but the lawyer says he's
seen a lot of contracts, and theirs is pretty good. They'll be getting a
great royalty: 13% [less a 10% packaging deduction]. Wasn't it Buffalo Tom
that were only getting 12% less 10? Whatever.
The old label only wants 50 grand, and no points. Hell, Sub Pop got 3 points
when they let Nirvana go. They're signed for four years, with options on
each year, for a total of over a million dollars! That's a lot of money in
any man's English. The first year's advance alone is $250,000. Just think
about it, a quarter-million, just for being in a rock band!
Their manager thinks it's a great deal, especially the large advance.
Besides, he knows a publishing company that will take the band on if they
get signed, and even give them an advance of 20 grand, so they'll be making
that money too. The manager says publishing is pretty mysterious, and nobody
really knows where all the money comes from, but the lawyer can look that
contract over too. Hell, it's free money.
Their booking agent is excited about the band signing to a major. He says
they can maybe average $1,000 or $2,000 a night from now on. That's enough
to justify a five week tour, and with tour support, they can use a proper
crew, buy some good equipment and even get a tour bus! Buses are pretty
expensive, but if you figure in the price of a hotel room for everybody in
the band and crew, they're actually about the same cost. Some bands (like
Therapy? and Sloan and Stereolab) use buses on their tours even when they're
getting paid only a couple hundred bucks a night, and this tour should earn
at least a grand or two every night. It'll be worth it. The band will be
more comfortable and will play better.
The agent says a band on a major label can get a merchandising company to
pay them an advance on T-shirt sales! Ridiculous! There's a gold mine here!
The lawyer should look over the merchandising contract, just to be safe.
They get drunk at the signing party. Polaroids are taken and everybody
looks thrilled. The label picked them up in a limo.
They decided to go with the producer who used to be in Letterman's band.
He had these technicians come in and tune the drums for them and tweak
their amps and guitars. He had a guy bring in a slew of expensive old
vintage microphones. Boy, were they "warm." He even had a guy come in and
check the phase of all the equipment in the control room! Boy, was he
professional. He used a bunch of equipment on them and by the end of it,
they all agreed that it sounded very "punchy," yet "warm."
All that hard work paid off. With the help of a video, the album went like
hotcakes! They sold a quarter million copies!
Here is the math that will explain just how fucked they are:
These figures are representative of amounts that appear in record contracts
daily. There's no need to skew the figures to make the scenario look bad,
since real-life examples more than abound. Income is underlined, expenses
are not.
Advance: $250,000
Manager's cut: $37,500
Legal fees: $10,000
Recording Budget: $150,000
Producer's advance: $50,000
Studio fee: $52,500
Drum, Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $3,000
Recording tape: $8,000
Equipment rental: $5,000
Cartage and Transportation: $5,000
Lodgings while in studio: $10,000
Catering: $3,000
Mastering: $10,000
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc. expenses: $2,000
Video budget: $30,000
Cameras: $8,000
Crew: $5,000
Processing and transfers: $3,000
Offline: $2,000
Online editing: $3,000
Catering: $1,000
Stage and construction: $3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: $2,000
Director's fee: $3,000
Album Artwork: $5,000
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: $2,000
Band fund: $15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: $5,000
New fancy professional guitars (2): $3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs (2): $4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $1,000
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: $1,000
Rehearsal space rental: $500
Big blowout party for their friends: $500
Tour expense (5 weeks): $50,875
Bus: $25,000
Crew (3): $7,500
Food and per diems: $7,875
Fuel: $3,000
Consumable supplies: $3,500
Wardrobe: $1,000
Promotion: $3,000
Tour gross income: $50,000
Agent s cut: $7,500
Manager's cut: $7,500
Merchandising advance: $20,000
Manager's cut: $3,000
Lawyer's fee: $1,000
Publishing advance: $20,000
Manager's cut: $3,000
Lawyer's fee: $1,000
Record sales: 250,000 @ $12 = $3,000,000 gross retail revenue Royalty (13%
of 90% of retail): $351,000
Less advance: $250,000
Producer's points: (3% less $50,000 advance) $40,000
Promotional budget: $25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $50,000
Net royalty: (-$14,000)
Record company income:
Record wholesale price $6.50 x 250,000 = $1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: $351,000
Deficit from royalties: $14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and distribution @ $2.20 per record: $550,000
Gross profit: $710,000
The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the
game.
Record company: $710,000
Producer: $90,000
Manager: $51,000
Studio: $52,500
Previous label: $50,000
Agent: $7,500
Lawyer: $12,000
Band member net income each: $4,031.25
The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music
industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on
royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they
would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month.
The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will
insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never
"recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige.
The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will
have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't have earned
any royalties from their t-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured
out how to count money like record company guys.
Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.
(c) 1999 [indiecentre]
Lessee -- I record a free-form monologue about how I first encountered Metallica (a bootleg tape of a concert that had "Hit The Lights" on it), how even over the much abused and much played crappy tape, that had made its way all the way from the West Coast to backwoods Mississippi, I could still make out the music and how much it affected me.
