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Ask Metallica About Napster
Notes before you post:
1) Due to an anticipated high volume of questions, please confine yourself to one question per post, and keep it short! As usual, we'll allow 24 hours for posting and moderation, then select 10 - 15 of the highest-moderated questions and send them to our interview guest(s) by e-mail. Answers will be posted as soon as we get them back, hopefully within the next week.
2) Please read some of what other people have had to say before posting; Richard Stallman made some comments about Napster and Metallica in his interview here earlier this week. Bruce Perens has written an interesting piece on Napster and Free Software which we also suggest reading, along with Jon Katz's most recent editorial about this brou-ha-ha. We also suggest a fast look at this story (and the comments attached to it), and possibly a quick perusal of other material on the subject previously published here and elsewhere.
3. Credit where credit is due: Emmett Plant set this up. It wasn't easy. Please thank him profusely. He deserves it.
What is the current net worth of each band member? (This question is designed to make the point that they are already obscenely rich, so they don't need to squeeze pennies out of Napster users to make a living.)
Do you guys understand that if this lawsuit is successful and you force napster out of business, the first thing people will do is start using Gnutella and you will either have to live with the piracy or resort to suing individual fans? In case you don't know what gnutella is, it is a file sharing program that was not written by any company and does not depend on any central server. The people who use it are the only ones who can be blamed for anything. And then, in the nearly inconceivable event you somehow manage to get rid of gnutella, Freenet will take over and you can't even force the removal of anything from it.
Lawyers and rock stars fighting technology? Who do you think will win?
(note to /.ers, while some of you claim that the majority of the people using Napster use it exclusively for stealing music, there are _NO_ statistics at all to prove this, just your own assumptions about peoples ethics and honesty. This says much more about you than it does about Napster users.)
OK, here's the example. Last month at my local live-music club I caught a great regional band, Fried Hog Nut Bastards (name changed to make it funnier.) I liked them so much that I bought their CD and a t-shirt. Then I ripped the CD into MP3s and stuck it in my Napster shared directory. Later, I told an online friend who I met in a Napster chat room about the Fried Hog Nut Bastards. She'd never heard of them. She downloaded a couple of the MP3s, and liked them. The Fried Hog Nut Bastards are playing in her area next week. She and her friends are going to the show. They will probably pick up a t-shirt and/or CD there. They wouldn't have heard of the band if not for Napster. So in this case, one shared batch of MP3s means that a small obscure band will have more people paying cover at their gigs, buying CDs and other merchandise, telling their friends, etc. This is good for The Fried Hog Nut Bastards, because next time they are in town they will probably play in a larger club. This is good for the Napster user, because she got to hear a new band that she'd otherwise not have bothered to go see because of their stupid name. Good for the club owner, he'll sell more beer. My question for Metallica is, who is this bad for then? Who loses here?
do you think that the people who's fair use rights are being shrunk every day, who are being called pirates for sharing (a kindergarten concept that a few people refuse to acknowledge, despite the fact that others in their industry are starting to acknowledge is actually helping rather than hurting them) have any earthly idea that they can change the laws that the corporations bought? The point is to say that we see what's happening and we're telling *them* that we don't like it.
I read the transcript of your interview the other day adn I'm a bit puzzled. I'm sure Napster has some serious venture capital behind it, but where does it make its money? In your interview you say that Napster paid "some guy" to invent Napster. Actually I'm a Sophmore at Northeastern University and the *kid* who invented it was a 19 year old Computer Science Major who loved computers and music. I think I had class with him, but I'm not real good with names. There were two ways to find mp3 back then, search obsure FTP sites, web sites or in IRC Chat rooms. Once grand day him and three other people on IRC decided that it would be easier if there was a program to bring people together to trade music and chat, like a searchable IRC. The kid who invented it had to go out and buy a book on programming to figure it out. Then he let otehr people have the program and it was a local "cool-thingy". Some guy in California offered him an enormous amount of money and a high paying job for the rights to the code. So, he sold it and moved. Now that you know the humble beginnings of Napster. Where does Napster make its money or paln to make money? Would you be as upset if it were run by some guys coding in thier garages giving thier code away to anyone who wanted a copy? Check out Gnutella its GPL, freedom at its finest.
Metallica are CLUELESS about what's going on here - and they're basically just USING ALL OF US to get free publicity..
Master of PR they're pulling your strings
Twisting your mind & smashing your dreams
blinded by ME you can't see a thing
Just call my name & I'll sue for green
Bastards
Bastards.
Why does this site exist....? Apparently, the Holier Than Thou boys from Metallica have decided to pursue Napster. Napster offers a software product which allows users to share their MP3 libraries amongst each other. It does this without discriminating between "copyrighted" and "non-copyrighted" files, because many artists have released their copyrighted works in digital format, to increase their listenership. It's interesting that this would come from a band who has long credited the "underground bootleg tape-traders" for their success in the first place. MP3 traders today occupy the same basic position in the food-chain that the tape-traders did in the early 80's. Many an interview has shown Lars or James saying "how the tape-traders trading pirate copies of the demo tapes" were what made them popular. It's all well and good for tape-traders to exist when it gets THEM popular, but then once they're rich and popular? Fuck the traders, man, they don't need em any more. It is obvious to anyone who has been watching Metallica over the last five years that they have been in a steady decline. The quality of music has declined to be almost non-existant (in fact, I had read one report that the sole reason for the back-to-back Load/Re-Load thing was simply to "put out shit to fill the Elektra contract"). I can't speak for the accuracy of that (hell, I don't even remember where I read it), but it wouldn't surprise me. "Load" was short for "load of shit". The only exception to this decline (to me anyway) was the deal with the San Francisco Symphony, S&M. That was pretty choice, but then again, I've yet to see a rock band come off BADLY when they do that "rock meets symphony" routine. Make no mistake, it IS a routine.... Many have been there before Metallica got the idea for it. Now, this callous disregard for the people who trade their music. Yeah, Lars, people trade your music. So fucking what? If people hadn't traded bootleg tapes of you in the 80's you would be another washed up tennis player looking for a job as a tennis pro in some country club. But now that you're rich and can afford a really nice house, you don't NEED those tape-traders anymore, do you? You didn't care so much about "the sanctity of your art" back when you were broke and NEEDED and BENEFITED from that free distribution channel, did you? Who do you think you are, Pablo Fucking Picasso? When you were broke and Anthrax brought you a fucking refrigerator while you were living in the rehearsal room in NYC, were you crying about "woe is us, those tape traders are ruining our art form, they're cheapening it". No, you whining little fuck, you were glad they were getting the word out and getting people to come to your gigs, and making you money in the process. Metallica tries to keep making this out as "bootlegs are ok, concert tapes are fine, etc. etc.", but the reality is that Metallica also allowed people to trade No Life Til Leather, which was NOT a "bootleg concert recording", but was a demo-tape of songs they were shopping as new artists do. Instead of pissing and moaning about their "art" being traded, they let it slide, because they NEEDED the word-of-mouth. Now that they don't need it, they don't care, and screw the folks doing the modern-day equivalent.
Check out the scour media agent at http://www.scour.net.. its like a napster clone, works quite well and i got some nice music video's off it..
also, how in the hell can napster sue 330,000 people for trading a filename, i mean cant someone for instance rename pornaudio.mp3 to metallica-one.mp3 then send it accross napster? Im sure their lawyers dont have access to listen to what goes accross napster individually so i dont quite understand the logic behind this.
-anonymous mp3 lover
I am allowed to "test-drive" automobiles, ovens, easy chairs, televisions, computers - hell, even jobs and food, sometimes. Why do you feel your industry is immune to a test drive? If your industry is not immune to a test drive, why this hype to sue your fans? Why not work with Napster to build "30-day demos"?
thank you,
slak23@antionline.org
One undeniable benefit of napster is that it has created more music fans: many fans who would never have heard your music, and many more who would never have bought it. And of all new fans you recieve, no doubt many would buy your albums, having sampled it on napster (arguably more buyers than you lost).
In regards to the issue of napster, Dexter Holland from the band The Offspring was recently was quoted as saying, "I think it's expanding bands' fan bases. For us, when our last record was relatively new, about a year ago, we were the most downloaded band on the Internet . . . and geez, it certainly didn't hurt our record sales."
Seeing as you are already incomprehensibly rich, doesn't the thought of thousands or even millions of new fans outweigh whatever financial "losses" you might potentially be suffering? Or is the size of your paycheque more important to you than the number of minds who can be exposed to the "art" you worked so hard to create? If it is anyone who has transformed your music from art to commodity, it was you when you sold out. What happened to the bootleg-encouraging pre-Black-Album Metallica we used to love, and why did you sell out to the devil of pop commercio-consummerism?
What were you more surprised by: The fact that Napster makes it easy to access music, or that there were actually as many as 335,000 people out there who had any interest in Metallica?
How do you feel about artists doing the exact opposite by embracing Napster and the MP3 community, such as Chuck D and Limp Bizkit?
Metallica used to actually advocate bootlegging of their music as a means of promotion? Now that that bootlegging and fan promotion has achieved you much success, don't you feel that you've now become a corporate dog deserving to be shot down as such?
It seems to me that the REAL problem is with people putting entire CD's online, THEN connecting to Napster. The REAL crime is when an individual makes copyrighted material available, NOT when the Napster service is abused. It seems to me that a much stronger lawsuit would be one against an individual who makes these materials available. Why aren't you pursuiing individual claims against the biggest perpatrators, rather than Napster? Is it because you're afraid of alienating your fan base?
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Just lurking, thanks!
Lars/Metallica, how on earth can you hold these two ideals, which are POLAR OPPOSITES? You say that it should be an artist's decision whether or not they want to participate in this new medium, yet you also say you want to kill it outright. My question is this: How do you feel that putting Napster out of business and thereby removing that right-to-chose from EVERY other artist is fair to anyone but yourselves? Also, how do you justify this point of view to fans of non-signed bands who depend on Napster for distribution?
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Just lurking, thanks!
Also, do you realize the amount of live material that Napster users share? I own 9 Metallica CD's, and have no less than 30 mp3's of live concerts, interviews, etc. I'm hardly "ripping you off". However, I am an avid Napster user, because it's a great way to find rare live material. Why don't you make high-quality mp3's of an occasional concert available on your web site?
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Just lurking, thanks!
How do you expect to keep alot of your fans by alienating them? Common sense suggests that if you are going to sue your fan base it's kind of hard to keep them around. (HINT: Most people, or at least myself and many others, actually buy albums after getting an illegal, copyrighted mp3.)
Fuck Ajit Pai
The issue has arisen, the battle lines are being drawn, and in the end no one is going to be completely satisfied. Despite record sales actually on the increase , the RIAA is casting it's fear, uncertainty, and doubt on the MP3 file format. Whereas we, the MP3 users are not only defending it, but are promoting it.
If you examine this really closely, there doesn't seem to be much of a problem at all in a sense. Everyone is making more money and the consumer is getting more convenient access to their music, legitamely and ill-legitamately.
Fuck Ajit Pai
I began listening to Metallica when I was given a tape containing No Life Till Leather (and, on the reverse side, a live recording from a bar in SF). I loved the music; I gained respect for you as people and as artists as I watched you deal with issues that affected the band: Dave leaving, uncooperative record labels, the tragedy with Cliff. Metallica survived all of these and in fact came out stronger each time. It seemed to me that was because you had your priorities straight: the music comes first. You did whatever was necessary to create that music, and share it with people like myself. I know that you had a signifigant impact on my (young) life; my style as a drummer was very influenced by Lars', for example.
I stopped following your career after And Justice For All, but I knew you had achieved a certain level of commercial success. And that's fine; I suppose you deserve it. But now I see this come out of the blue. My question, then, is this:
What would those long-haired kids from the Bay say if they could see your response to this issue? They had one dream: to create music, and share it with whomever would listen. Money wasn't the issue; otherwise I doubt that they (you) would have wanted to name their first album "Fuck 'Em All".
I don't blame you for "growing up", and no one expects you to be the same person you were at 17 or 25. But the thing I respected about you then was your purity of vision. Where is that now?
Or am I mistaken, and is there a higher purpose to this campaign, one which truely affects the quality of music that you, and other artists, produce?
What evidence has the RIAA presented that shows that mp3s are harming artists as they claim? Cuts both ways. They can go after Napster for strictly legal reasons, but if they're going to make claims about harm to the artists, they should at least back them up. The RIAA and MPAA among others have actively been trying to pervert copyright into serving their needs exclusively, rather than serving the nation as a whole as it was intended. Given that, I don't think they can claim that just because copyright laws were broken that the it necessarily follows that the artists are getting the shaft. I think they've already done more than enough harm to the rest of us.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
We're terribly sorry about the gross overuse of Master of Puppets puns in the posts here!
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I can download an entire cds worth of mp3s in less than 10 minutes. This is much more convenient than ripping them myself. Plus they'll already have all the related info added usually (i.e. album title, etc.) so I don't have to do that myself. This way I can leave my cd collection at home and listen to the mp3s at work.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This is a multi-part question. Many people think that the RIAA's claims of harm to artists are way overblown. Has any research been done on the actual effects that MP3 distribution has on artists? For instance, do you know that the people downloading the music do not own the albums? Do you know whether they actually keep and listen to the MP3s rather than purchasing the cds, or do they delete what they don't like and buy what they do like? Could MP3s actually be helping record sales by exposing people to more music that they would not have purchased because they had never heard it? Has there been any investigation at all of what's really going on before the lawsuits were filed?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Is the availability of MP3s allowing people to be more discriminating in their purchases since they can listen to an album before deciding to buy it? Do you believe that people should or should not be able to do this?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Do you believe that a significant number of your fans will download your music to avoid paying for it?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Do you believe that the current model of distribution is becoming outdated and that a better model should be found that eliminates much of the overhead associated with the cost of a cd today, thus reducing costs for fans and increasing profits for artists?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Is it desirable or possible, in your opinion, to link artists and their fans more directly so that fans can support the artists they like without feeling like they've been taken to the cleaners by the record companies and middlemen?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I've reposted the above questions in the main thread. I separated them into one question per post there. If you think any of these are worthy questions, please mod up the individual posts since the the post I'm replying to is not likely to make it to Metallica due to having too many questions in it. Or maybe you'll just mod me into oblivion. You could do that too :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
(1) This is a multi-part question. Many people think that the RIAA's claims of harm to artists are way overblown. Has any research been done on the actual effects that MP3 distribution has on artists? For instance, do you know that the people downloading the music do not own the albums? Do you know whether they actually keep and listen to the MP3s rather than purchasing the cds, or do they delete what they don't like and buy what they do like? Could MP3s actually be helping record sales by exposing people to more music that they would not have purchased because they had never heard it? Has there been any investigation at all of what's really going on before the lawsuits were filed?
(2) Is the availability of MP3s allowing people to be more discriminating in their purchases since they can listen to an album before deciding to buy it? Do you believe that people should or should not be able to do this?
(3) Do you believe that a significant number of your fans will download your music to avoid paying for it?
(4) Do you believe that the current model of distribution is becoming outdated and that a better model should be found that eliminates much of the overhead associated with the cost of a cd today?
(5) Is it desirable or possible, in your opinion, to link artists and their fans more directly so that fans feel like they can support the artists they like without feeling like they've been taken to the cleaners by the record companies?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You were quoted before as saying that Napster commoditizes your music. How exactly is music art when it is sold by a giant record label, and a commodity when shared among fans? It seems that you got that backwards. Don't get me wrong - I think you have every right to protect your intellectual property - but your earlier statement seems to indicate that you are more interested in commodotizing music than making something which people enjoy.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
What is you opinion about people who tape your albums (art?) illegally? I know I had a copy of Ride the Lightning for a while before I bought a legit copy on cassette and CD. Also, up until a few months ago, the only way people could enjoy some of the more rare, obscure, or out-of-print releases from Metallica would have been through illegal copies.
As an aside, is it true that Newstead was prevented from working with Sepultura because of your management? If that's true, when is Metallica going to loose Bob Rock, or is the ultimate goal to become like Brian Adams?
Thanks for the memories, and thanks also for putting "Cliff 'em All" out on DVD!
We're back to the essential negrepontian schism: atoms vs. bits. Record companies for the last 90 years or so have made money by selling wax or plastic devices which would make a sound when fitted to the proper machine. They paid musicians (most of the time) for music to put on these wax and plastic devices.
The problem now is civilization has moved beyond the need for wax or plastic devices that are fitted to machines to store and play sounds. A sound can be played anywhere in the world where there is a phone line and a computer, and it can be stored on one or a million different physical devices in less time than it takes for me to type this. So, the entire premise that allowed a recording industry to come into being, by manufacturing, marketing and distributing devices that store and play sound when fitted to a machine, has evaporated. Selling CDs is starting to look a lot like selling buggy whips.
There are two ways we can handle this. 1) Force society to comply unwillingly with the needs of industry, with laws and force. 2) Figure out how to adapt to the new reality, and make our millions from new opportunities and paradigms.
The RIAA and their lackies are working very, very, very hard on option 1. Folks like George Clinton, Ice T, and Public Enemy are working very hard on option number 2.
The "culture wars" have bee raging since the birth of hip-hop and sampling, and was kicked to a whole new level in the nineties. 808 State and Negativeland were -destroyed- because the industry doesn't understand that culture is participatory, not pure consumption. The industry doesn't even understand that music is art, not product. Geffen sued Niel Young for deviating from his typical "stoner rock" formula...and -won-.
So! The people are happy with the new MP3/napster/gnutella paradigm. The musicians are (mostly) happy with the new paradigm. The recording industry wants to clamp down with laws and lawsuits and police raids. Since they have all the money, it's going to get worse before it gets better.
My question is simply this: how can Metallica in good conscience associate themselves with the stifling of freedom and new technology, when their success is founded on the free dissemenation of music through new technology? (Remember those bootleg casettes back in the '80s?). You're already one of the very, very, very few whom the record companies have allowed to become rich: do you -really- need another 30 pieces of silver?
SoupIsGood Food
Were you aware, at the time you sold your soul to the devil, that you would eventually be forced to play shill for the "other side"? Or did you think that the devil would allow you to simply play the "anti-authority" game the rest of your lives?
Get a haircut!
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Challanging this are two barbarian armies. One one flank ride the techno-anarchist Huns, with their fiersome Napster-throwers and vorpal blades of Gnutella. Their war-crys are ones of "freedom to copy!" and "death to rules!".
On the other flank ride the more sedate, but no less fiersome Philosophers of Doom, with their terrifying chants of "it's inevitable!" and "you can't stop them!"
Who is "right" no longer matters, if it ever did. Personally, I agree with Metallica's stance completely, but I don't depend on popularity to pay my bills, the way any artist does.
Legal battles are unlikely to impress barbarians. Why should they? Barbarians are, by definition, outside such civilised concepts. If anything, there is likely to be a "popular" backlash.
This leads me (at long last) to my question: How does Metallica, or Real Music propose to survive this fight?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm having a bit of trouble with this, actualy.
Yes, the person is technicaly offering the tracks to the public, but, they're not making a copy.
In fact, if they own the cd, and ripped that copy of a track, the particular arangement of 1s and 0s on their machine are legal, and it is the downloader who is making the copy.
Its somewhat akin to allowing people to come into your house and use your tape deck to dub a copies of your music collection. You're obviously somehow legaly responsable, but it's not quite the same as if you made a bunch of copies and started selling them or handing them out on the streets.
Furthermore, it seems that a great number of people don't entirely (or at all) understand that
they are acting as a server themselves.
There are a lot more people that use Napster than there are who understand exactly what's going on.
If they have music on their hard drive, it's available for anyone to download while they're logged in to Napster's servers by default.
If they don't understand that they are becomming servers, then how are they liable for the spread of their otherwise (possibly) legal mp3s?
Am I guilty of violating copyright law if someone breaks into my house and uses my cd burner to make copies of my cd collection while i'm away, asleep, or otherwise oblivious?
That's an impressive post.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Has anyone seen it yet? :) .com/features/feature-metallicaletter.html
http://www.brunching
Oh, and BTW, I would recommend people read the artistdirect.com chat transcript to avoid repeating questions that Metallica&Lawyers have already expertly handled.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I've got just one question for metallica, but let me preface it first.
I'm nineteen years old. I lived in the suburbs my whole life, nothing hardcore, nothing glamorous. The type of place that nowadays kiddies like to think they're badasses because they listen to Limp Bizkit and Korn (the two worst music acts of our time). But when I was ten years old, I got a copy of the Black Album. And that was it.
Since then I've been a pretty big Metallica fan. I've bought all the albums. (even Load and Reload, even though they sucked). I waited eagerly for the release of Load after five years of waiting. I bought the boxed set, which might be the three CDs that I cherish most. I love the music and the attitude.
My question for Metallica is this: what's it all about? It used to be about you, and it used to be about me. It used to be about some kid like me picking up a copy of Kill em All, which was released when I was like two, and listening to it in my car for a month. It was about your art, and the appreciation of it. It still is, on our end. People download those songs off Napster because they love your art. They appreciate it, as I do. But for you, I don't think it's about art anymore, even though you claim it is.
Because when you talk about how we treat your music as a commodity, you're forgetting what we're doing with it. We aren't trading it around, like currency, to obtain something else. We're listening, which is what you always wanted. When you recorded No Life Till Leather, you just wanted us to listen. And that's all we want now, Lars, to listen.
It's kind of sad, really. I'll never lose respect for what you've made, but I think I've lost respect for who you are.
Dave
Are you free to answer any way you please in this interview? Or has your label requested that your responses to our questions be reviewed by their lawyers before being posted back to Slashdot? And if so, did you agree to this?
I really need to feel like you guys are speaking your minds, and not just saying what the lawyers think is okay for you to say. No master pulling your strings...
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Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
Back in the good old days when I was a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks, Metallica and their music meant more to my friends and me than anything else. Nobody had two parents, so James Hetfield was the very essence of masculinity and personal freedom for most of us. I'd be curious to know the exact date when it became less about making music and more about making money.
It seems to me that at that time, a utility such as napster would have been extremely beneficial to your efforts. You weren't extremely well known and you were not getting the benefits from million dollar marketing. Something like napster would have sped up what happened anyway, people made tapes of your music ... passed them off to friends ... who made tapes and passed them along, etc. And the ones who liked what they heard, went and bought the album. I can personally remember a friend of mine who went from having half a dozen multiple redubbed tapes of your music to owning every album you had done (3 or 4 at the time I believe).
So I guess what I'm curious about is would you still be so upset if you were not already famous? Right now you don't have to worry about publicity, most of America has heard of you and even if they don't particularly care for your style of music can probably point out a few of your songs just from massive radio play. By suing napster, and alienating the ones who use it, aren't you concerned that you're taking the thrill of discovery out of the hands of your would be fans and placing into the hands of your record label's marketing and publicity departments? Granted I'm not a Metallica fan (no offense guys), but this seems to be something that goes completely contrary to what I remember blasting out of my friends' speakers 10 years ago.
