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Metallica Wants To Ban 335,435 Napster Users

Posted by Hemos on from the we're-gonna-get-those-listeners dept.

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!

14 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. And quite rightly too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    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.

    1. Re:And quite rightly too by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5
      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.
      Oh, hogwash. Musicians have no right to prevent anyone from hearing their music. They are not graciously allowing other people to hear their music - in fact, any real artist would like every human being on the planet to hear their work.
      As it is their work, they decide how they want people to obtain and use said work,
      No. If Band X said that only brown-eyed blondes were allowed to obtain and use said work, we'd laugh at them.

      Even under today's copyright law, artists have no legal power to decide how people use and obtain their work, other than preventing unauthorized copies and collecting performance royalties. I can play recordings of their songs for my friends, I can perform their work in public or private, I can buy and sell used recordings.

      There's no natural right to control what other people do with your work. (Except perhaps the right to be prevent someone else from claiming to have created it.) Artists have only the artifical "intellectual property" legal rights granted to them by legislatures on behalf of "we the people". And "we the people" are deciding that granting an artificial right to prevent copying doesn't make sense anymore.

      and anyone that believes otherwise is just condoning theft in one of its many forms.
      Copying by its very nature is not and cannot be theft. Theft takes something away from the victim. If I make a copy, you still have the original.
      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.
      Pirate? Where? I didn't know that the folks at Napster even had a boat.

      Oh, I see, you're using "pirate" in the incorrect and prejudicial sense of "one who makes an unauthorized copy". How in the world the same term should apply to copying as to murder, rape, and theft on the high seas is beyond me.

      So, anyway, you say that money has been lost from the artists to the folks at Napster? Did Napster come and rob their piggy banks? No? So if the musicians still have all the money they had before, how was money lost?

      The only think that might have been lost were potential profits. Well, guess what - potentials change. You don't have a moral right to stuff that you could have had if circumstances had been different.

      But considering that CD sales are up, it's hard to even argue that potential profits were lost.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  2. I wonder if they'll write a song about us... by root · · Score: 5
    Hush little surfer, don't say a word,
    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!)

  3. No, Metallica can't handle the new media by Sloppy · · Score: 5

    the most annoying thing about this is that they're one of the few bands that could tell their record company what do do with itself, walk away, and then exploit the hell out of this new medium.

    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.
  4. You may have already won! by Misha · · Score: 4

    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.
  5. Simple solution that may open their eyes by Raleel · · Score: 5

    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? --
  6. Re:Tell 'Em What You Think Of This... by iCEBaLM · · Score: 5

    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

  7. Huh? by TheTomcat · · Score: 5

    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?

    (-:

  8. How the hell can they ban "users"?!? by Paranoid+Diatribe · · Score: 5

    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.

  9. Fails because of an open subscription model by slashdot-terminal · · Score: 4

    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
  10. Tell 'Em What You Think Of This... by GeekLife.com · · Score: 5

    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."
    -----

  11. gee, i feel so loved ... by wrenling · · Score: 4

    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!
  12. *cough* by br4dh4x0r · · Score: 5

    I guess these 335,435 Napster users truly are...

    The Unforgiven.

    love,
    br4dh4x0r

  13. Re:Much Props To Metallica by kz45 · · Score: 4

    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.