I tell about how I enjoyed the tape (that I made a copy of but unfortunately don't have anymore), and since then have bought every Metallica albumn up to S&M -- some of them TWICE, once on tape, once on CD. I tell about how Metallica's music helped me through some tough times in high school (tough to be a nerd in redneck land). I'll complain about how Jason got screwed in the "...And Justice For All" mix. I'll relate a quote from Lars who said, once, that "..more than any other band, we're like Rush".
I'll talk about the first time I heard about James's accident. I'll talk about how Metallica came back to Canada to finish the concert that James got hurt in, after Guns & Roses' Axl pitched a hissy-fit and walked off after 30 minutes.
I'll mention that Metallica's strength has always been their connection with their fans: how Jason tirelessly signs autographs, how the band once let people record their concerts, how hard-working the band has always been.
I'll say all this, and mention that Metallica, in their unique position of NOT being a slave to the record industry, who in fact seem to have always been in the position of leaders, have turned into followers (slaves, if you will), of a corporate mentality that denegrates their past efforts. I'll talk about how Metallica could be remembered, years after the band is no more, as the group that led the way, changing how musicians interact with their fans forever. I'll sadly mention that now, Metallica will most likely be remembered not for how much they cared and respected their fans, but how they attacked them.
I'll record this monologue and rip it to an MP3. I'll save multiple copies of it with the band's song titles, and put them up on Napster. With any luck, one of the band members will hear it, and know how disappointed I am with them, and how sad I will be because I will not listen to them anymore. And, since it's not their music, they can't ask me to take it down -- they can only ask that I change the titles. But that would be fine. I'd do that, and distribute the MP3 far and wide - hopefully, any potential fan would hear it first and then decide that Metallica isn't the band for them.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
I'm not so sure about that. Back in the 80s when they still played heavy metal and attracted fans by the virtue of their music, this would have indeed worked.
But now that they've given up on metal and shifted to the cheeze market, I think they need the old media to keep them in the public eye in order to get sales. Very few people are serendipitously "discovering" Metallica these days and saying "Whoa, this is so cool!" and most of their old fans from the 80s have turned away in disgust. Metallica's sales are now almost entirely push-driven, and I think that makes the new media useless to them.
So I'm not so sure their strategy of suppressing MP3s is a bad thing. Metallica's name can confuse people because of their glorious past, so wipe away the confusion by asking yourself this: What would Brittney Spears do?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
One thing you should probably be aware of is that owning a CD almost certainly allows you to make personal-use MP3's of it, but:
1. It probably doesn't allow you to download other MP3's without "buying" them.
2. It certainly doesn't allow you to offer those MP3's to others, in the general case.
Distribution is magic in copyright law. It is *NOT*, in the eyes of the law, the same thing to do something yourself as it is to have someone do it for you in cases of infringement.
If you want the law changed, great, I certainly won't be the one to try to stop you.
But, under the current law, the people trading MP3's are wrong, and the bands are right. Make your own MP3's from your own CD's.
It's always amazing how quickly slashdot can polarize on an issue. Gosh, sure is easy to hate those people who have something I want and aren't giving it to me cheap enough.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Dear Napster user!
You may have already won! All you need to do is to be in the first 1,000 of 335,000 to turn off your Napster, and you will be qualified for the semifinals in a raffle to win a signed Metallica CD, together with a trip to the capital of the United States where you will appear in front of a government commitee on the issues of copyrighted music piracy.
But hurry! You must respond promptly in order to qualify, or your entry will be viewed as inadmissible evidence in the criminal case of music copyrightrights infringement.
Sincerely,
RIAA Legal Team
representing the interests of Metallica.
I was thinking of how to intentionally fail my drug test... It would make a good memoir story someday.
Someone suggested it on here in a previos napster discussion, and it just made so much sense to me...send the money directly to the band. Cut and paste freely.
Dear Metallica,
I heard a great song of yours because of Napster. I loved it. I loved another song you wrote that I heard off of Napster. So, since I loved it so much, I decided to download the entire CD. I thought to myself, "Gee, this is great music, it's worth the $15". So I sent you the money. Since I did not buy it from a record store and I did not have the address for your Record Label handy, I thought I would send it to you. Your music is a commodity, regardless of whether I get it from Napster or from a record store, but I wanted to show my appreciation for the people who actually make the music, not the people who throw up advertisements everywhere.
Again, thank you for the music, and here is the money I might have spent on a CD.
Sincerely,
An anonymous Napster-using Fan
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
...I prefer downloading the MP3's I wanna play on my computer, iso ripping them myself. So what,
that's my right... sue me.
Actually, no it's not your "right."
U.S. law only allows you to make your own copies of your own albums for your own personal use and archival purposes. It is not your right to redistribute those copies to other people or take someone else's copies just because you also own an original. The law's pretty specific in that respect. The good old "delete these files after 24 hrs. if you don't own the original" argument for game ROMs was always an urban myth. Even if you do own it, you can't download it because it's not a copy of the item you own, even though, bit-for-bit, they are identical.
Of course, the RIAA is trying to take that away too with the AHRA, which prohibits making perfect digital copies of music. This piece of legislation got pushed through over DAT recorders and is still being challenged in courts, AFAIK. Personally, I hope it dies hard. It makes no sense to allow us to copy things for "archival purposes" only in degradeable formats.