Thanks for your time.
Sean
RFC2119
You mentioned that we need laws banning file-sharing software such as Napster. How far should these laws go? If in 10 years time, computer users labour under draconian restrictions on communications software under what is titled the Lars Ulrich Digital Copy Enforcement Act, to the effect that sharing music files (of any sort) without the digital signature of a major record label or copyright authority becomes grounds for loss of Internet access and/or legal sanctions, how will you feel about the fans and small-time bands whose attempts at networking are crippled by these restrictions?
We all know how you feel about Napster.
I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are of the lawsuit against mp3.com? Any plans to sue them as well?
Almost twenty years ago is a memory you recalled once in an interview that I read in a magazine I can't remember at this time. It was basically describing how the two of you used to drive around in the late Cliff Burton's blue Volkswagen listening over and over to a tape simply labelled 'MISFITS' on a piece of masking tape. Despite the fact you couldn't stand it after a while (and Cliff's drumming on the dashboard), the fact here is that you were practicing something that most people in the world do: listening to "pirated" music.
This tape was obviously not a store purchased tape, and while it could be argued that Mr. Burton did at that time (if not later) legally own copies of the music on that cassette, it was still, by legal definition, an illegal copy.
I'm not saying Napster is right or wrong. I'm not saying what you did back then is right or wrong. I'm trying to get at the idea that you've been there; having copies of music. Personally, I'm more like Mr. Ulrich in the way that I collect a large amount of music, and quite frankly, even though I have numerous opportunities to make a cassette or CD of someone's album, I much prefer to have the physical store-bought item (liner note, album photographs, etc). However, this is something that something that many people do and even you yourselves have.
Allowing this free exchange of music shouldn't hurt you, Metallica, much. Isn't it true that most of your revenue comes from the sale of Metallica related items and concert sales? Surely the potential loss of sales due to Napster trading isn't going to effect your bottom line to a dramatic extent.
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Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Basically what I'm saying is that Metallica used to mean something, but your recent actions are so corporate. Basically, I'm a bummed out fan. Maybe you are a bummed out artist, but there are thousands of bands who wish that people would listen to their music. They wish they could be you, and you are getting corporate on people. That disgusts me.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
About a year ago, I was on an mp3 FTP site and I saw some old metallica mp3's. I figured 'hey, i don't know much about metallica, why dont I download them overnight' and so I did. I listened to them the next day and thought you guys ROCKED. I now own practially every album you've put out over the years, and am a total fan.
What do you guys have to say about this? If it wasn't for mp3's I wouldnt of ever bought an album of yours. I'm only 17 and dont have the money go out to CD stores and buy full albums at $17 (and MORE) a pop every single time I hear a decent song. I use napster for this now to sample the album, and if I like it, I am willing to support the artist by buying the CD, and also i like to have something tangable to play, not just mp3's. This rash blame on napster is frivolous (sp?). Mp3s are the future and it is here and it cannot be stopped. Embrace it, dont screw it up with stupid lawsuits that will never get anywhere. Asking napster to block 330,000 user names is useless as well, as the day they are banned, there will be 330,000 new usernames created the next day, all with 'mysteriously' the same mp3 lists.
Thanks for taking the time with my questions.
- my userid is lower than yours
In Sweden, digital TV is growing and is becoming largely distributed. Many radio stations also send their shows in digital format. What will happen when digital radio is every mans possession? Like the normal radio is today.
The recordings from these broadcasts will be just as good as buying them on cd. And you are already able to stream them directly into your computer.
Will you charge a higher fee from the radiostation or what will your solution be?
/* We dance to the sounds of sirens and we watch genocide to relax*/
what would you say about someone like me who uses napster exclusively to get live pearl jam bootlegs. (a band which allows and encourages taping of their shows)
---
---
we stand in life at midnight, we are always on the threshold of a new dawn.
I've been a pretty avid listener of Metallica since around "Ride the Lightning" or so. In those days and up until about "Metallica", James Hetfield had said in numerous interviews words to the effect of:
1) It's about the music, not the money
2) The big record labels are just big corporate and are basically parasitic by nature.
Recent events would seem to indicate that it's no longer about the music, but very much about the money. It also indicates a reversal in regards to the record label.
If this is indeed a reversal, why the change?
If it's not a reversal, how is the recent legal activity justified.
Thanks. I'll still keep listening to the early Metallica work, but I won't buy another new CD until this legal nonsense is over.
** Black holes are where God divided by zero **
fprintf, do you realize that you must the abolute first first-poster to ever be moderated up to 5???
I was about to say the first time was when the Debian project leader was interviewed and then got first post on the story. Looking up the link, though, I see he didn't quite make it. He did receive something like 19 separate moderations on that, which is probably still the record.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
To what extent do you, and the people you know in the music industry, take the pro-Napster view seriously?
From my side, the development of the position generally held here looked like this:
1) People start freely distributing software they've made.
2) People start encouraging others to do the same.
3) A larger crowd of people forms, who generally don't make anything useful themselves, but demand that everyone making software make it for free.
4) That crowd then branches out into demanding that all information and ideas be given to them to do with anything they wish.
From your side, does the "Intellectual property is evil" argument make any sort of sense? Does it come across as a sincere political view or just as a rationalization of theft? Does it seem like a juvenile, unrealistic political enthusiasm?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I'm in my early thirties now. I was a rebellious teen when I heard Metallica open for Ozzy on his 'Ultimate Sin' tour and became a huge fan of Metallica back then. I think that Cliff Burton was the real heart and soul behind Metallica - In "Cliff 'em All" I noticed that he was the only one smoking dope on-camera and living the real hardcore livestyle.
...", "Trapped under ice ...", "Sanitarium - leave me be", "Jump in the Fire", "Seek & Destroy", "Fight fire with fire", "Creeping Death", ...
...
Take a look at your lyrics and song titles and how they've changed:
With Cliff: "You will do what I say
After Cliff: "One", "Harvestor of Sorrow", "To live is to die", "Dyers Eve", "Sad but true", "Enter Sandman",
Now, the lyrics are almost laughable, the tempo is slow, no more long hair, cover songs, and last but not least, entering the mp3 debate and siding with the corporate suits! What the hell has happened to the band I once related to as a rebellious kid with long hair and ripped jeans?
What's next for you guys? Voting republican?
It's almost as if Cliff was the only one in the band with any balls, but that's just my opinion.
--
Steven Webb
System Administrator II - Juneau and TECOM projects
NCAR - Research Applications Program
The RIAA seems peeved that the mp3 format even exists. But I am having a hard time figuring out your stance. Are you opposed to the new technical distribution methods of music, or are you opposed to the abuse of these methods? Attacking the abuse should not cause much fuss, but attacking the technology (such as MPAA or RIAA do) can only cause a massive revolt.
It's funny, the idea of "putting Napster out of business". It's too late. MSWord is a 'word-proccessor', and so is Corel and vi. The idea of a word-proccessor is established now and will never die. Napster is the first (or most successful manifestation) of a new idea that will become every bit as ubiquitious as the idea of the word-proccessor.
Killing Napster would be a brief and hollow victory.
Oh well!
**>>BELCH
Metallica is not about to cut themselves from the apron-strings that have kept them well-fed until now, and the record industry execs will spend every spare minute convincing them and other cash-cows that the Threat is real and deadly.
As the paradigm shifts, there is pain and much scrambling for high ground. These people are acting in what they believe to be their best interests.
They're all still big enough and entrenched enough to believe that they can legislate the laws of physics in their favour.
God bless 'em for trying. Alas, 'twill avail them not. The Middle Man is in his death-throws already. Things will be getting very ugly from here on, and then it will be over, and Something New (better? who can say?) will have sprung up.
Nothing lasts forever. Absofuckinglutely NOTHING.
**>>BELCH
In my day we used to make "compilation tapes" for each other of songs by bands we hadn't heard before. In this way, new music, or music that was new to us, would get exchanged, and if we liked it, in general, we would go out and buy the album that the song we liked came from.
...And Justice for All.
This is how I was introduced to Metallica's music. After hearing some of Ride the Lightning, I went out and bought the CD, followed by Master of Puppets and
I went to see them on the Justice tourm and eagerly awaited the release of the Black Album which I bought, and susbequently sold because it was crap.
What is so different about mp3 files? Is this not a good method for distributing samples of your work which people will subsequently buy if they like it? It's a form of marketing/advertising.
After all, the quality of mp3 sound isn't as good as CD, so if people are really keen on the music they will buy the CD's and come to your shows.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Before recording equipment was invented, musicians stood very little chance of becoming incredibly rich. Once a recording device was invented, market economics could apply to the recordings themselves; they were a scarce resource since the cost of tooling, manufacturing, and distribution was high. Hence, they could be sold for lots of money. Still, people were buying media, not music. The closest thing to buying music is a concert ticket, and lots of concert tickets are still sold. The experience of a concert will never be duplicated with MPEG2/layer anything.
One could argue now, in the era of digital music, that the cost of tooling, manufacturing, and distribution is approaching zero, the product is no longer scarce, and market pressures no longer apply. Therefore, you can no longer sell media, but you can still sell music - concerts. Most consumers can not afford to buy every CD on the market. Most concert-goers only go to concerts to hear music they've heard before. It could thus be argued that the free availability of recorded music would greatly increase concert attendence, and revenue.
Currently, with the recording industry as it is, with high production costs, only a very small number of musicians who wish to be professional musicians are signed, as the economics of producing a very large number of bands is too high to be feasible. The market now only needs to be big enough to satisfy most people and they'll spend the same amount of money on a concentrated or diluted market. With the manufacturing costs removed, the number of musicians that can make a living making music increases. I'm fairly certain this is how musicians will operate in the future; it is, in effect, a return to the old way. However, it poses a threat to established musicians in the concentrated market.
Question: How well could you live on strictly concert revenues with increased attendence? How about with a market with a hundred times as many musicians' music available for sale? If it's alot lower, are you comfortable being a musician making "only" as much money as, say, a physician? Are you concerned that without a corporate recording/distribution industry your popularity will fade as more music becomes available on the market?
[Ed: One question/thought broken down into simple sentences for clarity]
It is my contention then that modern musicians have only become fabulously wealthy through a quirk in our technological evolution, and while a good musician will remain well-compensated, it will be more modest in the future. The only way to prevent this from happening is through political bribes to have draconian intellectual property law enacted, outlawing fair-use, and suing the fan-base into compliance. You guys are good, but not so good as to be worth that.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Just now, I'm not going to take sides. I'm not going to decry Napster for facilitating piracy, nor am I going to decry Metallica for joining the let's-abuse-the-litigation-process club.
I'm posting this question to call Metallica on their hypocrisy. To wit, here is a quote:
"We're suing Napster for one reason and one reason only. Because they exist to pirate music, nothing more, nothing less. It's not just about the money at the end of the day."
Now, I don't know which of you guys said that, so you'll all have to bear its burden. Here is what you're saying: "It's not about money, it's about piracy." But what is piracy? Unauthorized copying. But why would copying be restricted? Don't artists want to get wider audiences? Of course they do, but you also need to eat, so you copyright your music and charge for it. So unless you're concerned about making money from your music, what is now "piracy" would simply be "getting our music out". So, in effect, what you are saying is this: "It's not about money, it's about money."
Here's another example, though this one could be said to be only on Lars' head:
"We take our craft -- whether it be the music, the
lyrics, or the photos and artwork -- very seriously, as do most artists. It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded
like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
I must say, that statement truly disgusts me. When music is sold for $17 a CD at Media Play or Tower Records, THEN it's being treated like a commodity. When music is freely exchanged on Napster, ftp sites, IRC, or whatever, THEN it's being treated like art. Whichever position you take on it, wanting it to be a commodity or to be art, I don't care. I just want you to own up to it. So the basic essence of what I'm asking, is for you to...
EXPLAIN YOURSELVES.
MoNsTeR
Well it's not, if the 500,000 people using my.mp3.com are any indicator. All of them (supposedly) own the CD they are listening to. Have you ever ripped a CD before? Between ripping and encoding it takes at least an hour, maybe more depending on the speed of your computer. It is a lot easier for me to go on Napster and download the whole thing over a cable modem than it is to rip it.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
When I heard that you were accusing 300,000 people of pirating your music I thought to myself, "That's funny - there's no way they could have listened to all that music in a single weekend."
Do you guys actually have any semblance of proof that all those songs that Napster lists are actually Metallica songs? As far as I know, it is perfectly legal for me to name my MP3s whatever I want. So if I want to call something "Enter Sandman" or "One", I'm well within my rights to do so. It certainly doesn't constitute a copyright violation. It would seem to me that the only way to prove that people actually pirated your music is to download each of the hundreds of thousands of tracks and make sure they are Metallica songs. Have you guys done this? Assuming the answer is no (I don't see how you could have), do you really expect your lawsuit to carry any sort of legal weight, or is it just a ruse, just a scare tactic?
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I have to chide many of my fellow /. lurkers for being socialists of convenience when it comes to the MP3 thing; yet I know many people that use MP3's to decide what CD's they want to purchase (I don't have to because I'm a shameless leach from my friends ;). Having a band and feeding yourself (hopefully well), your kids, &c. nowadays requires a fair amount of interaction with Agents, producers, the label, etc, who all also want to get fed from the produce of the popularity of your work. Do you think there's room in an MP3-ish setup for something like the PayLars site (wish it worked!) model wherein a band that wants to be both artists and support themselves can be true to their fans, their wallets, and their principles without having the record companies coming in for their share too, or are venue-deals/etc just too tightly linked?
--- The reclining dragon deeply fears the blue pool's clarity.
A few of my thoughts: I used to tape Metallica songs off of the radio and play them over and over. I see mp3s as the same way.
If they want, I'll delete my mp3s and not listen to them. I'm not going to buy their album if I do or do not have their songs on mp3.
Should I destroy the tapes I have when I taped them off of the radio? It is the same concept. Or what about if a friend makes me a copy? Do they really think they're going to stop all of that? I'm a musician too, and I don't want to be ripped off, or rip anyone else off. But mp3's are just convienient, and they do not hurt their business as musicians. They still have a lot of turn out at their concerts right? They are still selling records correct?
They are not "losing" money because I listen to them on mp3. I would not buy the album anyway because I don't like it *that much*. (on the contrary.. I have a slew of Bad Religion mp3s, and I buy anything they put out.)
I wrote a short article on it the other day, located here: http://www.reject.org/soapbox-mp3.html.
cheers,Derek
Do you think there will be a backlash from you prosecuting Napster users who are part of your fan base?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
No honor among thieves.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Metallica differentiated MP3 trading from Bootleg tape trading on the grounds of "better quality". Say what? Currently RIAA has a pretty solid lock on the two highest fidelity methods of music distribution extant. Vinyl and CD. All MP3's, no matter their bitrate, are all inferior (though for most people it's barely noticable) to CD quality music. So if Metallica has a history of approving of bootlegs, how can Metallica..well, the RIAA actually push an arbitrary quality level on us?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Of suing Napster Inc? You may stop them but.. so what? There are MANY napster clones along with drop in replacements for Mapster like OpenNap which is opensource software and cannot be stopped. Are you going to go after every joe blow running an opennap server? You will lose, its no different then running a webserver with a search engine. I don't get your logic.
This question may seem trite, but it isn't. Please bear with me:
Let's say you guys were living in the Star Trek universe, where everyone has a replicator. A replicator will cough up a copy of anything you want (food, clothing, 1GHz Pentiums, etc.). So although people still work (because time is still a scarce resource), nobody bothers trying to sell the artifacts of their work, since it's rather pointless.
So: If you guys were living in the Star Trek universe, would you still do what you do? That is, if it were effectively impossible for you to sell the artifacts of your work because everyone could make copies of it, would you still do creative work, or would you do something else? (Remember, in Star Trek-land, you have a replicator, too, so you don't need to worry about getting basic needs met.)
(This is a relevant question because digital media today operates in exactly the same manner as Star Trek replicators.)
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I have heard it argued by many bands that the record studios take virtually all profit from the sale of albums. In fact, most bands make most of their money performing concerts. A hugely successful band like Metalica eventually makes money from albums, because the record studios are forced into agreements by bands that are assured of sales. I would argue that even a sucessful band such as Metalica has been paid a trifling sum in comparison to the amount of money that they have generated, most of it squandered away by the record industry. Taking this into account, don't you think that cutting out the record industry and providing a direct link between artists and music is a good idea for bands? By increasing the amount of exposure to your music aren't you driving more people towards your real money maker, concerts?
Lars seems a little confused on this point:
(three quotations from the chat transcript)
"The ideal situation is clear and simple - to put Napster out of business"
"We're not saying that bands who want to be part of Napster should not be allowed to."
"We're suing Napster for one reason and one reason because they exist to pirate music, nothing more, nothing less."
Is this really one person talking? Or is it a team of puppetmasters?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
It seems that broadcasters don't have to get permission to play songs over radio when there is no monetary gain involved (e.g. hospital radio etc.)
Therefore, would you consider it okay for a service like Napster to exist if everyone had to click through a declaration to state that there was no way in hell we'd buy anything by Metallica anyway - before being allowed to download all your songs?
Hamish
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
in the online chat they did the other day, they explicitly said they dont care about mp3s of bootlegs and what not because they've always supported bootlegs; it is the mp3s of studio recordings they're pissed about
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
By your reasoning, a limited series of lithographs by an artist isn't art.
I'm sure there are many in the art world who'd be happy to disagree with that.
Do you feel in any way that if you shut down Napster by taking a stand and pretending to speak for other artists, you're actually suffocating smaller bands who depend on piracy and free distribution to help build their listener base and fuel their possible commercial success?
ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
MP3s are here to stay, as a technology and a means of music dissemination, whether you like it or not. And even though you say you have no problems with MP3, only Napster, you fail to realize (probably because all your information is being fed to you by your management and your record label) that as long as MP3s exist, they will be freely distributed with blatant disregard to ownership or copyright.
Do you at all understand the scope of the technology you're trying to fight? And if so, why are you focusing on eliminating a small part of the "problem" instead of offering alternatives? If you shut down Napster, people will still be pirating your music on the internet, and especially with anonymous (and distributed) technologies like Gnutella, there will be ABSOLUTELY no way for you to stop them.
ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
Are there any plans right now to release, or make available, additional online music? If not, why?
In the music business, the only people that really matter are the band and the recording engineer. The technology exists now that you can tell the record company to fuck off, and you can go straight to us. We're still willing to pay $15 bucks for your album, and you'd get to keep all of it.
The RIAA is fighting technology tooth and nail because they know that they're irrelavant now, and the billions of dollars the music industy produces is going to stop going to the stockholders and start going to the artists. They don't care about you. They don't care about us.
In the end, they're going to lose - this is an arms race, and if the lawyers destroy Napster, another will take over, immune from whatever destroys Napster. If the lawyers destroy that one, it will be replaced again.
Why not be the band that goes down as the band that changed the way the industry workes, and gets rid of the cancer of record companies?
Basic Economics: Your demand curve is based on the quantity demanded at a given price. At a given price, everyone who was willing to pay the price or more will get units. The lower the price, the more units are sold. Now, as has been pointed out previously, the price set for CD's is way more than it needs to be, given costs. Someone arbitrarily decided that $16 should be the price and suddenly The Industry captures monopoly profits on CD's.
Here's the resulting question: Have you ever considered the possibility that many Napster users are at the low price end of the curve, and while they're not willing to pay the arbitrarily high price for a CD, they are willing to take a copy for free?
In such a scenario, which is just a simple application of basic economics, Metallica isn't losing anything, economically speaking. These people wouldn't pay for CD's anyway (and all costs have been absorbed by the users). Have you ever considered this fact, and how much of an effect has it had on you?
Stop listening to your record company. Real money can be made from concerts and merchandise. If I didn't have to spend $100s of dollars a year buying CDs I could spend it on live performances, t-shirts, and collectibles(which is all CDs will become). You will not stop digital distribution, you will only waste large sums of money on lawyers who can make more money by keeping you believing the old world is still alive and well, instead of helping you make money in the new one.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
One of the most articulate posts capturing the spirit of consumer-drive music distribution--it may be "copyright infringement" by the letter of the law, but in practice it's a form of intelligent auditioning and even homage paying. When we become fans, the artists always more than recoup their (paper) losses.
Have you ever made a copy, or received a copy of a tape or album from a friend, which introduced you to a band who later became a major influence and indirectly influenced your later success?
Tell us how you were first introduced to -your- musical influences, specifically where you first heard your favorite bands, and what specific media (tape, album, copy of friend's tape, radio, bootleg, etc) were involved.
If you would have been prosecuted immediately for receiving unauthorized copies of other's music by the bands involved, how may have this affected your perception of these bands?
To make the question simpler, how would you feel about the Misfits they had you arrested for receiving a unauthorized copy of one of their albums?
Mike
Crap. I forgot to put my name in the box. This post was mine, if anyone cares. (A bit rambling and incoherent too, but I'll go ahead and claim it anyway... :)
Here's my question for Metallica:
.MP3 files from CD's because many customers are not willing to pay high prices? This is especially in light of the fact that most record "brick and mortar" stores charge US$15 to US$17 per CD, and I've heard the price could reach US$18 very soon. Do you feel that lowering the price of album-length CD's to US$9 will actually discourage piracy since there will be less incentive to do piracy and far more incentive to buy the disc itself?
How do you feel about my opinion that the high prices of album-length Compact Discs are actually encouraging the passing of
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
It seems apparent to everyone that after the black album the band took some time off, and a turn for the worse. Hair cutting, logo changing, and bad music ensued once you returned to the limelight. The Napster suit seems to be just the latest in the list of questionable moves by the band.
So, in the years between the black album and "Load", were you actually abducted by space aliens and replaced here on Earth?
-- sudo.ca
[On a note related to the post that this is in reply to...]
How about a system where listeners got the song for free, but after downloading it, could *choose* to pay $1-$2 straight to you (not your label or lawyers or anything) if they liked the music? No obligation except the desire to support the musicians whose music they love?
If your answer is that you would not support this, why not? Do you think that all your fans are so lacking in morals that they wouldn't pay?
Moderators: Please do not moderate this up; it's not a question to Metallica but to the previous poster.
[[ Not me, I have a new policy: I pirate the CD's and then send the artist $5, far more than they get per CD from their label. ]]
I have a question for you then: 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? And do you really think that it goes straight to them and not to their bank of publicists who filter all their fanmail and probably pocket the $5?
Do you think there is a market for a website that would serve no purpose other than taking a credit card number, allow for selection from a database of bands, and send $5 from that credit card to the band you specify?
Stuart.
Considering that the people who'll be
interested in transferring your music
over Napster/Gnutella/whatever are
the same people who've already made you
stinking rich, how do you justify
hassling them in order to ensure yourselves
even more money?
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Some in the industry seem to think Fair Use is limited to listening to music recorded on physical media through headphones and perfect copies are not ever ok.
Napster claims the other remotely reasonable extreme, that you can play your music for anyone (it isn't napster's fault if they're recording it.)
So what, exactly, does "Fair Use" mean to you?
What do you say to the growing boycot movement currently gaining steam against your "art"?
The radio analogy doesn't quite work. A better analogy would be to taping songs off the radio.
Also, don't radio stations have to pay a fee for each song that's played?
This does have interesting implications for internet 'radio' stations.
Steve M
In the same spirit what do /. readers want in a digital music system?
What can we do to help design a system that addresses the needs of all stakeholders (listeners, artists, others?)?
The system I'd like to see would allow me to download high quality copies of music files. Play them on a variety of devices including computers, portable players, stereo systems, car systems, etc. I have no problem paying a reasonable amount for these files (I pay for almost all of my music today). I would prefer a one time payment vs. a subscription model. I would also like a try before you buy system. This could be X number of plays or expiration date driven.
I want the 'sharability' inherent in CDs, tapes, and records. That is, I want to be able to play my files on someone else's system. Perhaps the file would be keyed to an owner and each playback system would have to match that owner (with multiple owners for shared devices, i.e. the family stereo). Playing it on a friends system could use the try before you buy mechanism or there could be a guest mode that allowed a limited number of plays (relative not absolute).
So there's a start. What else would we need and or want?
Steve M
I won't pay for intangible goods.[0] If I buy music, or software, I expect to get something I can hold in my hands (at least a CD that can be used as a backup in case my hard drive dies).
You've never purchased software by downloading it? I prefer this method, as I get what I want when I need it. I would prefer to buy music, books, videos this way as well.
I also won't accept "keyed media" (media that can only be played in one specific player, or on one specific computer). That's a recipe for disaster.
For me, it depends on the key. I would not accept a system where a file is keyed to one machine. I would accept a system was keyed to me, and I could use it on any machine I owned or might own in the future. So the machines would somehow have to be keyed to me as well. And the system would have to allow machines to be keyed to multiple users (i.e. the family stereo). And allow for limited use on other machines not keyed to me. That is, I could play a recording on a friends machine, but could not save it on that device.
As for paying for intangable goods, do you have cable tv? Ever used pay per view? Ever go to a concert? Ever go to the movies? Information is intangable. But our technology forced it to be tangable. The digital revolution is changing that. You mentioned a distinction between goods and services. Where do you draw the line? Is /. a service or a product? Is it something different?
Would you pay for a 'pay per listen' service is it charged a fixed monthly fee, ala cable tv or internet access, and allowed unlimited listening to CD quality music anywhere anytime, but didn't allow copying? I might based on the price and the selection.
Digital distribution of information is easy. Doing it wrong, (DIVX, Napster), is also easy. Doing it right, by respecting the rights of the artist and the needs of the user hasn't really been tried yet, no doubt do to the efforts of clueless middle men.
I've seen plenty of posts about what people don't want. And plenty that treat the issue as one sided. Very few discuss a system that address the needs of all stakeholders. I've made some suggestions in this post and in others in this thread. Anybody else have any ideas?
Steve M
In fact, I'm surprised they haven't tried it with CDs. Probably too much legal precedent.
I remember reading about a new type of CD that was similar to DIVX in that it could only play on certain machines. Alas I have no reference to this story. Anybody else remember this?
Speaking of which, I went looking for the original story on /., but when I went to review the older items, only the last twenty stories were available. It used to be that every older story was available. What happened?
Steve M
You've never purchased software by downloading it?
Actually, no, I don't think I have. But I don't buy very much software -- almost all the software I use is free software. (And no, this doesn't mean warez. I used to do the warez thing when I was a lot younger, but I don't any more.)
I use both commercial and free software. As for free software, I download some and I get some on CD. I am assuming that you download free software. (The problem with using a system like this to have a conversation is that I can't get any immediate feedback. In a real time conversation, we could correct each other and prevent misunderstandings. Oh well.) By your definition below, unless you pay for it or exchange something of value, free software is not a product. I point this out to show how tricky it is to distinguish a product from a service when taking about bits.
As for paying for intangible goods, do you have cable tv? Ever used pay per view? ...
But I'm not buying the music or other content in these cases. I'm paying for a service. In the case of cable TV (I have it; or rather it's in my wife's name and I pay the bills ;-) ), I'm paying for the service of having audio/video content streamed into my house over a wire. I'm not paying for the actual content.
But if it wasn't for the content, you wouldn't be supporting your wife's cable habit. I think a strong argument could be made that the main reason that anyone pays for cable is the content.
No, I've never used Pay Per View, ...
Me neither.
Where do you draw the line? Is /. a service or a product? Is it something different?
Slashdot is clearly not a product -- I haven't paid any money or exchanged anything of value for it. I'd say it's a service.
The basic distinction is whether, at the end of the transaction, anything has changed ownership.
Things are starting to get tricky here. If I give you a copy of a file, and I still have a copy, and you do not exchange anything of value for it, is it a product?
Considering /. again, is the NY Times a product? If you buy the paper version there is definitely a transfer of tangible goods, so by your definition it is a product. Is the web version a product? It is the same info, just in a different format. You don't exchange anything for it (if you want to argue that you need a login so you have given identity, then consider the Boston Globe, no login required).
This is the crux of my argument. That for bits, the current distinction between product and service is a result of current technology, and is not intrinsic to the bits. Bits are packaged in CDs and DVDs because that is the best we could do with the technology we had. With computer and communication technology, all that will change.
Take music CDs as an example. I buy music in the CD format because it is a convenient, high quality, portable format. But if every CD ever made was available for instant access over the net (wired and wireless) I would sign up today (this is what I was referring to as a "pay per listen" service. I was envisioning a monthly access fee.). That is, I would not 'own' any music because I wouldn't have to. The only reason I have CDs and albums and tapes and MP3s and DVDs and video tapes and books and magazines and software is because it is the only way I can get the content I want.
Now, we have some work to do to make this happen. And most of that will be in getting the media companies to provide it in a consumer friendly manner. Wether it be for music, books, video, what ever. No adds. No DJs (I agree about FM radio sucking. The only radio I listen to is in the car (no CD player yet) and a couple of shows on public radio, Echoes and Starsend, space music.) No consumer tracking. Strong privacy.
(Have you read Stephenson's The Diamond Age? (You must have; I think it's required reading for all slashdot users....) Every manufactured item in that society is built by nanotechnology.
Yep, although I preferred Snowcrash and I'm reading Cryptonomicon now. So far so good. In The Diamond Age MCs do for atoms what computer and communication technology does for bits. Why own anything when you can get a copy instantly. But we have to make sure there are no adds. (Given that people buy clothing from beer and cigarette companies, essentially paying for the priveledge of being a billboard, I don't have much hope.)
Sorry for the paranoia. Something to think about, though. Maybe I'll at least give you a good laugh....
I enjoyed it. A well thought out serious reply on /. is a rare thing. Thanks.
What exactly did you guys hope to gain from this lawsuit? You've made quite a few people quite angry, did you expect this? What is your response to the public's reaction and if you had known that people were going to react like this, would you still have filed against napster?
Poopdick.
The responses from Metallica during the chat for the most part were in the instantly recognisable "canned press-release-like" drone, although there were a few responces that seemed more honest and off-the-cuff.
I asked them to compare MP3 distribution to radioplay. Like Napster, the radio networks are basically a huge legitimate way to transmit information (in the form of music) to users.
My question then was to why is one method considered illegal while the other is legal and seemingly OK with Metallica (I have heard Metallica songs on the radio, so I assume they have no problem with stations broadcasting their music).
There response was that MP3's are of higher quality.
So what if someone would encode an MP3 at a bitrate producing a quality similar to radio and distributed that one instead? They had nothing to say to this one.
I was a huge Metallica fan, I guess I still am, but now I no longer buy Metallica cd's, tshirts, concert tickets, or anything else that might fund them. Why? Because now I see them as my enemy and I won't fund my enemy. I always liked Metallica and my exposure to MP3's caused me to go out and buy a bunch of new Metallica CD's and such which I have now gotten rid of. I always thought Metallica understood about the little guys being whipped around by jerks with cash. I guess they've joined the other side now. Sad but true. Any music talented people out there who can come up with good Metallica songs Weird-Al'd to poke fun at their MP3 stance? :P
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Considering that (and I really wish you guys understand the technical implications I'm trying to make here) Napster is only providing a service (both the client and the server software) which could be used for the purpose of unauthorized copying of copyrighted material, would you consider going after all the service providers involved in this illegal exchange (i.e. Phone companies, ISPs, carriers)? Do you consider it technically feasible? Do you consider it viable to sue all the hundereds of thousands of people who have infringed on your copyright?
And more to the point: do you think it is fair to sue the providers of the service along with the perpetrators (insert obvious and gratuitous analogy with crime victims suing gunmakers)?
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Yeah, definitely Zico, that was an awwwsome question, very clever dude! Now be a good doggy and fetch me my scotch and soda.
Whoever moderated this up, whatever his views on the issue at hand are, did not pay attention to the other questions which pose far more insight into it. What is the substance of Zico's question: "Dear Metallica, are you pissed off about people pirating your music?". Hint: it is not an interesting question if it can be answered by every single Anonymous Coward on Slashdot without stopping to think for a second. Maybe Zico has a friend of fellow shills (maybe extra karma-full aliases) to prop up his weak posts.
On a final note, your condescending tone is really boring Zico. Try to put some more humor into your writing, it will do you good, and Slashdot will thank you.
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
fprintf, do you realize that you must the abolute first first-poster to ever be moderated up to 5???
;-)?
Do you realize the seriousness of this situation? Slashdot will never be the same again!
OTOH, I bet ya had this post ready ever since JonKatz leaked the interview announcement, righ
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
So first, if I recall correctly, you had a tiff with your
Record Company. There was some kind of problem with
your contract with Elektra, so you tried to sue
them and get out of your contract. Now your ticked
off at some of your fans so your going after them.
Now, I know paranoia plays an important part of songs like
"Fade to Black" and "Escape," but don't you think that
you are taking it a little bit too far? I know the
say goes "even paranoid people have enemies," but
is there anybody who isn't out to get you? Your
families? Each other?
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
I and my friend Ringo both have purchased a copy of John Lennon's "Double Fantasy". We both hate Yoko Ono's crap on there. I tell him I am making a CD that cuts her stuff out. He says, "great make one for me, too." I make a copy for him. Is this illegal? If it is it is technology illegal, but does not violate the spirit of the law.
I'm not a lawyer, but my thought would be that's permissible because you're distributing it to someone who you know has the CD. On the other hand, if you put an ad in the paper saying you had this new mix available for anyone who wanted it, so long as they said they had the CD, and you sent it to them without verifying, then you'd be in violation.
What is the point of 1,000,000 people sitting there ripping, and compressing the same songs to MP3?
There's services like Beam-it that at least attempted to verify you had a legitmate copy of the CD... Apparently it's security wasn't all that, because they got in hot water for it.
But onto other things... There's plenty of things out there that people all do repetitively... It's not like it's the end of the world that Person A rips the same cd that People AAAAC,AAAAD,AAAAE through ZZZZZ have already ripped. I think people should start concerning themselves with more important issues than this, myself.
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!
I'm sure everybody's going to ask this, but I might as well go ahead.
In several articles about your actions against Napster, you were quoted as saying something like (paraphrased): "Napster takes our music and treats it as a commodity, instead of as art."
My question is, how is it that trading your music for free over the internet makes it a simple commodity, but selling it for far too much money though record companies and stores makes it somehow "art"? It seems to me that by selling your music at the high prices that most music CDs go for these days makes it more of a commodity than giving it away for free. A CD probably costs you about $2 once you take into account the cost of materials, of manufacturing, of distribution, and of actually making the music itself. That estimate is a bit high, I've seen much lower figures. If you were truly producing art rather than a commodity, why do you charge twenty bucks or more for each CD?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Hallo Metallica,
obwohl mir (als Musiker) bewusst ist, dass Raubkopien ein grosses Problem für Musiker sind und ihnen die verdiente Entlohnung verwehren, denke ich, dass Ihr mit dieser Aktion zu weit geht. Denkt doch einmal an die Fans. Das bringt euch eine "Community"... Seht ihr das nicht auch so - oder ist DAS das "big bussiness"?
(english: hi metallica, although I know (as a musician) that illegal copies are a big problem for musicians and that they will deny you your wages, I think that you went too far with your actions. Think about your fans. This (napster) will creat your community... Dont you agree or is THIS "big bussiness"?)
Gery
------------------------------
The answer is yes, me.
I kinda feel differently than the majority of the other guys here, in that I see the "sharing" of your music as piracy, plain and simple. The problem, though, is I don't think Napster is the actual wrongdoer here. Napster provides an easy way for people to share data between each other. It's much like Yahoo.com's ability to find websites that carry Metallica MP3. Napster is a lot like the hammer. It can be used as either a tool or a weapon, but there's nothing illegal about the device itself. :) ?
My questions are: Do you guys believe that anybody can really stop piracy between person and person through the internet without bending or breaking constitutional rights? Do you see a serious potential for the death of conventional music distribution (CDs, of course)? And is there a follow-up to Garage Inc. planned
Last I heard, radio stations have to pay the big liscensing companies for broadcast of all those top-40 hits and all. ASCAP, BMI, etc. all gets paid...... I forget the price per song, but it's not terribly high.
What a wonderful attempt at a fair question. Now, if only you asked two questions instead of just one, like you would assume by seeing the word "or" in the paragraph. However, look at it again: "Are people stupid and greedy, or just greedy, when they criticize you?" That isn't nearly the "balanced", "quality" question I would hope gets passed on to the lawyers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hband members. Maybe: "Do you believe that those who criticize you are genuinely concerned about IP laws and media control by a central body, or just greedy and stupid people?" Ahh, much better :-)
Metallica, you have complained about people trading your works as commodities, not art. However, there are also people out there creating further art based on your work, such as animé music videos or "mixes." (For example, there's a "Starcraft mix" of "One" circulating, which adds voice clips and sound effects from the computer game Starcraft, very effectively in fact.) You could never find something like this through more "normal" music channels, and while it may well be a derivative work, it nonetheless is a work of creativity--that is to say, art. What is your feeling on fans creating such art based on yours? Would fans even bother to do so if they didn't feel it had artistic merit already?
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Do you think that people really believe that they're entitled to the free use of other people's work, whether the person who created it wants it that way or not? Or do you think that people are just so spoiled these days that they get angry at anybody who doesn't give them something for nothing?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Given that Napster itself is a piece of software which does not discriminate between "legal" and "illegal" distribution, is it your intention to sue The Apache Group or Microsoft for having popular web servers often used for illegal distribution of software, or to sue the various IRC server operators or IRC client software authors for their software which can be used (and often IS used) for the distribution of MP3 software?
Given that MP3 is the modern form of tape-trading, how can you, in good conscience, attack MP3 traders when you yourselves encouraged the tape-traders of the 80's? Metallica's early success was founded on people making (admittedly illegal) copies of the No Life Til Leather demo-tape and circulating them everywhere. Heck, Metallica even took bootleg material of themselves and repackaged it as "The 19.98 Home Vid". How can you justify this change in attitude as anything other than "we don't need the traders any more?"
Do you honestly attribute your declining CD sales (source: RIAA) on your more recent albums to be because of MP3 traders? Considering that Metallica sales were waning even before MP3's became an issue, isn't it more likely that people just don't like the stuff you're putting out these days and THAT's the reason for the decreased sales?
On the splash page for the ArtistDirect chat (which is no longer there, so I'll have to paraphrase), you said that you knew of no profession where the practitioners regularly perform their services for free.
Let me introduce you to a profession that has a long and glorious history of altruistic giving:
Software Development.
Have a look at the GNU Manifesto, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, and other important works from the Free Software Movement. You'll find them most fascinating.
There was a dark age in the software industry when companies were imposing draconian copy-protection schemes on their users, because they didn't think they could trust them. It didn't work. The ensuing renaissance has seen the rise of Open Source software (essentially free for the download), and has provided prosperity for many enlightened corporations such as Red Hat, Caldera, and others who nobody thought would ever make money with "Free Software".
You, like us, are driven by an insatiable desire to ply your craft. You, like us, would be doing this even if there was no money in it to begin with. We all do what we do because it is our one true happiness in life. Why pollute your true ambition and poison the good will you have with your fan base, just to line the pockets of your lawyers? They're the only ones who benefit from such bitterness.
Ask your doctor if getting up off your ass is right for you! -- Bill Maher
Have you forgotten that each of those 335,435 napster users just wanted to hear your music?
The 300k users named in the suit are those who offered the Metallica songs, not those who requested Metallica songs. They're the users who wanted other people to hear Metallica's music.
Apart from that, I fully agree with your position. Metallica is alienating their best fans.
This signature has one error in it.
Hmm. Clever. :-)
Napster shares all Mp3s on a machine
Is the Windows client really so brain-damaged? I've never seen it.... All of the Unix clients I've seen either
Furthermore, it seems that a great number of people don't entirely (or at all) understand that they are acting as a server themselves.
That's an interesting point. I think the correct response to this is the classic "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
Holding Napster responsible for these people's ignorance/abuse certainly isn't fair.
Of course, none of these arguments apply to people like me who serve files on Napster with full knowledge of the technology involved.
As for the legal ramifications of offering files for download -- well, I guess we'll find out when the cases reach the courts.
Making it "available" does not constitute a violation. It would be the act of someone who doesn't own the CD downloading it that would be the violation.
I'd like to hear an expert legal opinion on this issue. My instincts tell me that both the person who offers it, and the person who downloads it, are equally guilty. But I don't think there is any legal precendent yet.
Cops go under cover as drunks with golds chains on and money coming out of their pockets in subways. Making it available is not the crime, it is the people that take what doesn't belong to them that is illegal.
There is a fundamental flaw in this argument. You're talking about two completely different crimes here: theft, and copyright infringement. The laws which govern physical property do not apply to intangibles (the so-called "intellectual property"), and vice versa.
If you were offered the opportunity to sell your songs online, where listeners could pay $1 - $2 per song (and NOT have to but the entire album), and have the ability to preview them, and this was all done in a way that prevented unauthorized sharing, would you accept?
As a fan, I would not accept this. This is the line of reasoning that led to things like DIVX. I won't pay for intangible goods.[0] If I buy music, or software, I expect to get something I can hold in my hands (at least a CD that can be used as a backup in case my hard drive dies). I also won't accept "keyed media" (media that can only be played in one specific player, or on one specific computer). That's a recipe for disaster.
How about an online jukebox, where fans could pay, say, 25 cents to hear a song once?
That's even worse. (If you like reading my incoherent ravings, I just wrote about something much like this on technocrat.net. I won't repeat it here.)
[0]Services are another matter. As an information technology consultant, I'm actually in the service industry. I don't sell software -- I sell my skills. I sometimes write software for people, but in my own mind, I'm not selling those bytes -- I'm selling the time and effort I put into creating those bytes, and the service of helping them get it in place and running correctly.
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 belive someone has allready figured out how Napster works, but Napster put the kybosh on it, so this is a stong possiblity)
It's called opennap.
How can you reconcile these statements (from the recent chat):
Both these statements are attributed to Lars in the chat transcript. But they sure don't sound like they both came from the same person.
So, do you want to play cop, or not?
I have no moderator points, but I'd really like to see this question asked. (See parent.)
You've never purchased software by downloading it?
Actually, no, I don't think I have. But I don't buy very much software -- almost all the software I use is free software. (And no, this doesn't mean warez. I used to do the warez thing when I was a lot younger, but I don't any more.)
As for paying for intangable goods, do you have cable tv? Ever used pay per view? Ever go to a concert? Ever go to the movies?
But I'm not buying the music or other content in these cases. I'm paying for a service. In the case of cable TV (I have it; or rather it's in my wife's name and I pay the bills ;-) ), I'm paying for the service of having audio/video content streamed into my house over a wire. I'm not paying for the actual content. No, I've never used Pay Per View, but that's even more obviously a service instead of an intangible good. Yes, I've gone to concerts -- I'm not paying the musicians for a copy of their song; instead, I'm paying them for the service of performing in my presence. Movies are also a service -- I'm paying for the privilege of seeing a film before it's available on video cassette, on a larger screen and with a better sound system than I have at home. When I go to see a movie, I'm clearly not purchasing a copy of the film!
Where do you draw the line? Is /. a service or a product? Is it something different?
Slashdot is clearly not a product -- I haven't paid any money or exchanged anything of value for it. I'd say it's a service.
The basic distinction is whether, at the end of the transaction, anything has changed ownership. If I buy a video cassette at K-Mart, then I own that copy of the movie that's on it. If I rent the same video cassette from Blockbuster, and then return it, then I don't own the copy of the movie that was on the video cassette -- I just paid for the privilege of watching it for a limited time. So the video cassette from K-Mart is a product, and the one from Blockbuster is a service.
Would you pay for a 'pay per listen' service is it charged a fixed monthly fee, ala cable tv or internet access, and allowed unlimited listening to CD quality music anywhere anytime, but didn't allow copying? I might based on the price and the selection.
If it were truly "pay per listen", no, I wouldn't. I don't want anyone tracking my listening habits that closely. That gives me the creeps.
If what you're talking about is a digital music subscription service that works just like cable TV (several dozen channels of music, you listen to whatever you want whenever you want), then yes, I'd consider it -- depending on the terms and conditions, and the price and quality, etc. But the selection would have to be huge because the drawbacks (someone else is controlling which content gets played, and they'll probably have commercials and those horrible fucking disc jockeys (make them die!!)) are obvious. It's what we're trying to get away from. Go turn on commercial FM radio some time and listen to how awful it has become. Or better yet, don't -- it really is bad.
If you're talking about a huge Napster-like repository of music hosted by the record companies, from which we can hear any song we want on demand, for a flat monthly/yearly/whatever fee -- then this is better, but suffers from the privacy concerns I expressed above. In my own cynical mind, I already envision this thing spewing commercials at me in between songs, or with continuous flashing, animated banner ads. Or probably both. And with no anonymity, they'd be sure to psycho-analyze me based on my listening habits, cross-reference with their good ol' buddies over at double-click, and develop a personalized propaganda program just for me. And did I mention, they'd have my credit card number?
(And they'd probably mix DJ voices right into the song streams, like radio does. That could be automated pretty easily, I think. Will we never be free of the laughing stupidity of those idiots?)
So, how do we get professional music in the future without becoming mind-slaves to the machine? Every way I think about it, it ends up just like radio did, but worse.