If I name my "FreeSong" by "Free Cool band"
Unforgiven_Metallica.mp3. How will they know?
Now you're just guilty of a different kind of copyright infringement.
If you do it the other way around, then nobody will download them because they don't know they're actually Metallica, and you've become unimportant to the RIAA compared to the more blatant traders. This is only good for trading between friends who know what you actually have, but Napster is an inefficient model for that compared to just setting up an FTP server with user logins. Seems pointless to me unless you're playing a malicious joke on Napster users.
"This isn't Barry Manilow? What is this crap??"
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I went there, being the naive internet luser I apparently am, thinking some good was going to come out of it, boy was I wrong.
Let me tell you what I experienced:
1. All the questions the moderator asked were strangely written by PEOPLE WHO WERN'T THERE.
2. All the questions, except the second one, I think, were truely weak, as if written entirely by lawyers to solicit the kind of answers they wanted to be heard.
3. The band never saw any of the public chat going on.
4. My very thought out question about me buying S&M because I heard an mp3 off of it, and that the RIAA posted a 12.3% 90 billion dollar sales increase last year, was not asked.
5. The thing didn't even last a full hour.
6. Metallica thinks that Napster is apparently providing the content and not the users. Lars said a few times they wanted "napster to take us off their lists".
7. Metallica apparently has a gripe about napster sponsoring Limp Bizkit (they said it was wrong that this large company was paying Limp Bizkit to perform, and not the kids). Even though I don't like Limp Bizkit, isn't this what all record labels do? And don't other bands take on sponsors?
8. Lars says "it isn't about the money" on one line, but says "napster is a middle man cutting us out" on another. Which is it?
9. Metallica wants the government to police the internet, they want congress to bring out new laws against this, and they think what they're doing is for the good of all artists, they clearly stated their goal, to put Napster out of business.
In conclusion, I belive this "live chat" was one hell of a fabrication, kudos to Yahoo for duping alot of people into showing up and wasting their time so we can hear uninformed idiots (Metallica) rant.
-- iCEBaLM
Thank goodness for Tipper Gore and the PMRC! They saved me from getting sued! If I hadn't been shown the evils of the Devil's Music (aka "Rock and Roll") I'd be in court right now!
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
You mean I'm NOT supposed to type in my REAL email address?
What about on IRC. It's still ok to put in my real name in the "Real Name" box, right?
(-:
Okay, so they lock user Foo from logging in. Damn! Now I'll have to re-register the login Bar. Then Baz... etc.
They could block IP's but that would seriously piss off a lot of people, probably to the point of a class-action suit against them.
Lars must have thought of this one.
With an open subscription model you can't precent evil people from getting on the system even if you squash the account. A random ascii string can be generated for a username each time. Quite effective.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
They're having a chat today specifically about the Napster shenanigans at 5pm PT (GMT -8). Show up 1/2 hour early to submit questions/comments.
As the press release says "Hold nothing back: this is Metallica, after all. They can take it."
-----
Its nice to see that metallica really appreciates their fans.
There is a concert up in Dallas in a few weeks - several bands, including Metallica, are playing. I really wanted to go - I like some of the other headliners. But I will be damned before I let one penny of my money go to support Metallica ever again...
As for anyone who is still making Metallica available through Napster - removed the MP3's. Don't distribute their music. Not because they
are suing, but because they have proven themselves to be unworthy of their fans.
Just my 2 cents...
Check out Magic Firesheep!
That sounds fair. If they did indeed trade Metallica music (and it's not hard to get a list of people who do), then this seems pretty fair, not to mention official Napster policy. No money, no greed, just prevent illegal trading.
Recently, it has come to our attention that you have been illegally trading certain digital representations of the music belonging to our client, Metallica. First, our position on the matter has always been clear: The Thing That Should Not Be. Your actions have put our clients in dire financial straights. According to Frank Metallica, "they're Bleeding Me dry". This is Sad But True. Our clients preferred recourse is apparently to Kill Em All, but in a less drug-induced stated they have relented to allow Merciful Fate in our dealings with offenders such as your self.
In a Blitzkrieg investigation of the records obtained from Napster (herein known as Phantom Lord), we have clear indication that you were engage in this illegal activity. You may have tried to cover your tracks, but The Memory Remains. After a long Struggle Within, we have decided that while you will remain Unforgiven, we shall not Seek and Destroy Overkill.
You are hereby banned from using Napster until further notified. You should consider your Napster logon Stone Dead Forever and realize any actions on your part should be considered Too Late Too Late.
We seek only to protect the financial security belonging to Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
Sincerely, FUD ( Master of Puppets)
XML causes global warming.
So, has anyone tried a suit against the record industry, (or some random represantative of them) accusing them of price fixing?
I guess these 335,435 Napster users truly are...
The Unforgiven.
love,
br4dh4x0r
metallica is doing just what the slashdot community said they wanted.....going after the crooks, not napster. But don't worry, most people's opinions will be against Metallica.
----Freedom has no exceptions, but Slashdot does.