(Have you read Stephenson's The Diamond Age? (You must have; I think it's required reading for all slashdot users....) Every manufactured item in that society is built by nanotechnology. Unless you pay an arm and a leg for a custom version of something, it's got commercials on it. The main character was promoted because he developed chopsticks that had commercials on them (in Mandarin Chinese, which is written vertically). The side-effect of this is that most of the people walk around like zombies, completely immersed in an endless sea of advertisements and propaganda, no longer capable of independent thought.)
Sorry for the paranoia. Something to think about, though. Maybe I'll at least give you a good laugh....
I am assuming that you download free software.
Yes, and I've paid for CDs of free software, too. And you're right -- there is a grey area between product and service. In fact, there are a few cases which I think qualify as both (e.g., if you "buy" a commercial software product and sign up for a support contract...).
But if it wasn't for the content, you wouldn't be supporting your wife's cable habit. I think a strong argument could be made that the main reason that anyone pays for cable is the content.
That sidesteps my point. I'm not buying the cable content. Most especially, I'm not allowed to record a show from cable onto video tape and then sell copies of that video tape -- because I don't own the content.
But this is just linguistic semantics. The difference between product and service isn't so very important in the long run. What matters is who creates the content, how we can get it, what we can do with it, and who gets paid.
But if every CD ever made was available for instant access over the net (wired and wireless) I would sign up today (this is what I was referring to as a "pay per listen" service. I was envisioning a monthly access fee.).
I'd be very cautious. If such a service existed, it would have a monopoly on the content (unless the content is "freed" in the free software/speech sense, so that multiple providers can offer the same content). And I don't think I need to elaborate on the dangers of a monopoly.
But yeah, I'd probably sign up too! :-)
No adds. No DJs
A noble goal -- and with a monthly fee, not completely unattainable -- but somehow I don't think it will happen. Or if it does happen at first, I don't think it will last. I'd predict the first ads within 2 years after the start of the program, and once they start, there's no turning back. We might be able to avoid the DJs though.
The only radio I listen to is in the car
Same here. But I drive 10 hours a week (1 hour to work, 1 hour back home, 5 days a week) so I have to endure quite a bit of radio. The evenings aren't so bad (relatively speaking). The morning DJs are the ones that make me despair for the human race.
In The Diamond Age MCs do for atoms what computer and communication technology does for bits. Why own anything when you can get a copy instantly.
Yes -- there is a dramatically reduced notion of physical property in the book (real estate, and anything sufficiently unique); but intellectual property is still strongly protected. That's a fascinating premise (though I agree, Snow Crash was a better book overall). But I think our society is heading the other direction -- a weakening of intellectual property. IP laws are very, very strict right now; a backlash is occurring (Napster is part of it), and IP will be less rigid pretty soon (if it survives at all).
We definitely live in interesting times....
Which members of the band where actually doing the typing if any, or was another person answering for the band?
Oh, dear. You really believed Metallica would be sitting in front a computer keyboard and reading the words and typing?
All celebrity chats work like the Metallica one. Why do you think you had to submit the questions in advance?
At the Tori & Alanis chat (during the 5-and-1/2 weeks tour co-sponsored by mp3.com) it was even worse. The whole room was moderated -- participants couldn't even speak to each other, let alone to the moderators! (I didn't participate in the Metallica chat, but based on comments I've seen it seems that the participants could talk to each other. That's an improvement, at least.)
I'm sad to see your illusions shattered like this. Next time, you'll know.
George Lee
If you were the ones who decided to do such a thing as to threaten your own fans instead of your lawyers, let me ask you just how much money you need to make, how much is enough for you guys ?
Art ? Yes Metallica really did make art in their music, but Metallica died after "..And Justice for All". The band who released the black album and the following ones later is another band than maybe should call itself Alternallica or something.
Just a pissed and dissapointed old fan.
According to the authors of an open-sourced newsreader, PAN (http://www.superpimp.org), You guys are getting ready to sue them as well. Are there any truths to the rumor? If so, I will be very concerned, for two reasons:
1. Their product is in no way similar to napster, it is simply a 'viewer' for a network protocol that has been in use for literally decades. It's a tool and a medium, and unlike napster, has no central point of control over what is posted there.
2. If you are planning on going after SuperPimpSoft, do you plan to also bring suit against other providers of newsreader software, such as....say....small companies like Microsoft, Netscape, etc.? Fair's Fair, right guys?
(I don't use napster, but I have used USENET/newsreaders to download MP3 files for Metallica albums I own on old, tired, extremely worn out cassettes.)
Blech. Signatures.
It may or may not be true. I don't know. Maybe the SuperPimp boys are pulling our leg. Certain facets of their 'announcement' have me wondering....
If not (and if they AREN'T being sued by the RIAA) then they really should take the notice on their site down.
What's the scoop fella's?
Anyhow, it DOES raise an interesting point, doesn't it? How is napster different than PAN, or Netscape, (or the whole of USENET) in that it gives people free access to freely accessible (yet possibly illegal) material?
Blech. Signatures.
So here's the context of my question:
Mostly it is fans who enjoy your music would download it. Mostly it is fans who would pay for your music. Mostly it is fans who would go to your concerts.
These people, all 35,000 or so of them, really want your music, otherwise they wouldn't have had your music for sharing and downloading. They obviously think your music is worth space on their hard drives. Economics would ask not how to stop them from sharing and distributing your music, but how you can profit from their sharing and distributing your music.
Your music label does nothing different than your fans in this case, except pay you. In which case, why are you hunting down your fans instead of looking for ways to tap into and profit from them? Why not just release your music, directly, to MP3.com and take part in their 'pay per download' feature, and cut out the 'middlemen', in this case the Napster people, and get your music out to more fans, and get your money and gratification for your work?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
hey Mr. High Grade Studio Monitors....
Take one high grade audio tape made on a decent tape deck, 10 years ago. It will sound one HELL of a lot better than a 128kbps MP3. Even at 192Kbps (which there aren't a lot of on Napster), the low bass and high treble is barely there. For stuff I'm going to play back just to sit back and enjoy listening to, I'd much rather have a tiny bit of background hiss than miss out on whole frequency bands.
MP3 is great for listening at work over these little speakers, or maybe for jogging or something. You stated that you cannot tell the difference between your 128Kbps MP3s and CDs. No audiophile would make such an inane statement -- maybe you'd better get some higher grade monitors.
The security of Beam-it was not why they got in hot water. It was the lack of control of the medium -- media companies today seem to think that they must control the entire listening experience, end-to-end. So someone listening to music in an unapproved fashion makes them very uncomfortable, an' then they gots to start doin' some lawyerin'.
Hi,
.wav file of "unforgiven" a few years ago.
I spend about 200 pounds a year on CDs. This figure is roughly derivable by the number of albums I hear which I consider to be "worth buying". I occasionally download mp3s. These are usually crappy singles I might want to hear once or twice, or maybe just have an interest in. If I like the song then just maybe I'll consider the album "worth buying".
This is what the RIAA fails to understand when they make these rediculous law suits. I wouldn't spend any more on music than I already do just because of mp3s. In fact, the RIAA has NO evidence to suggest that mp3s are causing loss of revenue. They quote "millions" of lost revenue through theft of songs, but it doesn't take more than a tiny understanding of economics to realise that this revenue is NON-EXISTANT!
Incidentally, I bought the black album after hearing a
So my question to you is this :
Have you any evidence to suggest that you're losing revenue (eg. to your 12 million sales of the "black album" per year) through the distribution of mp3s?
I might also give you guys some advice :
If you want more money, DO SOME WORK and write another album that people might want to spend money on rather than being spoilt, menopausal hippies who've run out of ideas. If anything, you're affecting the "functional" artists who are working their asses off to become famous, who benefit from the free airplay that napster is giving them.
I don't think it's fair that people listen to a cd after they buy it. It's like buying a car without a testdrive, buying dress without trying it on. Here's my proposal: everybody should be able to download any song he wants for free and then, if he likes it enough, he'll pay the artist directly. There are alot of dishonest people out there but that will be offset by the fact that artists won't have to share with label companies and the fact that people will simply listen to more music. Right now the situation is skewed in favor of big bands who get enough publicity to generate sales and get on MTV. Consumer and smaller bands are at a loss. Napster and Gnutella make it right. I don't like Metallica but I do like Pink Floyd and I bought all of their cds that I first listened to in mp3 format. If not for mp3s, chances are I'd never buy these cds. Think about Metallica fans who bought their cds after listening mp3s. Or perhaps you're not sure that alot of people would buy your cds after first trying them as
mp3s? Well, I guess this situation is also better for bands who make high quality music, as opposed to Spice girls and the like.
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
They do have a "wink and nod" relationship... to their concert performances.
It's the copyrighted studio recordings (and rightfully, IMHO) they are going after.
If you had read the chat transcript you would have known that.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
How is this flame bait?? He's right! There are so many groups that promote mp3s and they aren't seeing a declining of sales t(this has been metioned more than once, I know) in fact, have you ever been to The Perfect Song Facsimile? It has every freakin' live song and other rarities out there.. and do you think it detracts from people buying radiohead cds? No. I know of a lot of people buying cds just because of downloading it off of this guy's site. This is just a stupid thing metallica and the RIAA are pulling.. and I am kinda sick of hearing about it..
Do you derive pleasure from pain? Run Linux.
How do you feel about actually having metallica mp3 trading increase since your announcment to go after 300,000+ napster users?
If you were offered the opportunity to sell your songs online, where listeners could pay $1 - $2 per song (and NOT have to but the entire album), and have the ability to preview them, and this was all done in a way that prevented unauthorized sharing, would you accept? How about an online jukebox, where fans could pay, say, 25 cents to hear a song once?
--
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Some of those 300,000 Napster users who have allegedly downloaded MP3's of your music from the Napster web site already have those songs on CD, vinyl and the like. They have therefore already paid royalties on the songs, and would be able to claim that their possession of the music in MP3 format is legal. Will you exclude these people from the lawsuit? If not, why not?
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Will public libraries be ordered to stop lending music? Before Napster/Gnutella, borrowing a cd or tape from the library was an easy way to sample the artist.
It is important to allow the sharing of music, art and books. Imagine the lack of influence and inspiration in our lives if we were limited to only our own collection of music or books. We all need to respect the copyrights as they stand, but corporate giants also need to respect our simple desire to share.
There is no need to crack down on used book or cd shops. It is good sense to recycle these works. Why the need to fight an arms race with the digital medium rather than embracing it as an opportunity?
"I have a cunning plan..."
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
In your chat with fans on artistdirect, you said you have no problem with fans recording concerts and trading such recordings. Did the consulting company that found 335,435 users trading Metallica songs check to make sure that they're not blaming anyone for trading bootlegs?
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+O);}
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
These are related questions about the technologies in general:
1) Even if Napster goes out of business, as you wish, there are substitutes like Gnutella. What do you propose to do about those, especially decentralized ones?
2) In attempting to encourage regulation of technology, especially as there are alternatives to Napster, do you fear you will start something that will ultimately result in damaging laws, bad laws, and politically-motivated laws as opposed to necessary ones.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
You have a right to make money from your music. People who are obtaining and providing you music free of charge are wrong. However, isn't this merely because you haven't done your job in filling the void? I hope you would agree with the following:
:-)
1) Digital media is here to stay, whether in the
form of CDs, MP3s, DVDs, or what have you.
2) The internet is now, and I hope will continue
to be, a very large and somewhat anonymous
place, where it is not easy to track people's actions.
3) Software to provide for the network transmission
of music isn't going away, nor would it be easy
to stop or regulate.
4) The media industry is not embracing the
internet as a transmission medium for their
product, for whatever reasons.
5) Metallica gets pissed at their fans for trading
their music without getting any money. They take
legal actions against them.
I don't mean to insult you, but you don't seem to get it. Your actions aren't doing any good, and you are pissing off your fans. Please don't tell me you never did anything slightly illegal! These aren't bad people. They just like your music, and don't have a viable alternative to get your music off of the internet except stealing it.
How would you answer these observations? How do you justify your actions except to say that you prefer the status quo, and don't want to sell your music _cheaply_ and efficiently on the internet? Why don't you see that selling your music cheaply on the internet would give you more freedom over your music as well? You boast you sued your label for more freedom over your music. Was that just talk? Do you care about your music and your fans, or just about money?
Yes I know that was many question, and I'm sorry this turned out sort of long.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
This type of action makes me wonder about the sincerity of the music you have been making all these years. How can a band that raged aginst the money hungrey "power wolves" abusing justice suddenly become that exact thing? Was it all a lie , have you changed, or is this something that the record company is pushing on you.
**************************
"bow to the leper messiah"
**************************
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 can Metallica complain about any theft when, according to the biography on their own website, they stole the name "Metallica" from Ron Quintana. Does Metallica pay any royalties to Mr. Quintana for the use of his artistic creation?
They also claim to have stolen a U-Haul truck in order to drive to New York. Isn't that grand theft, a felony offense?
How does stealing their own band name and a truck from other people differ from people stealing music?
see:
http://www.metallica.com/band/metbio.html
http://www.metallica.com/band/metbandfaq.html
Very much on the level, and very concise.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
Does it concern you that moves like you made against napster make you guys look old?
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Napster and music piracy is a gigantic issue that cannot be solved by one party alone, even if they are as influential as Metallica. Has Metallica called upon any other artists to attack Napster and its users?
I happen to know people who use Napster to trade music that is NOT copyrighted or to preview music before buying the CD or deleting the tracks.
Yeah right...
(Not me, I have a new policy: I pirate the CD's and then send the artist $5, far more than they get per CD from their label..
Yeah, sure you do... pull the other one. Why don't you scan and post some of those cancelled checks from some of thses artists you've sent money to? Oh, that's right... they don't exist becuase you are full of shit.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
My question is this:
How well do you understand the Napster technology? Are you even aware that Napster The Company does not house these MP3s that you are suing them over? If you are not knowledgable about the tech involved, how can you put your names on a lawsuit regarding it?
Time and time again, you guys have refered to Napster as a "website" when it fact it is a software program. This is the primary reason why I question the your understand of what's going on here, exactly.
Mark my words, guys. You're ruining your legacy by doing this. You're going to go down in infamy instead of as one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. You're going to alienate your fan and THEN lose, anyway.
Good work.
----------
Jeff Croft
http://jeffcroft.com
http://industrystandard.org
http://newbeetle.org
----------
Jeff Croft
http://jeffcroft.com
Don't you think the use of a lawsuit was rather heavy handed? Couldn't you have given the list to Napster and have the users removed without a lawsuit? This was a good opprotunity to educate the public about Napster and fight the fight with the (much cheaper) PR machine rather than the (very expensive) Legal machine.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
While I feel sympathy for your postion on maintaining control on your studio recording (from your chat transcripts these seem to be the only MP3's you are fighting to get off of Napster), do you know or care about the effect your legal actions on Napster will have on unsigned artist who are using Napster as a method of getting their music out there? Also have you realized any benefits from having any unreleased recordings generating a buzz about up and coming albums?
Just how much Starflyer 59 kicks your ass?
Sorry, just had to say that...
What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
Still not dead.
While suing Napster and such may accomplish your goals in the short term, how will you continue if and when Napster-clones move to offshore servers, thus out of reach of both US and any other country's copyright laws?
I wish I could find the link, but I heard that a record exec admitted that a CD costs less than US$1.00 to produce. Given this information, who would you say is the real pirate?
Like you've never said anything contradictory in your life. A single person would probably be less consistant then a team, don't you think?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I tried to say the same thing, but I think you did a much better job :P
Unfortunetly, I think your a bit to optimistic. Unless something drastic happens, the corps are going to win..... (I think)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I read your interview on artistdirect.com, and you raised some interesting points, most notably, about napster being a for profit company, making money by facilitating illegal trading of Music.
I have a feeling that most of the people out there who are upset about the potential loss of napster are just teens who have been given the opportunity to acquire very expensive (for them) things for almost no money. Clearly, they don't want that to go away.
But for me, and a lot of other slashdoters, getting MP3's has never been difficult. I never even bothered to download napster, but I, and I think many other readers, still find something disturbing about this lawsuit and a lot of the legal aspects surrounding the internet in the past two or three years.
In 1996 congress passed the Communication decency act, in an attempt to illegalize pornography on the internet. The Supreme Court struck this down, but in the past few years, censorship has come up again. Not from the government itself, but from the corporations that control copyrights in this country. Illegalizing napster will in no way stop its use, just look at DeCSS for example. When the MPAA tried to ban it, its popularity only increased. The technology itself cannot simply be 'turned off'
But what I'm afraid of is that the Internet itself could be destroyed. Not in the sense of removing the capability of every computer to send IP packets, but in the sense of having freedom of speech removed. Already, we are seeing cable IP companies do things like banning servers. For bandwidth issues mostly, but by doing that they remove there own legal culpability as well. This is a severe restriction of freedom of speech, and I'm afraid that if Napster, a service provider, is shut down many other ISPs may crack down on personal servers as well.
Congress might even pass laws on the subject, they've already used the ridiculous 'War On Drugs' to put limits on our rights. What's to stop them from using an unwinable "war on copyrights" to take away our freedom of speech?
On they internet, there is no real way to tell the difference between copyrighted material and other stuff. The only true way to stop its flow is a draconian crackdown on sending anything over the net.
Is that something that you would want to do?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Probably not a good question to ask Metallica, but I can understand this line of logic. One of the first things I did was download every Bran Van 3000 song I could find (I own a copy of their only release). I haven't a clue as to where that CD is now ...hmmm. I wonder if I can get in trouble now.
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Obviously, neither of these are going to happen. The thing with napster is when you download a song, you are copying it from their computer to yours - NOT moving ('mv') it.
~Steve
--
~Steve
--
"<r-xr-xr-x> Just try to edit me" -- www.ircnews.com
If your last two albums were entitled "Load" and "Reload", can we expect your next one to be called, "Unload"?
Your web page lists you as being "somewhat agnostic" towards bootlegs - what is your opinion and stance on MP3s of bootlegs or other live performances that you wouldn't claim any sales or royalties on anyways?
Adam
on a more personal note, I wonder how Metallica is taking to the fact that other bands are starting to publically denounce them at their concerts.
The Bloodhound Gang 's current concert at Montreal featured the word "Metallica" crossed out with big white lightning blots.
Now that broadband internet access is available we are seeing the same types of posturing from the music industry and the listeners. The question has been posed again: "why would people pay for my work if they can download it free?" This was exactly the question in the early days of radio. If suitable anti-piracy measures can be put in place to prevent the financial collapse of the recording industry that some doomsayers claim we could be facing I would forsee a time when the music industry and internet based "radio" will coexist peacefully.
The technology exists today to design a secure file format that requires the presence of a keyserver to allow access to information. Data files can be securely formatted to deny access unless an acceptable key is presented and accepted by the server. This technology could lead to an individual listener license to be purchased with a commercial distribution, or through a licensing agency via mail, telephone, or online service. Would a method of implementing some sort of individual listener license whereby I (as a listener) purchase a device portable license to specific online artistic works be interesting to you as an artist?
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
How many millions of people have learned about Napster thanks to your lawsuit?
can you speak to the fact that the music industry is experiencing an unprecedented boom in sales over the past two years? do you think this is despite electronic means of music distribution, or could napster and its friends be aiding here?
strange things are afoot at the Circle K...
\n
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
If you are interested in reaching an amicable solution with Napster, why did you deliberately print out all the 350,000 names, which you had found with a computer program, onto paper? ...instead of giving it to them via computer file, which would be much faster? That makes no sense. It suggests that you are just being difficult and trying to raise a fuss -- not just protecting your music.
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
How can you be so determined to blame Napster for a phenomenon that existed years before it was invented, when you don't actually know the details of how the program works? You only are assuming the blame based on the appearance of what is happening. It seems that to you, the legal matters of whether they are responsible, and the technical matters of what their program actually does, is irrelevant. You (and the labels) just need someone to blame, and you don't care if the person raked over the coals for you is the actual cause of the problem or not.
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
You're blaming Napster for either copyright violation, or in aiding copyright violators, because their program makes it easier to find and download illegal Metallica MP3s. Why aren't you also suing or attacking the makers of all the FTP server programs, Web server programs, and IRC programs? The MP3 trade began on personal FTP servers, web pages, and in IRC chatrooms. Certainly there have been many more illegal transfers Metallica songs over FTP alone than have been over Napster. Why sue Napster, a recent development, when those FTP, Web and IRC programs have facilitated the transfer of your MP3s for over three years?
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
You are correct in stating that you have a right to control the and chose the distribution of you music. However, by your own admition you have relinquished control of selected distribution methods in the past. (Live concert recordings etc.) Why is reliquishing control of this method any different??
To quote: metallica_james_live: "Most I know who use Napster purchase far more music now than before they began to use the program. Moreover, the music purchased is that which they download and listen to the most."
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Every day as I walk down the street (Downtown NYC) I see countless street vendors selling bootleg copies of CDs. The other day I stopped to see if they had any of yours (they did.) When the police come they arrest the vendor not the manufacturer of the tape deck they used to make the copy. Why are you chasing Napster and not Napster users???
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Do you believe the sales impact of fans trading mp3's, which is probably negligible, is greater than the impact of legal actions in alienating your fans? How carefully have you thought this through? You may not have intended it to come across this way, but your recent actions make it seem like you are more in touch with record company executives and lawyers than with your fans, which are increasingly on line.
I can respect your wanting to defend your ability to make a living, to control your music's presentation, and also stick up for the "little" artists. But you should know that most of the struggling artists out there make their living primarily on performing live, not from royalties. And taping and trading live shows doesn't seem to hurt the live show business, especially in your case. And what's wrong with giving up a little control and giving your fans a little freedom with your music - you made it for them didn't you?
RMS: "Metallica justifies their lawsuit saying they think it is an outrage that their music has become a "commodity". Apparently they think music is a commodity when shared between fans, but not when large companies sell copies through record stores. What hypocritical absurdity!" I couldnt say it better. Does Metallica want to stay with the "commodity" argument?
Are you familiar with Slashdot? If so, what is your impression of Slashdot?
If not, then why did you agree to this interview?
I was under the impression that you allow(ed) recordings of concerts to be made in a similar manner as the Grateful Dead. How do you feel about the use of Napster to trade this music as opposed to people ripping and trading music from your disks?
Oh well, no point in steering now.
Do you think Elian should be returned to Cuba with his father or stay with the relatives in Miami?
(Oh, I'm supposed to ask a Napster question?)
Never mind...
...walk slowly by a mirror, stare deeply into it, and say, "Man, what ever happened to that stuff I used to believe in." I am constantly shown the images of artists who get rewarded for thier efforts, start to feel that it's their fan's "obligation" to pay them to play, and end up old, bitter, and laughed at. I was wondering, what are the signs to look for when that starts to happen?
I am also wondering if there was a particular moment when you crossed over from playing because you wanted to rock, and playing because you wanted to retire? Do you get any joy out of your music any more? Or your fans? Is the money that much more important to you?
--
+&x
Do you believe that when someone downloads a Metallica song via Napster that you're losing a sale?
If yes, may we explain to you why you're probably wrong?
If no, then why are you doing this? As far as I know, copyrights don't have to be rigorously defended like trademarks do.
Are you surprised at how many people have nothing better to do than whine about not getting music for free?
(Go ahead, moderators. I've 150+ karma and I'm sick of this same stupid topic.)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I bought Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, And Justice for All, and Metallica on cassette, all of which unfortunately melted in my car. Thus, to replenish my collection, I downloaded each of these albums via Napster. My question is this: do you feel it's wrong for people whose media got destroyed to download the songs that were on this media, and were obtained in a legitimate fashion? In other words, do you view an album as just the physical media with the songs on it, wherein if it gets destryoyed, one should buy another copy, or do you view it more as a "license" to play the music, like with software?
I can almost see where they are coming from. I think he means that they want Napster Inc. aka "the machine" out of business. They feel that Napster Inc are insiting a revolution of sorts for their own profit and gain. The arguement is that Napster Inc is depriving established bands and their record labels of royalties while building the value of Napster as a company. Face it, all the recent media hype (partly fueled by Metallicrap) over Napster has done wonders for its popularity (and future value). They are simply worried about someone else getting rich off of their (and other artists') *hard* work.
Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
I'm sorry to say that shutting down Napster (if it even goes that far) will accomplish very little. Sure it would establish some sort of precedent about illegal distribution, but it really ends there. There will ALWAYS be people who pirate music, movies, software, etc. through the internet or in their living rooms. This is an inevitible fact. Another fact is that enforcing or policing the means of distribution is simply not possible without compromising the privacy and freedom that we all take for granted. This is why I am allowed to own a gun. Napster doesn't pirate music, people pirate music.
1) Shouldn't you really worry about the guys on the sidewalk selling copied cd's of your music for $5? They are truly stealing from you.
2) Since no one is going to shut down the internet for you, don't you think it is about time for the music industry to embrace it? Others have suggested offering mp3 downloads for a fee. This may reduce, but not stop piracy of studio recordings. There is still plenty of room for profit in merchandising and live shows. There are plenty of *honest* people, true fans who will purchase the artist's CD. And just as many fans who feel ripped off by buying your latest album only to find that they just paid ~$20 for 2 songs they might listen to only twice and can here on the radio about 5 times in any given hour. Consider this a rebellion against the overwhelming supply of "commodity" music on the market today. Give us a reason to pay for those limos you rockstars drive around in.
Corporate rockstars (not Napster) have made music a commodity.
Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
Do you believe that copyright laws infringe, in any way, upon
:P ), or am I just some crazy communist
"freedom of speech" (the principle, not necessarily it's embodiment
in the 1st ammendment)?
A few people, including me, view copyright as a welfare system where
society agrees to certain restrictions in-order to aid the progress of
art and science. For example, even though I have other people's music
"inside my head" I can't record it and distribute it without the
artist's permission.
If it is a type of welfare, don't you think there should be a cut off
point (like 80 million dollars
right-wing conservative nut job for even making this type of assumption
about copyright?
What is the revenue stream for Metallica? Is it from CD sales, or like a lot of these sorts of exercises, do you make more money from the merchandising ?
... if you gave away an album for free download, would it be possible to make a decent living based solely on control of merchandising (physical products, much easier to control).
I heard that Megadeth made much more money from T-Shirt sales that Metallica, even tho Metallica sold more albums. Could be bs, I spose, but I know that Star Wars made tons more cash from merchandising than from box office sales.
So
I suspect yes.
There have been recent allegations that it was a lawyer or other spokesperson participating in the chat instead of Metallica or that the person answering was giving scripted answer. Evidence to back this up comes from the speed with which some answers came back -- faster than many experienced programmers would type them -- and from their generic irrelevancy to many of the questions asked.
Which members of the band where actually doing the typing if any, or was another person answering for the band?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Napster is a great way for music to propagate. If someone gets an mp3 off of Napster, then doesn't go out and buy your cd, isn't it likely that:
1. They wouldn't buy your cd anyway
2. They would borrow the cd from a friend and make an mp3 of it
It seems silly to attack potential fans because they aren't willing to shell out $15-$20 on an album they may never listen to again.
--
Get paid for your spare CPU cycles:
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
I'll admit it, I learned about your music through hearing mp3's of it on friends' computers. I found that I really liked your stuff as well. Enough that I bought a CD and am probably going to buy a few more. With that in mind, have you considered taking a couple of songs, a representative sample of your work as a whole, and releasing them online for free distribution? I think you'd really open yourselves up to a lot of people who don't know your stuff and certainly would indebt those of us who support alternative music distribution methods to you for being leaders in the industry. You guys rock, keep up the awesome music.
-Mike McLaughlin
I quote From the Yahoo chat:
"metallica_lars_live: This is not a service that they're offering for the good of man kind, to spread love and music. They're doing it for potential IPO's for alignment with a big company where there will be a major cash transfer to the investors"
Statements like this seems that your fighting Napster because it has potential to make money off of your work. So, say that you win, Napster doesn't exist and the code for napster servers are no longer propritery. (I belive someone has allready figured out how Napster works, but Napster put the kybosh on it, so this is a stong possiblity) I start napster.org, with no intention of making money (cause some of us will do work without being paid) but I want to spread love and music. All those former napster users can now filter through mine and others servers to get potentially pirated music. Do you now change your modivation to sue, and go after me?
Are you avoiding the question?
Can I handle the truth?
fprintfsez:Was it your decision, your manager, your lawyers or record company that made the call to go after the Napster users?
They addressed this in the Yahoo chat. Thier reply was something like "We pay (management and such) good money to advise us"
Let me first start off as saying the only reason I'm writting this is to play devil's advicate. This issue isn't as black and white as others think. Hobbex has made an excellent agrument about why Napster has to win. Let me also state that my spelling sucks.
:)" Basically saying "You wouldn't dare suffer the bad press, your gonna look like your two facing your fans, your gonna look like you hate technology." And when they actually did say "Here, this is what you asked for, 330,000 times over", I (and many others here) read it exactly as Napster said we would. After reading the Yahoo transcript, I have a better understanding of thier position, and think they had a lot of balls naming names. I don't think it's right, and I'm not happy about it, but Metallica was pushed and they did what they thought was right. Whatever your opinion of the matter is, it is important that you whole story is told and both sides of the argument are weighed equally before you jump down the throats of Metallica for taking away privacy. Don't you think Napster would have done the same thing if they could prove that there are 330,000 people using thier service who allready own the Metallica CD's in question, and there are no illegal activtes happening on thier servers?
I quote Hobbex: "Those of us who are endeavouring to build the networks of tomorrow have no malicious intent against you"
From what I gathered from the Yahoo chat was that Metallica is not about to allow a company, who's main draw is the ease of pirating music, to make money off of thier creation/art without thier permission. Looking at Napster from this position, wouldn't you say that it does in fact, have a malicious intent?
If I advertised that you can get free music by talking to me, and then I would send you to someone with the music that your looking for I would be very popular. With this popularity, I could do 1 of 2 things: (1) I agree to wear an "Eat at Joe's" sign and nike shoes for a couple bucks. Next thing I do, is sell someone the secret of my popularity, say for 1 BILLION dollars (Right after I send the boys from Limp Bizkit on a free tour). I did not make any money directly from the music, so I have no guilt, I just gave information, selling it off later. (2) I don't do anything, I just give away the information, share the secret of my popularity, eat Mac 'n' Cheese everyday for the rest of my life, and occasionally sing on the street for free, cause I can't affort Limp Bizkit.
This is were the difference between Napster (making a quick buck) and gnutella (lovin' mac 'n' cheese) is apperent. Who's making money with gnutella? Though both might be stealing from the band/RIAA/Label, Napster is trying to make a profit, gnutella just "is".
I also don't belive that Metallica is going after individul fans with the 330,00 IP addresses they have (though, you can ask them yourself). From what I've read from the chat transcript was that they went to Napster, said "stop trading our music" and Napster said, "Well, if we could find pirates somehow, with magic or something, we would stop them. People know Napster isn't for trading illegal material, and we operate on the honor system here. But if you find a pirate, let us know, k? bye-bye
I quote from Hobbex:"...your efforts to trying to build a tomorrow that promotes both innovation and freedom, creation and integrity?"
Does Napster really promote any of theses things? MAYBE innovation, freedom could be argued. Integrity is a definate NO, and creation.. humm.. well, it could fall in with innovation, but the goods of thier service is not of thier own creativy. Again, in the Yahoo transcipt, someone asked if Metallica belives that the future of music will be digital [in the forms of mp3s] and without missing a step, the answer was "yes". It's not the idea of technology changing the way music is distributed, or copied or bootleged or whatever, its the fact that someone is going to make a buck off of thier hard work. The last thing they want to do is step on freedom, creation, innovation. What they would like to change is the integrity of tomarrow. Napster is treating Metallica's music like a comodity, just as thier label does/has (there was a prior spat on this if you remeber Metallica vs. Sony). Even though we, as a user of Napster, don't see the comodity aspect initally, it does exsist.
Final note: Jon Katz complained about corporations, and also told us to ban Metallica. Can John tell me theirs a correct answer to this problem? Seems like conflicting views to me..
Have you ever thought of flooding the web with bad versions of your songs, ie every time it gets to the chorous of the song, it would say something like "This is an illegal copy of this song, please buy the album" in a really annoying voice like they use on answering machines? You could get loyal Metallica fans who buy albums to put these up on their computers, and eventually when someone decides to download a Metallica song, maybe half the time they would get a messed up version.
What possible evidence do you have that MP3's had any thing to do with record sales last year?? anything?? maybe more people are listening to music, maybe there are more kids out there now than before that like britny spears(gag) Maybe the record industry has found a better advirtising method(not MP3) makeing a broad assumption that MP3's are what caused the increse is just a little over simplfied.
Your question is very valid, and in writing my question (which I did before the "live chat" on yahoo as there was where I asked it, and was rejected) I thought about your exact question. Maybe it was a different kind of advertizing, etc.
But really, that holds no water. All ads have been pretty much the same for the past 5 years or so. I dare anyone to name a new form of media that has contributed heavily to record sales.
More people listening to music? Well it is true that the global population is at an alltime high of in excess of 6 billion people, however in industrialized 1st world contries (North America, Europe, etc) there is actually a negative population growth. These figures in sales are only from the US.
Not only did sales increase last year, but so did the price of CD's. In reviewing my numbers I seem to be off by about 88.6 billion dollars, the revenue increase is actually 1.4 billion last year (1999).
Now, since its not more people listening to music (all people listen to music, some just don't buy it) as there is a negative population growth in the US from where these numbers are from, and that advertising has been the same for the last 5 years, something else must be driving the sales increase.
There is one possible factor you didn't mention, and that is people may have a larger disposable income. Yes, this is probably a factor, however from my experience with me NEVER buying CD's before last year, and only buying CD's of music I liked from MP3's, and also talking with many people who did the same, I belive this is playing a factor in that sales increase also. Most definately not the ONLY factor, but a major contributor
-- iCEBaLM
I think that is a rather stupid statement. By your logic my clothes keep cancer away because as long as I've been wearing them I haven't had cancer.
And they very well might.
They may sheild your skin from sunlight helping to prevent menlanoma, certain fabrics may absorb free radicals so they do not enter your body through respiration, etc.
Clothes may indeed help prevent against cancer.
-- iCEBaLM
MP3's have been around for atleast 5 years. Many people, myself included, have bought CD's because we've heard tracks from MP3's. I bought S&M because of MP3's I've heard off of the album, I also bought 5 other CD's last year because of it. The only CD player I have is my CD-ROM drive in my computer, so I usually do not buy them at all. With the RIAA posting a 12.3% 90 billion dollar sales INCREASE last year, these two peices of information would suggest that MP3's are generating even MORE sales for artists through "word of mouth" promotion. From this information, how do you justify your actions, and how can you even say you're doing it for the benifit of all artists, as your actions would seem to be doing the opposite?
Okay, let's say you've won your suit against napster. NOBODY ever trades another Metallica single on-line. What now? You already have some 335,435 people who won't buy another album, and you've annoyed enough others that they'll think twice before buying another album. You'll still have fans, but they'll be the ones who just don't get it, and you've never catered to them. What do you expect to gain from all of this?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
I don't think so...
I have ripped dozens of CDs at work in MP3 format.
Using RealJukebox, I can listen to the CD as the
songs are being copied. I can usually listen to
2-3 songs in the time the entire CD is copied to
my HD. I can do several in an hour.
There is currently much (digital) music piracy, this is due to outdated concepts such as cds, as a large band don't you think you should jump in at the forefront at explore way of selling digital music?
+----------------- | What is the question!
People keep on speaking about intellectual property, and such, but I was under the impression that originally the point of record companies was solely distribution of music. Today (or perhaps moreso in the future when even more people have the internet) distribution is a non-issue and the only _real_ reasons to have record companies is monitary. Personally, I would see no problem with record companies all dissapearing, for then we wouldn't have problems of certain artists dropping 2, 3 medocre albums a year just because they're currently popular and will make more money this way. If there were no record companies, not as many people would go into the industry "to make money" but moreso for their love of music and preforming.The "little guys" wouldn't have as bad a chance of getting recognition as musicians because the "big guys" wouldn't have as big of a monitary reason to keep them down. There probably wouldn't be big marketing campaigns - just distribution of good music. If someone likes music, they'll recommend it. I realize there are costs of recording studios and such, but when a person first buys their first $300 violin, they don't normally do it in hopes to make a CD, they do it in hopes to become a skilled musician. Why do we want record companies at all now that the need for distribution is gone?
Okay, Ive Been a Big fan for something like 10 years but this whole fiasco is making it VERY difficult. now i understand wanting to protect your intellectual property. However you can either admit that your a corporation and protecting your "Commodity" or be an artist and share your work with the world. I dont see how you can do both.
Now I have purchased Every Album you've ever put out (some multiple times) AND I have most of your stuff on Mp3. Now the CD is Supposed to be permanent media but it does scratch and die every now and again so I have my Mp3's to fall back on. I admit that I had S&M on Mp3 first but I went out and bought it right away cause I liked it and thought you deserved my money.
So I guess MY question is if your music is all over the world for free that an audience you may have never reached otherwise might want to spend 40 or more dollars on a stadium show they never would've thought about going to before? and that by attacking your fans or thier kids may generate you SO much bad press as to hurt your record and concert sales more in the long run than Napster ever could?
-Trying very hard to be a fan
-A
I wouldn't normally do that, but here are too many moderating points going around Slashdot currently. Look at the number of 5s in this thread, even a very good post drowns completely.
Rob has to either decrease the number of points in circulation, or raise the highest number that will reflect on a the sorting (my question now has an actual score of +10).
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Ignoring for now the moral arguments, do you not think that you are facing a sisyphus task in attempting to stop the people from copying information when that is exactly what the information society is all about? Perhaps you can manage to stop Napster, but that will not stop the 330,000 people who you claim have been copying Metallica songs using their service, they will simply have to find another medium to do it in, and as long they are connected to the Internet they will find one.
The reason that you will find much hostility in this forum against your actions is not that we care a lot about copying music. Most of the people here are programmers and system adminstrators, we make decent livings and can afford to buy the albums we want. But we are also people who live on and love the Internet and the freedom of speech it brings and we fear that the same arguments you use for arguing the end of Napster could be used to force shut any forum where information can be spread openly and freely. We fear that efforts like yours will lead an authoritarian cyberspace, where individual freedom means nothing in the face of corporations and states who decide what we can say, what we can do, what we can watch, and to a large extent who we are. A world where information creator and consumer alike are puppets to the same masters pulling all the strings.
Those of us who are endeavouring to build the networks of tomorrow have no malicious intent against you, we want for future society to reward and encourage art and innovation just as much as you do. But there is something we love more then art and music, and it is Freedom. If your idea of how to solve the issues that artists face in the information age is to deprive us of that Freedom, you will not be successful.
As the world turns, technology changes, and society changes with it. What made sense yesterday no longer makes sense tomorrow, and going back is not an option. We do not need to be enemies in this matter, for we have the same goals. So why not call back the lawyers, the litigators, and the guns, and instead turn your efforts to trying to build a tomorrow that promotes both innovation and freedom, creation and integrity? For that is the only way that anyone stands to gain.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Did you guys really write this?
(I know you didn't, but I still thought it was kinda funny.)
Do you realize the utter foolishness of your actions? Even if you succeed in putting Napster out of business, you cannot fight technologies like gnutella and .mp3. The 'best' you could hope for is to remove your music from the online explosion-to remove your 'art' from the most exciting and alive of all current media. .mp3 users are stealing money from them, when in fact very few people would ever pay for music they download as .mp3. Napster as a corporation stands to gain very little financially from .mp3. In fact, there is almost no monetary aspect of the technology: .mp3 is music for the sake of music-not a 'commodity.' .mp3. It is the least cool thing that a band could possibly do. It shows, in fact, what the real commodity is. Metallica itself is what has been commoditized-the art of your original recordings has been whittled down again and again over time, with every make-over and spin for a new record, and a new payoff. You have been banking on your image for a long time, and I'm afraid that your image is a commodity which is losing value. How much have you been paid over the years? You realize that you've had your payoff for selling out, don't you? There's no more to be ripped from the hands of 13-year-old naptser users. Are you simply bitter that those 13-year-olds would rather pay for Britney Spears and Nsync than Metallica's rehashed, commoditized material?
I also hope you realize the monetary foolishness of your actions-the recording industry acts as if
I find it surprising that Metallica, of all groups, would come forward to attack
You have taken up the fight for music as commodity, with a lame excuse about art. Anyone who mentions 'our intellectual property' betrays the fact that they have already been commoditized.
It still makes me sad, however. I find it hard to believe that you have taken the initiative to do this. Have representatives from the recording industry put you up to this, expecting your image to help their cause? It seems the most believable explanation, and I would be relieved if that were the situation...the death of a once-great rock group's image is always a sad moment for me.
Have you gotten what you expected? Did you expect accolades and rewards instead of mass public indignance? I hope that you have, so you can stop this farce, and get out of the way of progress. Can you even imagine a world where escaped the enforced mediocrity of the music industry? Napster users can, and that's why this is so sad.
The US Constitution mandates that copyright be used to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Which do you feel poses more of a thread to this goal: trading music for free on the Internet, or using lawsuits and intimidation to prevent such trading?
(I'm afraid I've posted this too late for the moderators to see it, but I'd relly like to see Metallica answer this.)
--
Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
They OWN the record label.
I am an unabashed Metallica fan, and have been for as long as I've been listening to music. I own every single album, Live Shit, imports, bootlegs, memorabilia, etc. I also use Napster. I went out and bought S&M because I heard a track on mp3 first (one that wasn't "radio-friendly") and decided to get the whole thing. Why try and punish me for being a lifelong fan and wanting to arrange my own playlist without a 20-disc changer?
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Albert Einstein
First off, I want to say that I've been a fan of Metallica for a number of years...I have several of the "old" albums on vinyl, and 'Master' was the first CD I ever bought. I haven't bought any Metallica discs since the black album, since I simply don't care for the "new" sound as much and the lyrics don't carry the same weight as the older stuff.
One of the things I've always respected about Metallica is the energy they put into their live shows, and the apparent sincerity when thanking their fans for coming. The attacks against Napster seem to be a complete reversal of this fan-friendly nature.
The "art vs. commodity" issue has been brought up a lot, but I have to ask this: Isn't the nature of art that it's the artist's creative expression? How widely the art is spread, or how much money is or isn't paid for it does not diminish the art itself. The fact that you can buy cheap posters nearly anywhere of Salvador Dali's work doesn't invalidate his work. The ultimate gratification for the artist should be that people enjoy and appreciate their work, not making their record label and manager a lot of money.
Have you ever thought about selling tracks off of the CD as mp3's. I know that you own your own record company(I could be wrong), so you have nothing to gain dollar wise, but you would be able to track music trends in your fans. Normally, people by CD's because of 1 or 2 singles they have heard playing on the radio. By selling mp3's, for a nominal fee, you would be able to cater to the fans wants. The trends would be immediately evident and productive.
Changing topic, I realize that it seems like your fans are out to get you, or commiting some sort of espionage, but we are just trying to here are one of our favorite bands. But you have to realize that technology does not make the transport of these songs easy. Yes, there are portable players and a few car mp3 players, but they are expensive, and hold few songs. So in essence, a majority of people only listen mp3's while sitting in front of a computer. Realizing that to get this resolved, both sides would have to bend, would you be in favor of limiting the technology even further, so people COULDN'T play mp3's in there car, or in a portable player unless they own the CD? The software would check the mp3's on the player, then prompt for one of the CD's that one of the songs came from whenever a 'lot' of songs are downloaded to the player. If the user cannot produce a CD, then the player deletes the mp3s from that CD and then randomly selects another song. This might be very tedious, but it is a possible solution.
To wrap up, I wish everyone involved Good Luck. Metallica, I hope that maybe before you go any further, that you get a tad bit more informed. To the users of Napster, I hope that you have the strength to go through this, and that you don't wind up being martyrs to a cause that is bigger than all of us
-Ryan
I was under the understanding that you had a wink and nod relationship to fans bootlegging your work. What changed this and why? Is it because of all the attention to MP3's or do you honestly think this is hurting you and needs to be addressed?
I just checked the Chat Photos over at whatever, and noticed a rather nice iMac (nice 'cause I'm on an old computer). What kind of computers does Metallica use, and what are they used for?
-Skunks
Intel Inside: The worlds most commonly used warning label.
Are you simply fighting the immediate profit loss from the piracy of your music? Or do you see the distribution of music over the Internet as a threat to the current record industry and therefore to yourselves?
People legally download songs with Napster from me all the time. Although I'd have to agree that Napster by its very nature is not condusive to distributing unknown/indie music.
It would be pretty stupid to send them a check. "Hi. I pirate your music. Here's my name and address. Come and get me." Of course stating on a public forum that you pirate their music isn't much better (If you're logged in).
The artists/record labels are definately getting the better end of the deal on this one (although I think they're still pushing for more). Here you have someone actively advertising your CDs, and paying you for it. I can't count the number of times I've known of someone that bought a CD because of a song she/he heard on the radio. If it weren't for radio (and MTV/Much Music) some CDs wouldn't sell half as much as they do now (completely unsubstantiated claim, deal with it).
I'm not suggesting that it isn't galling to have someone take your intellectual property without compensation, but isn't it a better idea to have more fans rather than fewer fans?
I know the reach and ease of Napster distorts this somewhat, but what are the odds the people trading mp3s would *actually* buy the CD instead of just record it from a friend?
By the way, while I've been a fan for at least a decade, the idea that you dislike your "art" being traded like a "commodity" kinda doesn't hold water. I've paid a lot of money for your art over 10 years. If you want to blame someone for commoditization, blame the record companies.
Email me. I want to write a piece on this.
sean.coates@hawk.nb.ca
Sean
Myself, and a lot of people I know are getting more than a little miffed at the current state of the music industry. We see no value (other than eye candy, in certain cases) in manufactured music -- music from 'bands' such as Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys that were created by a producer for no other purpose than to make loads of money. This, IMHO, is no higher on the musical food chain than advertising jingles.
True bands are becoming fewer. The signal to noise ratio is getting weaker, and it's getting harder and harder to find musicians who are in it for more than the money. There's a quote on the Johnny Cash Tribute Album, at the start of 'Long Black Veil' that goes something like "In an era of manufactured music, the following musician has earned his fans the old-fashioned way, performing night after night, to earn dedicated fans." Of course, this is about the Dave Mathews band.
Let's face it. Metallica is rich. Or at least, you SHOULD be. My question: Why is Metallica allowing their record label, or themselves to push the band to become part of this manufactured music clique? I completely understand the violation of copyright here, and I disagree with those distributing, but is this REALLY about the money? If it is, maybe you should look at bands like the DMB, and Phish, and even the Grateful Dead who allowed their tracks to be recorded and distributed, or bands like Limp Bizkit, who are actually TEAMING UP with Napster.
I've heard that you sued your record company for the rights to your own music and won. Most artists, I gather, never win such a "luxury. Now, your fighting on the side of the record companies - helping them maintain their power over artists. Wouldn't it be better to rather encourage a new distribution means whereby an artist didn't need the help of a large producer to distribute their music? Couldn't Napster evolve into something that would benefit artists?
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
Why the 10 "John Doe" suits? Who are you trying to scare? Or are you just trying to avoid a settlement and establish a precedent for the RIAA?
Have you sold out? Your fans are mostly disaffected young men who want to stick it to "The Man". Are you now "The Man"?
Has Metallica been enticed/threatened (failure to enforce copyright) into these suits? Could you even tell us if you were? I hear lawyer's words when you speak [chatroom].
Metallica is one of the very few artists who retain copyright in their music. Good for you. So it is one of the very few who can sue directly rather than an unsympathetic record company suing.
This now helps the RIAA because Metallica is more likely to win and establish a valuable precedent. I look for this not to settle. Is that why 10 "John Does" who are unlikely to all agree to settle?
But who knows? A jury just might decide mp3's are "fair use" (lower-quality excerpts), especially if it was scrubbed Brittany Spears fans rather than Heavy Metal punks. Does the RIAA care if the suit alienates Metallica from it's fans?
Metallica retains copyright [rare], but I presume has granted an exclusive licence to Elektra. Does your contract oblige you to enforce your copyright? How vigorously? Can you post the terms? Is this the main motivation behind your suits?
A better example that is close to this case would be distributing copied VHS tapes, that is illegal, in fact making a bunch of copies of your tapes and putting them out on your curb for anyone to take is most likly illegal(but doesn't do enough damage to bother investigating because 5k people don't come and take them.) this is the way it should be. As far as fair use laws go i believe that what they are ment for is so that YOU can make a back up of YOUR media for YOUR use. Or someone else can make a back up of YOUR media for YOUR use. I doubt it covers the idea of Copying YOUR media for ANOTHER'S use. Basicly if you want mp3's of your CD, make it yourself. Don't try to get around the spirit of the law by trying to find unintentional loopholes in the law. Thats what big corperations do, and we don't like it when they do that right??
Reasons Metalica hasn't dumped their lable
A) contract
B) if they do they lose money, even if they did sell mp3's online and everyone dumped napster and bought them, most of the country would not be able to buy their music because they don't have net access let alone a mp3 player. What they do have is a CD player and want to buy CD's and as such metalica will continue to sell CD's in the only way they can, by using a record label.
C) they make alot of money right now, why screw with a good thing?
There are a million explanations why CD sales increased last year, none of them having to do with MP3s. And all those artists will start complaing when people stop buying their CD's. right now the percentage of people using napster is tiny compared to all the people in the world buying cd's.
Think back to the time when nobody had ever heard of you, you were playing in crap bars for little or no cash, and you wish there was a way to get more people to dig your sound, because you believed that you rocked. (Which you did back in the day...)
Now, for all of the fledgling rockers of today, we have sites like mp3.com and people using things like Napster to spread the unsigned music. I am tickled when strangers download my latest song. I've gotten fan mail from as far away as France!
Are you at all concerned that your actions to limit/kill the spread of free music will close so many of the doors that the internet has opened up for musicians like me? Have you really turned your back on the little guy?
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Do you see any hipocracy on your part between the anti-establishment stance that many of your songs, and songs of other groups (like Dr.Dre) take, and this particular legal action - which concretely aligns you with such an establishment? Is metallica not now ready to lay in the bed it made?
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Napster has built an important music distribution infrastructure. Is it wise to try and put them out of business and throw that all away, or would it be better to build on it? Specifically, would you find Napster acceptable if it redefined it's role to act as a broker?
In other words, bands/labels set the price for each song. Napster gets a brokerage fee (flat or percentage). Users providing the labor (conversion from CD to mp3), storage space, and bandwidth to host music also get a percentage cut (probably based on the size of the file). Essentially a credit on their Napster account. The rest goes directly to the label/band. Fans become your distribution network, and in fact there is nothing stopping you, or your label, from signing up with Napster and providing a high bandwidth, always-on library that could be given preference in Napster's search results, so you could in fact get a bigger piece of the pie.
I think most people know that the "free music" party is going to have to end sooner or later. It is not too far of a stretch to see Napster's role evolving this way, if the music industry will work with them.
Now, let me get this straight:
The goal to which you aspire is the shutdown of napster.
The 335K list doesn't have any bearing on this. It's entirely divorced in both intent and possible results, from any legal proceeding.
So what's the point? More specifically, what if napster had said, "ok, well ban these guys."? Would you have dropped the lawsuit? and why go after the fans at all, if you're seeking a legal remedy?
See, the reason that I ask, and the point which I would like to see addressed is that you're talking out of both sides of your head regarding your intentions. If, indeed, this is about an idea, a principle, then the legal remedy you're seeking against the company is the sole a sufficient means of recourse. This list of fans -- all it really does, and correct me if i'm wrong -- is protect you from further *financial* incursions (sort of). In fact, if this had been about an idea and not money, limiting your list to anything less than every napster user can't really be justified.
So the lawsuit, fine, that's your right, your principles are at stake, whatever. But how on earth can you justify this list except in terms of protecting your own bottom lines?
god is just pretend.
While we're on the subject, who paid for NetPD? You or your label, and don't tell me it's the same thing -- did one of you 4 cut a check, or not?
god is just pretend.
Of course, indie has always been the way to go... :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
If your goal was to quickly remove the copyright infringers from Napster's service, why did you submit the list of names on paper after using a computer to perform a search? A listing on computer media would save several weeks of entering names, at least, wouldn't it?
If MP3 distrobution is such an anathema to the possibility of profiting from music, and MP3s are costing the industry so much money...
How do you explain the fact that CD sales INCREASED by more than a billion dollars over the last year, and how do you explain the success of artists such as Limp Bizkit, Check D, The Offspring, Less Than Jake, Phish, The Grateful Dead, etc...
... all of whom take a very positive view of fans trading their mucic, many of whom have been very vocal in supporting the MP3 format, and a number of whom provide archives or links to archives of MP3s, on their own websites?
Imagine all the people...
I tried to ask them a strategic question:
When an individual joins the Napster community, that person agrees to hold the sole legal responsibility for trading mp3 files. This is all very straight-forward. Isn't your lawsuit akin to suing Eudora for allowing individuals to send copyrighted material, or suing Hewlett Packard for allowing individuals to print out copyrighted images? Why don't you bite the bullet and sue each of your 335,435 fans who are trading the files?
I got the follwing response from Lars:
We're suing Napster for one reason and one reason because they exist to pirate music, nothing more, nothing less.
Hmmm... I wonder if they'll sue Slashdot now for reprinting a portion of the interview...
Legally you have the right to sue people who make unauthorized copies of your work and distribute it to others. I would also make the observation that a vast majority of your fans are pimply faced teens, having menial, unpleasant jobs to make what little money they have. Do you think getting another $13.99 out of them, is morally right when you already have more money than you could spend in a lifetime? Could you speak on how you balance these two wrongs and why you feel harassing (possibly suing in the future) these kids weighs against how the wrong you feel they are doing.
- I like pudding.
You are right, my cop example was crap. I appologize for not thinking it through more before posting.
However, without a lawyer here I'll press on. I think we all agree that linking to illegal content is not illegal if you don't house the content yourself.
I also think that me putting my MP3's of Oasis' "Morning Glory" in Napster and then telling my friends who own a legal copy of this same CD, that I have ripped the songs and they can download them so they don't have to do the same work, would be legal. Now the fact that someone else can get them is irrelevant to me. I have made legal copies, and am distributing them legal to friends that own this CD. When do I become responsible for making sure other people I don't know, not commit a crime by downloading them? Should I have some responsiblity or none? I am not the copyright holder. Some would say some kind of attempt, I would say none. I don't think the copyright law says anywhere that as a consumer I need to protect their rights?
Another true example: In college I had a drawing class in a studio. Bored I walked through an empty studio next door. Someone had a stack of tapes there on their work desk. One of the tapes was a Husker Du tape I had wanted for a long time. I took it home, copied it, and returned it to the person. What I did was totally illegal. I don't think they did anything illegal.
- I like pudding.
Do you feel that the small financial gain (or "control" as you call it) you will achieve with this lawsuit will outweigh the loss of revenue from alienating a large percentage of your fans?
- I like pudding.
I don't think your right here. Making it "available" does not constitute a violation. It would be the act of someone who doesn't own the CD downloading it that would be the violation. Cops go under cover as drunks with golds chains on and money coming out of their pockets in subways. Making it available is not the crime, it is the people that take what doesn't belong to them that is illegal.
In the music arena, if you are purchasing the pattern of 0's and 1's, which according the fair use law you are (since you can copy it to any media you want, not just a CD), then copying that pattern from someone else would be perfectly legal.
- I like pudding.
Thank you, your example with the VHS is better. But I think I am TRYING to live in the spirit of the law. I'll give a real example.
I and my friend Ringo both have purchased a copy of John Lennon's "Double Fantasy". We both hate Yoko Ono's crap on there. I tell him I am making a CD that cuts her stuff out. He says, "great make one for me, too." I make a copy for him. Is this illegal? If it is it is technology illegal, but does not violate the spirit of the law. This is how I originally meant the question I asked at the top. What is the point of 1,000,000 people sitting there ripping, and compressing the same songs to MP3?
- I like pudding.
With other programs such as Gnutella, Freenet, etc. that are anonymous and are not controlled by a centralized company which you could sue, like Naptser, don't you think that you should be spending your time and money developing your own Internet solutions from which you can profit, rather than trying to push back the flow of technology which will only become more and more difficult to combat?
- I like pudding.
The fair use law says that I can make copies of a Metallica CD I buy for my own personal use. An example being I copy onto a tape because I only have a tape player in my car. This is legal. Along the same lines, do you think it's wrong for me to download that same Metallica CD that I have purchased, using Napster to my MP3 player so I can take it to class? It's true that if I were technically savy, I could convert all of the CD myself to MP3's, but logically is this not a legal use of Napster, so that 100,000 people don't have to waste time and effort doing this conversion when it's already been done?
- I like pudding.
How much money do you get from the sale of each CD, and how much goes to the record company?
Would you be interested in a system that allows you to circumvent the record company, sell your music for half the price you do now, and get quadruple the cut that Metallica gets on each sale? The internet has the potential to offer such a system.
- I like pudding.
I don't mean to sound inflamatory, nor do I mean to speak for the community on this one. I ask, as one musician to another, how you can justify your actions. Napster, and other .mp3 trading tools do not really benefit established artists like yourself. That's fine. Everyone knows who Metallica are. No one is going to go into a record store and say "I wonder what these guys sound like". And that's fine; you've earned that right. Who Napster DOES benefit are less established artists. People who are sketchy on one band or another. It would be easy enough to (illegally) grab a few songs, or an entire album by a band you were unsure on. If they only like one or two tracks, then they don't feel as if they've wasted money on the cd. Alot of musicians just want people to buy the cd, and don't care if they sell it back or not, but I, and many other people who are more concerned with the art rather than the economics feel that it would be more important that the people who have the music appreciate it, and hopefully enjoy it. After all, isn't that why art is created? Not for the black figure at the bottom of a bank statement.
.mp3s and selling them off as if it were your legitamate product. But that's not what you're going after; you're just going after the trade. No, you don't get a royalty for every time an .mp3 is played, but you don't get one for every time someone dubs a tape for a friend, which though illegal, it happens, and is passively accepted behaviour. Again, that can only be a positive thing as far as your art is concerned: someone who didn't have the disposable income to buy the cd now CAN appreciate your art, while those with the income can listen to decide if they really want it. Don't tell me that you've never sold a cd because someone had a dubbed copy and liked it. That's the way the music industry works.
The potential hazzard is people packaging the
With this lawsuit, you're not attacking piracy, or defending musicians' rights. You're attacking musicians. You're hurting less established acts by taking action against a protocol for easy exchange of their art. As you learned when you started, it's not easy. Are you angry that modern acts DO have these tools that you didn't have when you were starting? Or are you trying to stop newer acts from getting big and taking away from your sales? Because like it or not, that's what's happening. Leaving it alone wouldn't really hurt you, but taking it away definitely hurts us.
Sorry for being so longwinded, and while I doubt this question will pass, I really hope that it finds the eyes of the band.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
Your record company calls this illegal behavior. Do you think it should be?
2) Have you considered the possibility that you might be able to make more money (and avoid the huge cut that record companies take out of the price of a CD) by selling mp3 files directly to the public?
It is harder for a person to self-justify copyright infringement for a mp3 files at $0.50 a song than for $20 a CD, yet you'd make more money in the former case.
The cake is a pie
You where thinking in Napster Users when you wrote Seek & Destroy ??
Y'all might disagree, but it seems to me that at some point in the future it will be impossible for artists to keep their music off the internet. At what point (on the scale of internet-music integration) will you guys embrace the concept with your own internet-music-marketing strategies instead of what's coming across as attempting to put the genie back in the bottle?
I'm just wondering what exactly you think all of this is going to accomplish. Do you realise the amount of alienation you've inspired among not only your fans but all Napster users? Is that something you wanted?
"Caffeine is not an option. Caffeine is a way of life."
Metallica has always seemed to be on the cutting edge of being on the fans' side. The 5.98 EP is one example. In the Yahoo chat, Lars admitted he has never been on a web site. That's why I feel you guys may be a little out of touch with what's really going on here. People in general feel like music is
just too expensive
not flexible enough with respect to owner's rights
Also generalizing, I really don't believe most Napster users think artists should be stiffed and all music should be free. On the contrary, I think artists should get more money and the record companies should get less. We hear stories about the cost of production of a CD being 50 cents, yet we pay 12-16 dollars for it in a store. What I want, personally, is:
the ability to download any music to check it out before I buy it, possibly at a reduced audio quality level
the ability to only pay for the songs I want
less money to go to the middleman (i.e. record companies, music stores, lawyers) and more money to go to artists
So here's the question: why not join the revolution instead of fight it? You guys have enough money (I believe) to take a chance and try and really change the way the system works. Get down in to the trenches, listen (I mean really listen) to what the people are saying instead of your lawyers and agents. And by the way, I have bought copies of almost every one of your CDs and think you guys rock.
--jb
Metallica don't need the publicity. They're
already quite famous enough.
I paid for all my Metallica albums. If anyone
wants to listen to their music, I suggest they
do the same.
Don't want it ? Can't afford it ? Don't like
it ? Then don't buy it. And certainly don't
rip it off. You don't have the right.
Paul
pjk
Since you're looking at this from a business perspective (and who can blame you for that? nobody wants to starve on the street), do you realize that you have a delicate tradeoff to make here?
Namely, will revenues recovered by shutting down Napster make up for the revenues lost by pissing off a big chunk of your fanbase?
As far as I can see, the answer is "no". Apparently, your answer is "yes". So I'd love to know how you arrived at that answer.
There are three of them at modernhumorist.com. Strangely enough, the original poster had the website name on it. Not giving credit where credit is due isn't really nice.
Since Napster is basically a share, search, and download application, would you plan to take similar action against search engines that help people find and download your music like Scour.net, Lycos, and others? If not, how would you differentiate between them?
And if it was your decision...
I like your messages about the injustices that are found in religion and society. But how can you kick some kids arses using the legal system you hate so much? Especially when all they are doing is trading your music in a lesser quality medium, as fans. I purchased Black, Justice, Kill 'em All, Puppets, Lightning and Garage Inc. Your message now means little to me.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
First off I want to say that I own all the Metallica albums except Re-Load (which I will) and Kill 'Em All (late comer to Metallica, can't find an original copy). Yes, I bought Load the day it came out (first new Metallica album after I started listening.) Yes it kicks ass. It took me a little while to warm up to it, but I did, and it's just as edgy as anything they've ever done. I love all Metallica old and new. Now for the question: (And don't anybody jump on me, I seriously doubt that they'd manage to 'not notice' Scour.) What do you all think about people trading your (or anybody's) videos? Back to the old argument, this is how I found out that there even was a video for S&M (I figured there was, but this clinched it) and I bought it the same day. And I will buy the DVD. And I will eventually buy all Metallica videos. (Is there anything more exciting than watching Lars kick ass?) Now, anybody that knows me knows how much I hate MTV (GODDAMM TRENDY MOTHER-#$&@$*) and VH1 just doesn't play much Metallica, so I get my videos from Scour. Isn't this another way of getting the artists out there to be seen and heard? I use Napster and Scour the way everyone should, I download tons of stuff, throw out most of it, and buy what's worth buying. I have bought literally dozens of albums that I probably would not have bought, as a direct result of being able to download and hear new stuff. I think you need to trust people a little more, most will do the right thing, and those who won't, well, you're not going to stop them anyway. They're assholes, and will find a way to pirate no matter what (and probably never even thought about buying anything they're pirating). All you do by killing Napster is slowing it down some and depriving the rest of us valuable, um, let's call it research. That's basically what it is. I don't mean to offend you or anything, but you guys all traded tapes and stuff and look at where you are today. How many up and coming (and poor) musicians are being inspired by your stuff? What if the Misfits came after you back in '83 for copying their stuff? Now, that said, a note to everyone else: Before you get all pissed at Metallica, think about their side. You're a musician and you find that people are stealing from you (yes that's what it is) so you go find a list of 330,000 of them, which is probably a WAY low estimate. Assuming that all of these people get tracks from two different albums, that's about 6 million bucks! Of course not every one of these people are going to actually BUY those albums if they had no other way to get them, but what if half did? Or a quarter? That's still millions of dollars. My first reaction was to be really pissed, but I actually stopped and THOUGHT about it, and they're right. Nobody wants to admit it, but under the law, they are right. Don't f.cking try to tell me you wouldn't be pissed. Well, that's about it, but I know as soon as I hit submit, I'll remember what else I wanted to say...
First off I want to say that I own all the Metallica albums except Re-Load (which I will) and Kill 'Em All (late comer to Metallica, can't find an original copy). Yes, I bought Load the day it came out (first new Metallica album after I started listening.) Yes it kicks ass. It took me a little while to warm up to it, but I did, and it's just as edgy as anything they've ever done. I love all Metallica old and new.
Now for the question: (And don't anybody jump on me, I seriously doubt that they'd manage to 'not notice' Scour.) What do you all think about people trading your (or anybody's) videos? Back to the old argument, this is how I found out that there even was a video for S&M (I figured there was, but this clinched it) and I bought it the same day. And I will buy the DVD. And I will eventually buy all Metallica videos. (Is there anything more exciting than watching Lars kick ass?) Now, anybody that knows me knows how much I hate MTV (GODDAMM TRENDY MOTHER-#$&@$*) and VH1 just doesn't play much Metallica, so I get my videos from Scour. Isn't this another way of getting the artists out there to be seen and heard?
I use Napster and Scour the way everyone should, I download tons of stuff, throw out most of it, and buy what's worth buying. I have bought literally dozens of albums that I probably would not have bought, as a direct result of being able to download and hear new stuff. I think you need to trust people a little more, most will do the right thing, and those who won't, well, you're not going to stop them anyway. They're assholes, and will find a way to pirate no matter what (and probably never even thought about buying anything they're pirating). All you do by killing Napster is slowing it down some and depriving the rest of us valuable, um, let's call it research. That's basically what it is.
I don't mean to offend you or anything, but you guys all traded tapes and stuff and look at where you are today. How many up and coming (and poor) musicians are being inspired by your stuff? What if the Misfits came after you back in '83 for copying their stuff?
Now, that said, a note to everyone else: Before you get all pissed at Metallica, think about their side. You're a musician and you find that people are stealing from you (yes that's what it is) so you go find a list of 330,000 of them, which is probably a WAY low estimate. Assuming that all of these people get tracks from two different albums, that's about 6 million bucks! Of course not every one of these people are going to actually BUY those albums if they had no other way to get them, but what if half did? Or a quarter? That's still millions of dollars. My first reaction was to be really pissed, but I actually stopped and THOUGHT about it, and they're right. Nobody wants to admit it, but under the law, they are right. Don't f.cking try to tell me you wouldn't be pissed.
Well, that's about it, but I know as soon as I hit submit, I'll remember what else I wanted to say...
2) You have stated that the free distribution of your music converts it from "art" into a "commodity". Do you believe that an artist that distributes his art for free via Napster (or any mechanism, for that matter), is less of an artist for having done so? Is there something inherently more artistic, in your view, to art which is sold commercial via retail channels?
3) Do you fear that your attempts to enlist the assistance of the U.S. Government in your crusader against Napster, an institution you have lambasted in several songs in your career, renders these songs hypocritical or hollow?
4) Within the strict confines of a capitalist system, you have benefitted a great deal financially from celebrating anarchy and disorder. Your experience with Napster would appear to be a first brush with a kind of anarchy, a collision with lawlessness is its truest form. How can you artistically embrace anarchy, while still repudiating it in real life, without seeming hypocritical? Are you concerned that you will be less credible in making artistic statement in the future when your practical lives are in such direct conflict with your artistic lives?
It is going to happen eventually, radio will go digital. It opens up a whole bunch of cool technologies, I would love my radio to tell me the artist and song on the headunit when a radio song comes on. Also, this solves lots of typical broadcast problems like interference. You radio can jump to the nearest antenna, like a cell phone, and stations can have way bigger range, with uniform near perfect reception thoughout their area.
I am assuming this will happen, when it does, it seems that copying a song off the radio will be a perfect copy, assuming the stations don't fsckup the songs before hand.
Anyone have any thoughts/commments on this? I've always thought it would be cool, it would definatly change a lot in the music industry.
I remember seeing Behind the Music on VH1, and when you guys got started, you spread like wildfire because of the demo tapes which you gave away hundreds of copies of and let people copy. It is this free distribution across the scene that has gotten you all where you are.
Now, why the sudden change of heart?
With Napster, the mp3's are your demo tapes and napster is the scene. Besides, your songs are the longest out there. Nobody (ok, just a few) downloads Metallica Albums. THey get songs to hear before they get the album. Now how they get the album is another story. I borrow them from a friend and rip 'em to mp3.
How bout them apples?
Here's another question:
How many of us have rushed out and bought a new CD by their favorite band, or a new CD that has that one great song on it, only to be disappointed by the rest of the CD? Napster allows users to "preview" the CDs that they are interested in before actually purchasing them, which is no doubt a common practice (I do it all the time). This helps prevent me plunking down $15-$20 for a CD that I'm not sure that I'll like. My question is this: Do you think that it is a bad thing for people to be able to be able to "preview" an album through methods like Napster before they buy the album? Or should they have to take it on faith that the album doesn't suck? How can we be sure that we are purchasing a quality product, other than the few songs we hear on the radio? Napster provides a convenient method for us to do so risk free.
If you already own the cd why would you waste time looking for mp3s to download instead of ripping them yourself?
Most of my Metallica cd's are scratched to hell, so I can't rip mine. This is legal use, correct?
Given your work became a commodity when you sold it. Why did you take the road of a lawsuit rather than embrace it (when embracing it will allow you to expand your fan base and the lawsuit will piss off your fans)?
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Well spoken - I hope this post makes it to the top.
I've been a huge fan for years and spent hundreds of dollars on your concerts, cds, and t-shirts. But I'm VERY worried right now about what your actions could do to the Internet in terms of turning it into more of a police state type thing.
I definitely support the right for artists to get paid, but what if you could lead other artists with less power into a music distribution system where people can pay directly to the band a small amount for each song they acquire however they acquire it (through napster or whatever). There wouldn't be a way of _forcing_ people to pay, but I strongly believe that for the right price most people would want to support their favorite artists so that they can continue to make music (i.e. $1 per song maybe). Wouldn't such a system (better for both the artists and consumers, while not necessitating authoritarian control of the Internet!) be FAR better than trying to control the inevitable availability of music on the Internet?
see my paper I'm writing on this at www.duke.edu/~mag10/mp3.html for more info, or orangealley.com for a possible system.
What is the driving force here? Covering your intellectual property is a given. I can understand that. Is this decision to pursue this court battle solely of the band, or is it lawyer derived?
Napster may be a haven for piracy, though it may not be that cut and dried. There are countless musicians who freely release tracks as MP3s to get people to listen to their music, they have the option to purchase the CD whole CD, but there's the track(s): gratis. By releasing that MP3 they're hoping it will proliferate. They want it to change hands, word of mouth travels faster than any other form of advertisement.
Killing off Napster by lawsuit would be killing publicity for other musicians. So, what return is expected?
zerodvyd
I own a couple of those encouraged bootlegs. They're so old Dave Mustaine is still singing backup. (If you can call it that ;) The quality sucks, and not only because they're obviously spending every cent from the gig on their bar tab.
Are they going to go after me for giving away awful copies of Phantom Lord that they themselves told people to copy fifteen years ago?
.sig: Now legally binding!
First of all, thanks for Master of Puppets.
My question is this:
Several file trading programs have become available that remove any central authority (there is no Napster, Inc in the middle of it to remove users or to sue). The people that are stealing your music today via Napster will simply change to one of these and continue tomorrow. No technical tricks (SDMI, non-Redbook CDs) can stop them as long as CD prices stay as high as they are.
How can you hope to combat piracy when you can't find the people doing it?
.sig: Now legally binding!
After you have achieved your goal of "putting napster out of business" Who will be next? If/When I start a company with a similar format to napster, will you sue me too? When will it end?
- Ziggy8675309asks: Has Metallica ever used or seen the Napster program?
Lars, your response to that question speaks volumes about your ignorance on Napster and how it works.. . .
metallica_lars_live: I've never been on any of these internet sites.
So I'll ask the question again: Have you ever used Napster? Have you actually tried to get an understanding for yourself as to how the program works? You're a musician, not a computer geek, I understand that. When someone tells you about something that is going on in a field outside your own--especially if this someone is a lawyer or trusted advisor--you're going to trust them on it because you don't know about the subject yourself. But I urge you to anyway familiarize yourself with it.
Second question: Have your record sales been hurt as a result of Napster? Has there been any noticable either up or down?
If you answer no, then please stop to think about what you're gaining by suing Napster. Yes, you are in the legal right to do so, but are you really gaining anything? I am a long time fan of Metallica's music. I had not planned on buying Garage Inc. when it came out; I thought I wasn't interested in just covers. But when I heard an illegaly obtained mp3 of Turn The Page, I decided 40 seconds into the song that I was buying the album. I do not believe Napster poses a threat to your livliehood.
Third, from the Garage Inc. booklet:
- But he [James] was astounded by the size and specialist depth of Ulrich's collection. It was, Hetfield says plainly, "fucking huge. . . . I would stay over at his place for days at a time, making tapes of his records and sleeping on the carpet."
That is no different than someone going on Napster and downloading a bunch of songs instead of buying the albums. How do you explain this?Lastly, I'd just like to say that I find it unfortunate that what is likely to be the only chance to communicate with one of my favorite bands is under such circumstances. I've been a fan of your music for nearly a decade now. I understand your fears regarding Napster, and I agree with some of your points, but overall, I think you are making a mistake.
Scott Schneider
scschnei@vt.edu
When they're making CD's in the number that they are, the CD's cost $0.20 each. When you order 750 cd's you pay around $2.00 each!!!!!
Josh
--------------
I'm sure you're aware that there are musicians that want to use Napster to distribute their music. I'm not just talking about Limp Bizkit either. I'm talking about the musicians that don't have and/or don't want to use one of the major record labels. Do you feel that protecting your music from unauthorized distribution is more important than protecting the newly forming distribution channels that unsigned artists finally have available to them?
numb
Do you have any evidence of losing money on MP3's? Or is it more of a gut feeling?
MP3's are of far inferior quality to CD's, take a long time to download, generally computer systems are lacking on the sound side, and it's currently kind of hard to take an MP3 in the car with you.
My thoughts are that it would help to sell records. Most albums on the radio today only have a song or two played. MP3's allow the people to hear before they buy. Someone who knows they like the entire album is much more likely to buy it. The only artists I see this hurting are the one hit wonders that don't have a good album.
From what I gathered from the transcript I read from the interview with artistdirect (or whoever it was) you all basically feel that no one does anything for free. Can you still say that knowing that a great number of the people who read this interview are doing so using an operating system written by people who do ``do it for free'' moreover knowing that a smaller but still large number of people reading not only use but do ``do it for free'' (myself included).
The only people you have stopped are people who
just want to hear the popular singles...either they download the mp3 or tape it off the radio...either way it's not like you are missing much they are getting your song anytime they want for free. Your fans will still support you. Look at the fans of Social Distortion. Social's guitarist died not long ago and there has been an outpouring of support for Dennis's family. If your fans heard that you were soon to end up in the poor house they would come together and help the band through.
Over and above all of this albums come with liner notes (GnR's AfD wouldn't be the same without them) and pretty pictures and the such and to a great number of the general population these kinds of things are important.
May your soul reach heaven before the devil realizes you are dead
Why are you wasting your time with this when your music isn't worth a crap anyway??
I just started this policy, but I plan on sending Natalie Merchant $5 and the note. I'm just gona put cash in it in a security envelope and hop it gets there. Obviously, this isn't a long term-solution.
I'd like to see a site that would take money and forward it to the artist. I got an email from someone who said they had registered paytheartists.com and haven't heard from them again. The problem is: How do you do this anonymously?
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
It's obvious you just "don't get it" why people are upset you are suing napster. You see, napster is just a program. It's not centralized. It cannot, once users download the program, control what people do.
When someone in the chat asked if you had ever used Napster you said "I've never been to one of those sites." It's not a web site. It's a program a user runs on their computer. They can share whatever files they want.
Would you sue to shut down the phone company if people were calling each other up and playing metallica songs for each other over the phone, taping the result at the other end and getting free Metallica songs? Deprive everyone of a phone... That's the equivalent of what you are doing now by trying to shut Napster down.
I happen to know people who use Napster to trade music that is NOT copyrighted or to preview music before buying the CD or deleting the tracks. (Not me, I have a new policy: I pirate the CD's and then send the artist $5, far more than they get per CD from their label. and BTW, I don't use Napster. There are about 5 other methods to get any MP3 you want that have nothing to do with Napster, or web sites, for that matter).
Thanks for your time.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Please give me a take on what you understand that Napster does, how it's used by music fans, and why that's wrong.
As a kind of Turing test (so I know this is really you) please tell me what Axl Rose did at the Metallica/GNR show where James got hurt by the pyrotechnics.
Actually, I have a Garage Days Re-Revisited tape. It's too much trouble to try to encode the tape to MP3. I'm going to download the song with gNapster. Fuck that.
Was it your decision, your manager, your lawyers or record company that made the call to go after the Napster users?
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
I'm not sure I see the validity in the argument that metallica has nothing to lose because they can still extract large rents from 'physical market' customers when people use Napster. (Often the extent of these rents are exaggerated because even though production/distribution costs are minimal when economies of scale and scope are employed, I am sure marketing/promotion appropriates a bigger slice, but I digress)
/.er would deny that Internet and MP3 use is likely to increase. Using the simple framework you put forward, as mass market subsidisers cross to the Net and Napster, their willingness to pay falls to zero and they copy the file for free.
This assumption, as does any overly simplistic economic argument, assumes that the market remains static. No
Either Metallica loses money and eventually charges nothing for music, or existing physical customers are charged more rents to subsidize the free riders. This is what they mean by having music commoditized. Of course, there is the argument that most MP3s are an imperfect substitute for a CD (encoding is not perfectly as good yet) and since music is an experience good this might actually drive CD sales.
But once bandwidth and playback hits CD quality and audio files become a perfect substitute, Metallica are screwed unless they start finding a way to add value. Even with protected audio files people will still rip off to unprotected formats and distribute them. Its human nature and so they need to work around it.
You could say that concerts, tours, and t-shirts are alternative value drivers, but this economic model of giving stuff away for free only works if you can create strong and sustainable demand for these. Unless Metallica branches into increasingly cheezy merchandizing and tours constantly, this is unlikely to generate the same revenue.
Perhaps what metallica need to generate is goodwill. Record companies used to do this by using powerful marketing synergies to stuff product down your throat. These days you can connect directly with more and more people.
Perhaps this could be it?
You'd be surprised how many people share this view. At risk of being a 'me too', I agree entirely with this in that most mainstream music seems to be moving towards a mass marketing ideal - where the blandest and most generic, insipid product is shoved down our throats with ever more inventive marketing synergies driven by massive budgets made possible by continuing consolodation and mergers.
This is downright evil, not because people are making big profits (i dont care how rich brittany gets) but because these channels are spreading their net like a cancer to homgonize and suffocate culture around the globe, driven mostly by focus group sessions with 12 year old girls. These corporate entities dont have any picture of their 'customers' further than the sales figures they get back from the record stores.
Even smart marketing people know this is downright wrong, and trust me, this situation will not go on forever. People will figure out that they need to go to the Internet or their independent record store to hear music that is actually innovative. Then more mainstream artists and labels will figure it out and try and connect with their fans more directly, at the very least to get a 'competetive advantage' over the rest of the suckers.
But, this thing needs to be consumer led. If you care about music, then dont be afraid to branch out. Go to an independent store in your local big city instead of carefully controlled retail environments like wal-mart. Make more of an effort to support good artists on MP3.com etc (the money some excellent artists make is pathetic). Otherwise, im afraid, the mass market is getting exactly what it deserves.
Yeah, replicators a'la startrek would make the world much nicer....
but you can't expect metallica to give away music because this sort of effect is possible with digital media. open source works so well because the benefits the coders derive are also as easily replicable - recognition, the altruisic creation of something good, and because they can exchange code with one another to everyones mutual benefit.
Now, metallica might like to hear the music of other people, but I do not think this is suffcient compensation if they want to do things like buy food, crack or whatever they like to buy.
Another reason why open source works is because you can make something for free, learn from that and add to your skill set, then go to work and use that skill to make something to get $$$, so you can pay your rent.
On the other hand, A song is a commodity because once you make it, normally aside from remixing it cannot be differentiated. You can have variable quality MP3 files, but as long as someone out there rips the 160KB/s version, then it is this version that will be most widely distributed. Nobody will take the 64KB/s from the website if they can get it from Napster at a higher bitrate.
So how do metallica make money? Sell special songs for money only and only give away some (like open source?). No - because people will copy these also. Again, a commodity because they can no longer prevent the price it is consumed at from falling to zero.
Sell merchandise? Please, do you think thats why musicans like to make music? Also, To have sustainable revenue from touring and concerts, they would have to stop producing and tour constantly. But if they stop producing then the quality of the concerts is diminshed, since people want to hear new material.
The answer is clear and simple. It works for the Greatful Dead, it works for Public Enemy. The answer is loyalty. If you get your fans to like you (instead of pissing them off by doing this) then people will WANT to pay you, to ensure that more songs are made, and because they have positive feelings for you.
Unfortunately, record companies, mass marketing etc stand in the way of this. So, metallica should get closer to fans by themselves!! The Internet is a brilliant way to do this because they can communicate and learn with so many fans so easily.
Perhaps hire someone to run them a website from which they can sell CDs and MP3s themselves, as well as set up message boards or other community features where they participate.
This whole bust up is a classic example of not understanding the fans. If you understand the fans, they understand you.
So why not make more of an effort to do this?
Excuse me, but wouldn't communism be more like sharing things freely with eachother as opposed to having to purchase the author's product? Your complaint sounds irrational and dichotomous..
I know I'm not the only one to mention this, but I want to raise this question again to show that some of the readers are not unique in their position.
There are some of us who, given the current prices of albums, are not willing to rush out and buy a cd before hearing whether the album is actually worth buying. We might be able to catch one song on the radio (whichever song the record company decides will be "the single"), but barring that, our options are rather limited. A program like Napster allows a listener to hear the entire contents of the album, and then decide whether to purchase it or not.
Granted, there will always be people who don't ever buy the album, just as there will always be people who make tape or CD copies of albums. I for one, own S&M simply because of the fact that I downloaded several songs, liked them, and bought it. The album was to my liking, so you got my money. Had I not liked the album, I'd have saved the money for use in a better purchase.
What is your position on Napster and mp3, in light of this argument? Do you feel that people should be allowed to hear an entire album for free before purchasing it? Are you aware that a portion of your album sales is a direct result of a liberal proliferation of your music? Do you plan to encourage or discourage this proliferation in the future (in general, not just with respect to Napster)?
Would you be as willing to support action against the record companies to reduce CD prices?
It seems to me that when CD's first came out, they were cheaper than they are now. It just seems to follow that if CD's were cheaper, then there would be less of a need for Napster.
--WooooHoooo--
They gouge the fans by overcharging for CDs, and then they turn around and stiff you, the artists, by keeping nearly all the profits for themselves.
Again, they stiff both you and the fans by overcharging for concert tickets and keeping the bulk of the profits for themselves.
I would contend that if you put as much energy into fighting your real enemies as you have so far put into fighting the Napster users, you would not have the problems you are having today. If you reduce or eliminate the role of the greedy middlemen, you would be making more money, and the fans would be paying less (thus eliminating the motivation for piracy), and everyone would be happy (except for the former middlemen, and who cares about them).
What do you think? Should the artists and fans get together and fight their common enemies, or would you prefer to continue fighting against the downloaders and ignoring the real problem?
Free Hans!
The current options for obtaining music you want are either:
1) Pay $16/CD
2) Pirate it using Napster
There are other options, but these are the main ones. Most people would prefer to see artists get their due from the music, but paying $16 for 12 songs isn't always worth it. And paying $1/song from emusic.com doesn't make sense because for most people, MP3s are not as convenient as CDs, and don't have quite the sound quality. Indeed, I bought S&M on CD the day it was released because I want to be able to play it in the stereo, and on my discman, and in the car, etc. I could have downloaded it the next day, but that inconvenient. In contrast, when someone recommends something that I don't really know I would like, or something that I wouldn't listen to much, I might download it with Napster. But I would probably also pay a dime or a quarter to download it from a legitimate source. And the cost to the record label & artist is much lower for online distribution (no CD to manufacture). So, given this use of MP3s as low cost sample, would you support making your music available online (possibly in a low quality format like 128kbps) for a price significantly lower buying the equivalent CD?
I've always wondered why more bands haven't tried an online distribution model, where fans can download, say, an entire album for a few dollars. The majority of the money could go to you. The only benefit to having a record company at that point would be for marketing, but your band has such clout I don't think it needs much help. Have you ever considered this model? Does it appeal to you in any way?
IIRC, Metallica used to be very supportive of concertgoers taping the event as a contribution to your fan base. MP3 seems to be the logical next step for expanding your audience and having more people attend your concerts, which you seem to have done quite a bit of.
Are you simply against the distribution of studio recordings of your music available at the Sam Goodys and Tower Records of the world, or are you also targeting the taped concerts distribued by MP3? What about import tracks/albums that are not available in a particular country?
--
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E2 IN2 IE?
In a few articles I have read about the Metallica/Napster lawsuit, there were quotes saying something like, "Some artists are in it for the music, others are in it for the money. This lawsuit shows where Metallica stands." What is your response to that comment? Is it to save the music, or is it all about money?
And by the way, some proprietary digital format that limits my ability to copy my owned (not licensed) music for my personal use is not acceptable.
:P
Be careful here....some RIAA lawyer might get it up his arse to try and start including audio recordings under UCITA...then you and I *will* have to license, not buy, tunes and we won't be able to transfer the "licenses" to friends or speak out about music we think is shitty or defective
Sound too unrealistic? Consider that many audio CDs these days have some "software" component such as a video in MPEG/AVI/etc and many games have CD-playable audio soundtracks.
My money's on Garth Brooks to test this legal theory first and attempt to invoke UCITA..after all he's the bloke who wanted to ban used CD sales!
The one point which Metallica brought up in their ArtistDirect interview -- which I have to agree with -- is that the bootleg you made in 1989 was most likely to a tape. You yourself point out that technology has improved significantly, would you not agree that the most likely reason to be encouraged into buying an original copy of a taped bootleg was to actually hear it in decent quality (minus hiss, etc.?)
Personally I'm not as inclined to buy originals of a 128kb MP3 considering my PC is hooked up to some high grade studio monitors, my Playstation can happily play MP3s burnt to a CD, I can walk around with 3hours worth on something smaller than a walkman, play them in my car and still not notice the difference between my (self encoded) mp3 collection and the CDs I ripped them from!
I think Metallica have some very valid points. Until they decide to embrace free distribution (which they might do if we give them a chance) they have a right to control the distribution and presentation of materials. No-one active in this forum likes it when their GPLed code appears in a copyleft infringing, proprietary piece of work (God knows you wouldn't hear the end of it), yet suddenly it's alright to infringe someone elses 'license' just because you don't agree with it?!
A ten year old report is exactly that. Ten years old...
-- Ego is nothing without Arrogance to back it up! --
Whilst I personally agree with the infringement you are trying to fight through the courts, I would be interested to know what you intend to give 'back' to the online community. Does Metallica as a band intend to make available digital versions of it's concerts (since I can freely record these should I attend), or do you have immediate plans for online distribution of your work through some other business model?
Considering how fortunate you are to be recognised artists, do you not think it would be more beneficial to provide (or support) an alternative that protects the artists rights, whilst still gives fans access to your work through the medium of their choice?
-- Ego is nothing without Arrogance to back it up! --
How do you respond to the fact that by collect (or hiring someone to collect) infomation about Napster users, Metallica and NetPD may have violated the following clause of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA).
"...must obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13."
--
Poliglut.org: 75 Million gun owners can't be wrong
Why don't You just say "Look, this is our material, it is copyrighted. We don't want people giving it away for free, so we are going to do our best to stop it."
Is that so hard? You are only pissing people off by saying stupid things regarding commodities (sp?) and art. We all know that can't be your motivation, and it just sounds silly.
--Scott
PLEASE put this up to 5... and then put a couple extra +1's on it to ensure that it gets to the band. i've been reading ALL the posts here on slashdot and this is the best that i've read relating to this whole shitty mess...
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DeCSS source code!
you must amputate to email me.
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you must amputate to email me
i read all replies to my comments
this was an *excellent* post, Hobbex. i feel smarter after reading it :) thank you moderators for putting it up +3 above 5... i really *really* hope this gets to the band... i can't think of a single person that could have said it better.
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DeCSS source code!
you must amputate to email me.
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you must amputate to email me
i read all replies to my comments
Have you gouy heard of PayLars.com?
And if so, what do you guys think of their attempt to "make up" for the Napster losses.
---------------
CoyboyNeal is God
Why are you unwilling to go after the individual fans who are making MP3's of your music and obtaining judgements from them? Why are you unwilling to make the people copying your "art" personally responsible for the actions they take?
(Oh, and I don't believe for one minute the whole 'treating our music as a commodity and not the art it is' line. Make ya sound like a bunch of people used to fat cheques and see the possibility of not having said cheques in the future. Art has little to do with it. Given the continued interconnection of the planet, the copies of your "art" will continue with or without napster,mp3, etc. People who have 270 gigs of MP3's are not about to stop trading such a collection if napster goes *poof* away.)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Power wolves beset your door, feel them stalking
What happened to the Metallica I used to know? There was a time when Metallica used to write songs about corruption and the irresponsible use of power. Now you guys are sueing your fans!? They say success changes people, I guess it's true. What happened to the band that wrote And Justice For All?
-- You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Why have you not elected to sue eBay or verifiable IDs on eBay, or in newspapers around the country, that sell your albums and merchandise "after-market"? Aren't they "stealing" from you by not paying royalties to you for the secondary sale? You'll notice that Napster and its users charge no fees like eBay, newspapers and those who sell your products in meatspace. What's the difference? There may not be a keyboard-analogy for the newspaper, but there is for eBay...
On a digital side-note, I don't see you pursuing Usenet service providers. Do they not provide you with enough publicity?
Congratulations on your sting. Now of course when ever the subject of intellectual property comes up people will be able to point to the NAPSTER incident. One more piece of evidence to prove web users are nothing but a bunch of pirates and bootleggers that need external controls. I am wondering why you allowed such a large number of users to get caught in your net? Did you put up a high profile decoy site that you knew napster would find? Isn't this really just a good PR move to push protection of intellectual property?
Hi Guys.
As a long-time listener (okay, fan, of the group's music, your actions in this case have successfully alientated me in ways that even your albums since Load haven't been able to. That being said, I do not question your right to defend being paid for your artistic efforts, I merely question your methods.
In your Yahoo! interview (http://www.metallica.com/news/2000/000503.html), you claim that Napster "cuts out the middle man." My question is this:
Why don't -you- cut out the middle man instead? Screw the record companies' bloated marketing system, screw the warehousing distribution juggernaut, and still make money by -using- the Internet and the emerging formats (MP3 included) to distribute your music directly to your fans.
As it stands, you've taken a hugely unpopular stance, and have irreprably damaged your reputations as being rebellious in the face of The Man. You've become The Man, boys. And nobody is sorrier to see that happen than your true, old-school, die-hard fans.
I won't burn my old concert T's, but your actions made that previously unthinkable idea cross my mind.
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
Mr. King put a story out on the web, and by reported estimates, made about $450,000 from it. He probably would have made about $10,000 selling it to a well-paying magazine.
The report went on to say that the encryption on the story was cracked, and pirated versions are probably available. I'm sure Mr. King is crying all the way to the bank. Enough honest users are out there that he did okay, no?
Wouldn't the band prefer to get more money and goodwill from its fans, rather than terminally piss them off?
You won't be getting any sales from me, though... I think your music is a fine example of Sturgeon's Law. But I think you'll be losing sales from those who actually like the stuff, too. Why, when you could make a LOT more by cutting out the real thieves -- the "good" folks who charge $17.99 list for an album and pay the artist far less?
With apologies to the folks at Magnavox, here's a new slogan for your consideration: Metallica: Stupid. Very Stupid.
You have said repeatedly that your goal is to put napster out of business. This despite the fact that there are already alternatives to this (Gnutella) that seem to be so distributed as to render a lawsuit against one central artery useless (as there is none). There is a saying that the internet routes around censorship, and it appears that even if napster were to go completely away, the internet would route around this by completely cutting out the "middle man" you spoke of in your yahoo chat.
When this happens, will you then go after the individuals who are trading your songs?
You have made clear more than once that you don't really know a lot about how the Internet works, so I was wondering:
How do you know so sure that what you're doing is the right thing? Have you asked the advise of people that actually know about this stuff (other than your record company or lawyers)? Don't you agree that it's very dangerous for a young and growing technology like the Internet to have people with very limited knowledge make such important decisions? Are you 100% sure your actions won't have any negative consequenses for things like consumer rights or even free speech in the future?
Imagine that this exact scenario took place 12 years ago. Would the more-potent Metallica of the past have done this same thing back in the "good ol' days"? Or have your politics changed considerably since being corporatized and mainstreamed? [this is censorable... i just wanted my wise-crack in there] :)
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Metallica is the man's bitch.
Metallica's music has seriously degraded within the last few CD's and live performances.
Metallica is mentally incapable of making their own decesions -- allowing the corporate system to suck them in.
Metallica doesn't feel for music anymore, only money.
Metallica is weak, both in mindset and in music.
Metallica is ignorantly meddling in things that they don't understand -- the online music revolution.
Metallica doesn't know what to do to fight something that they shouldn't be fighting in the first place. Their response is to treat the effect, not the cause. [Double-wrong!]
and Yes, of course Metallica is being censored by their label. They are bitches to the man.
If you're interested in some REAL metal, let me know, I'll point you in the right direction.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
You've said that this is about artists being compensated for their work, but I compensated you for your art already. In this case, buying a CD would be compensating you for the *media*, which really undercuts the primary arguments you've been making. Do you feel that it's right to ask me to pay $16 for a work that I already paid for in a different format? Do you think that at least in some cases, fans like myself may have a good reason to get old Metallica stuff on mp3, especially considering that, frankly, you got a lot of my money already? I mean, is it about art and fans, or is it about squeezing even more money out of people who have already helped support you financially?
-brennan
Offer your entire catalog as MP3's, available for download at $1 a pop, and shame your fans into paying for the music they listen to.
No one would have any excuse at that point, and you could pursue the remaining renegades with the full force of the fan community behind you (instead of against).
Just a thought.
My question is, why are you going after your fans when they are the reason you can even make money playing in the first place? Have you ever considered that the record labels and the music industry itself is making all the money? When a CD is sold for $20 rather than a reasonable level, how do you expect people to not try to get your music for free?
It has been said that the internet sees censorship as damage and works around it. It is certainly the case that more anonymous systems will exist in which you would not be able to track down 'pirates' and there will be no central company for you to sue. By pursuing this suit you could end up looking like dinosaurs who need to wake up and smell the meteorite, and your Art vs Comodity posturing is idiotic when you have become rich through a business model in which record companies *sell* your product to fans at very high profit margins. My question is: Don't you think it's really the middlemen, the record companies, who are the real problem in the relationship between musicians and fans? I would certainly buy a lot of CD's if they didn't include the enormous cost of supporting those organisations.
That is, which of the following would you consider to be legitimate and which would be piracy?
1) Beavis owns all of your CDs, and converts them into MP3s so that he can play them on his computer.
2) Beavis has downloaded MP3 versions of songs he already owns on CD from the Net, either via Napster or through other means.
3) Beavis has recordings of one or more of your live shows and/or demoes, and has converted those songs which you have never made available for purchase (i.e., cover songs not on Garage Inc., or songs for which no commercially available live version exists) into MP3 format for distribution.
4) Beavis has downloaded MP3 versions of songs he does NOT already have CDs of, because those songs have never been made available for purchase.
My primary point (as expressed in the subject line) is fairly clear; currently these are grey areas. We already know how you feel about people downloading MP3s of songs they could buy, without actually buying them. We (well, I) want to know exactly where you think fair use ends and privacy begins.
After reading various interviews and articles on Metallica and seeing the Behind the Music special on VH1, I have received the impression that after James met Lars and learned what an impressive catalogue of heavy metal albums he had, he proceeded to sleep over his house and copy these albums to cassette.
While I understand that the situation that Napster creates is on a much larger scale, the philosophy of James' and Lars' actions is the same of Napster users: having copies of music I didn't pay for is okay, and it is also okay for me to offer copies of music to people for free.
Although I am a large fan of your work and I do support your right to protect your copyrights, I find your actions against your fans somewhat hypocritical. I myself once made your music available on Napster. If that incriminates me, fine. I was just following in your example, as I figured that you would have no beef with it.
Apparently, you do. I was wondering if you would address this situation for your fans, as we are wondering why this sudden change in philosophy came around.
Thank you.
Ignore the rantings above. Poster is an idiot.
So just who is NetPD anyways???? Nobody can find ANY trace of these guys on the net, leading to the conclusion that this is a bogus "made-up" company.
Also, the math does not jibe with reality (300,000+ users in one weekend? All with Metallica MP3 files? Not likely) Is this just some cheap publicity stunt, or did somebody just make up a bunch of names to harass Napster?
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Or, to the napster users:
You are a fan of the band you are stealing from. Aren't you afraid of offending them?
My main concern as a music fan is that with on-line music, the margins will reduce to almost nothing, and therefore only non-risky artists will be produced, and that music will be packaged in five minute downloadable snippets instead of grandiose packages of art such as any Metallica album. I believe that this will severely hurt the music industry. How do you respond to this? Would you be able to operate in such a changed model? Would this new paradigm be beneficial to musicians and fans, or would it be even harder to get exposure? I deeply applaud you as the first musicians to take a stand againt piracy, and completely support your case.
While I think Metallica is legally correct in claiming copyright infringement, I think that the possibility of alienating potentially millions of fans would outweigh the cost of ignoring the MP3 trading done through Napster and it's relatives. Those fans, in the end, will be the ones who buy concert tickets, new albums, band merchandise etc., and I'd think that most likely in the long run you'd lose more money by losing those fans. There are obviously artists who think MP3 trading is fine, and those who don't.. Anyhow, my question is this: Why did you choose to take on Napster and it's users, instead of going the route of artists like Chuck D and, to an extent, Limp Bizkit and Cypress Hill?
BAM!
"If I removed everything here that I thought was pointless, there would be like two messages here."
woxy.com - Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll
There still are people that care out there! Impressive! I sincerely hope that if all other posts gets screwed up by Metallica's lawyers and secretaries, the band themselves, in some arcane way, gets to reads this one..
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
At any point in your youth, when the band was young and getting by was hard, at any point in time did you duplicate to tape a record and audio cassette that you did not purchase? That is, did you make a an illegal copy of a recorded work? And if so, did you send the artist and/or label a royalty fee for the material that you duplicated?
I have become, comfortably numb
How do you intend to prove that 335k offered illegal Metallica material on Napster? After all, you said yourself that concert MP3 trading was fine. How did you determine what was a legal file and what was not? What about mislabeled MP3s, which seem to be rampant on Napster? What if I had a blank file that was labeled as a Metallica song?
..joshw
Josh Woodward
Do you believe you can stop the trading of your songs over the internet through suing napster users? If so, why? If not, why are you suing the users in the first place?
How is Metallica's atempt to stop the distribuition of copywrited material taking away freedom? Metallica has said that they are only trying to shut down Napster because Napster refused to stop alowing Metalica songs to be distributed.
"PLEASE NOTE: Napster, Inc. makes no representations or warranties regarding MP3 files possessed by Napster users. Thousands of MP3 files have been authorized for distribution over the Internet by copyright owners; however, Napster users should understand that MP3 files may have been created or distributed without copyright owner authorization. Neither the MP3 file format nor the Napster software indicates whether a particular MP3 file has been authorized for copying or distribution. Copying or distributing unauthorized MP3 files may violate United States and/or foreign copyright laws. Compliance with copyright law remains your responsibility."
Maybe Metallica should sue all of the 300,000 violators. They all agreed to the above statement before useing Napster.
_________________________________
I came... I saw... I commented.
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
Before I start, I wanna say that ...And Justice For All is the best album ever. By anyone.
Now then, I recall reading somewhere that Lars stated "In the end, it's about money" or something to that effect. Is this true?
I have to believe that it's not, I've been a Metallica fan for too long to accept Metallica as the type to care about money. If that is the case, then I, sadly, will probably not remain a Metallica fan.
Now, I'm against piracy, in all forms, and if it was any other band bitching about Napster I wouldn't care... but I remember when Metallica wanted their music bootlegged, traded, PIRATED, whatever you want to call it. Why? Exposure. So, now you guys are famous so you don't need exposure? Interesting.
You guys know how many local bands I know that would kill to have 300,000+ people hear their music, sold or not? Quite a few. I personally just signed my friends band up at mp3.com so his music can be heard.
Metallica: Please drop your lawsuit... you'll gain fans back... it's not hurting your sales. If anything, EMBRACE the mp3 movement. Again: It is not hurting your sales. Look at Limp Bizkit (which, by the way, is a Band. Not a him, as you stated in your chat), Offspring, Phish, Grateful Dead. They're all doing fine.
Sorry this was so long, but I need to get it off my chest.
Regards,
M
Sure, I have a thankless job. That's okay. I have a lot of (non
Well with napster it doesn't take much time at all to find an mp3. Lets say i wanted to find the song "baby got back". It would probably take 1 minute at the most. Try it. As far as downloading goes, if you are bandwith rich, downloading can actually be *faster* than ripping.
Two part question.
I've been a metallica fan for years. I've heard band members say in interviews that the band got it's start by people trading bootleg copies of songs because the radio wouldn't play them. Do you feel that it is right to be angry with fans that are doing the same?
Don't you feel that there are valid reasons to download mp3s of your band. Two examples here. If I had downloaded some of the songs on Load before buying the cd I would have realised that Load was not my type of cd. This would have saved me money and you many curses. I also own almost all of your albums, however many of them are on tape. Should I have to go out and buy the cd when I already own the song? Tapes are designed to wear out, digital copies can last forever.
I was going to go to one of your concerts on july 3, my first Metallica concert. I won't be attending unless you can convince me what your doing is right or you drop the stupid law suites.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
Look up "Creeping Death Records."
You'll find that Metallica owns the label they are under. There is no middle man they're pulling all the profits, which may explain why they're fighting so hard.
Most musicians think this system is the only avenue to respectable financial reward. Unfortunately, even if you do play the game and sign a contract, odds are you still won't make any dough and those motherfuckers OWN you. They could bury you're work on a whim.
I have a great respect for your music and your work ethic. Like all the best bands, you wrote the music from your heart and you played it with intensity to the largest possible audience. I know what it's like to tour and self-promote; it's the hardest work I've ever done.
Money and contracts aside, do you recognize the mind-expanding potential of the internet to share your art with the world, free of the incredible burdens imposed by the "biz"? If you could meet your financial needs would you use the internet in this manner? Money and contracts aside, why are you attacking the free(speech not beer) distribution of art via the internet in deference to the hopelessly corrupt music business?
Actually, I recall reading about how Lars had a shitload of British metal albums when he met James, and how James would sleep over and stay up all night making tapes of those albums.. How is that different from what Napster allows users to do?
Pax
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Is the idea here that when being a musician is no longer such a potentially lucrative career, people will stop making music? That the reason for people to make music is to make profit?
Music will continue even in the absence of high profit recording industries. There is a reason that such labels as Discipline Global Mobile exist.
I will refrain from stating the impression that one might get concerning Metallica's motives after reading Lars's comments.
Thanks!
Britt
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
----------------
Programming, is like sex.
My question is this:
I recently read that years ago, Metallica (or at least individual members, I'm not sure which) used to send thank-you notes to people who were caught shoplifting Metallica albums from record stores. Is this true? If so, why the change in attitide since then?
--
Several of the questions that have been asked in this forum have already been answered by Metallica on the live chat on Tuesday. There are links to tramscripts of the chat here.
What I would like to know is how can I contact the so-called online detective agency NetPD (that seems to have no internet prescence) because I have a couple of questions about how they got their 335,456 copyright infringers? Are these people that were actively downloading songs or simply people that had Metallica songs on their machine (there is a big difference, since Napster shares all Mp3s on a machine)?
This really stinks. I used to be proud of the fact that I did all the flash animations on your cd-rom, byte the lightning, but now I am truly ashamed. Even though I have never liked your music (thats why you can hear operation ivy and lass than jake playing in the background on all the sound bytes i recorded myself), I never thoughtr you were this hard up to make a buck. My only question is, are you guys gonna be rollin in the dough from other bands that use the same software you did to track users getting your crappy tunes? I hope not. I hope you all die slow and miserable deaths (which would kinda match yer music). oh,yeah-tell Elizabeth in Louisville (the chick that was in charge of your cd-rom) that Toby says "hi".
Metta*is that somebody trying to download OUR shitty music*llica
you guys really should call up these people and thank them, cause nobody I know even likes your old crusty riffs anymore. An orchestra couldn't even make you guys sound like a band *sheesh*
Even though Metallica may be profiting off of the current situation, 99% of the other bands are not. Indeed, distribution of MP3's will only bolster sales of the bands that are not the top .1% of the pop-chart barrell. As more and more technology comes out, and more and more anti-independent artist laws (ala, the DMCA, WIPO, etc.), the recording industry will have a very scary monopolistic future, where the consumer will pay per song listening licenses, of which nearly all profits will go to the publisher- who will in turn control content and artistic control over the music. The trend in regulation may eventually turn out like the movie industry- artists are effectively not allowed to create and profit off of their work without having the hands of the publisher and government involved "protecting" the rights of the artist.
My question for Metallica is, while your suit against Napster may be good for your profits in the short term- how can you justify the long term deleterious effects of the such a lawsuit on not only the indie artist scene, but to bands such as yourself, trying to recoup any profits that have been previously taken away by the middlemen (publishers)?
I hate to say it, Metallica, but as far as I can see, you are slitting your own throats, and taking everyone else down with you.
This goes along with the rules for the information economy. It sounds freaky, but sometimes you can earn more by giving away things. For example, if you are a writer, you can publish your book on the web in its entirety because:
1) It makes you known. Not that Metallica has to worry about that, but imagine if you were an aspiring young band desperately needing publicity, then you could get a presence that would eventually grow if you planned it right.
2) While you are giving things away, it makes people want to buy stuff. It's strange, but that's how people's brains work. OK, so you're relying on the goodwill of your fellow man to buy your stuff, but it actually works.
3) If you are dealing with standards, you make yourself the standard. That's what Microsoft did when it gave away Internet Explorer for free. All of the sudden, you have become the standard. It's one of the rules for the new economy: the more you sell, the more you sell. That's why some seemingly inferior technologies are now the standard. You don't want to buy a beta VCR because you fcan't get any movies for it.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
from yahoo interview :: >Once again, thanks for the support and the >belief. Don't let anybody f*ck with you for >what you believe in! -I believe in the freedom of information, - that there will always be a outlet for the trading of information in whichever form that takes, - its pretty much inevitable. - The industry will adapt and learn to make money. Back to basics - rather than society fitting into a set business model - business will once again be made to innovate/develop itself around society. -d0pegh0st
This UID is 7651 digits too high to subjectively infer IQ from.
Have you been to paylars.com? If you have, you would notice that the site has only made about $216 dollars. Now, how many Metallica albums would that buy? I think that it's obvious that the majority public can't sympathize with your "plight". Too be honest, I think nobody cares if you can't buy that second Porsche! If this is a publicity stunt, it sure isn't well thought out. If it's not, I think it's very sad that you are bound by such materialistic values.
----Quid
Less talk, more caffeine
->Have you been to paylars.com? If you have, you would notice that the site has only made about $216 dollars. Now, how many Metallica albums would that buy? I think that it's obvious that the majority public can't sympathize with your "plight". Too be honest, I think nobody cares if you can't buy that second Porsche! If this is a publicity stunt, it sure isn't well thought out. If it's not, I think it's very sad that you are bound by such materialistic values.-
----Quid
Less talk, more caffeine
Secondly, whats your take on services like mp3.com that provide unsigned acts and musicians a place to showcase their work?
Cheers
dms0
You should feel guilty if your just watching - ATR
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I'd like to ask this question to some obvious authorities on the subject:
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Do you think that as these younger artists get signed (or at least some of them will), the support for MP3 etc will become more widespread, or do you think that the artists will sell out (nothing like a good rock'n'roll cliche!).
regards
tree_frog
My question is as follows. What is the reason you now think you are too good for your fans? I remember when Metallica first started, I heard of them from a copy of a copy of a tape someone gave me when I was about 17, Now, If I had never heard that "bootleg" tape, I would not currently have every album you have made up through load. (which BTW I am giving you about another week to come to your senses and drop this retarded suit, at which time I am burning each and every metallica CD I have, and going to call the radio station and tell them I am turning the station for 1 hour if they play a metallica song) So now I have all of your CD's, but my machine is not fast enough to record your stuff directly, so I DL it from napster. I already own all the songs, so nothing illegal is happening. but you still think your such big shit you can shut that method down? Why? So I can buy all your music yet again on MP3? Won't happen.
Just three more hours seapeople and you can finally take me away from this crappy God Damned planet full of hippies
"And if I close my mind in fear, please pry it open" In fact, words I live by. So why is it you guys "closed your mind in fear", but wont let anyone "pry it open"? Trading digital music files is a way many people get started listening to your material. Why cant this be a good thing for you?
Considering the 300,000+ people who you've indentified as trafficking your works, do you feel they would have been legitimate customers had Napster not been available to them? In other words, do you feel the 'stealing' has hurt you financially by taking away from your record sales, or is this more of a philosphical matter in that you disagree with them stealing regardless of the financial impact?
What are your ideas on why those 300,000+ people stole your works? Because they could, because they wanted them, to harm you financially, or some other reason?
Considering that people obviously want to download Metallica music, as well as that of other artists, why not use your popularity and integrity to promote the adoption of real digital music distribution? Perhaps MP3 alone wouldn't suffice, as you would want to also distribute lyrics, artwork, etc. with the music. But with a long-standing popular band as yourselves taking the lead, others would surely follow and the labels would listen.
The NY Times article mentions that you spent millions to produce and market an album, and you'd like fans to buy it. Fair enough. However, as Steve Albini has documented in The Baffler, major-label recording contracts place all the financial risk on the artists. No sensible person in any other business would sign a contract which puts them completely in debt and leaves them so little control of how their advances are spent, yet musicians do it all the time.
Wouldn't you be better off pursuing recording contract reform?
Napster are not right, but i chose that option, because i just think that metallica are very wrong. so i'd suggest to add another option, something like : Metallica are wrong.
Dan.
I don't recall ever hearing a Metallica song on the radio or seeing a Metallica video on tv before Justice. Still, you had an enormous number of devoted fans everywhere. How is it then, that you were able to achieve such stardom that early? How is it possible that the first three albums had sold so many copies with virtually no airplay? Does anyone purchase CDs without ever hearing at least a bit of the content? Surely not. So, if fans didn't hear your music on the radio, or on MTV, how did they know they liked it well enough to buy it? Because they traded "pirated" tapes. Now, tapes are obsolete, so instead, people trade MP3s. Sure, MP3s can have much better quality than tapes. Sure, they're easier to locate and trade. But the fact remains that true fans will still buy the CD.
So what's my point? You didn't seem too concerned about tape trading in the early 80's when you were living on baloney-on-hand sandwiches. In fact, I will wager that you even thought it was a great thing to have your material so widely distributed and appreciated, even if you did not directly profit from it. That's a true artist. That's the Metallica that I long for. That's the Metallica that could kick ass like no other. Now, you're attempting to shut down the very mechanism by which you have attained your own stratospheric heights. Certainly, you are popular enough today that you don't need such exposure anymore. But what will you do? Shut Napster down, turning your back on your heritage, and denying other great but currently unknown bands from benefiting in the same manner that you have? Isn't this just a case of, "We scored, now we're taking our ball and going home!"
Assumed, after Napster there came another tool for sharing music files, which avoided the tactical pitfalls of Napster (beeing a single legal entity to sue). And after that came another one, which avoided the pitfall of easy detectability. And so on.
Where would you stop ? Assumed the very existence of the internet as a free, user empowering network was at stake, and one would be forced to replace it entirely by a completely government controlled and constantly supervised network to prevent users from sharing your files - ist there a point where you would say 'No - that's not worth it ?' Or are your revenue streams an objective that justifies any means whatsoever ?
f.
Do you perceive a shift on your part? Does your audience seem to be made up of more of the record companies' "ideal" demographics now, rather than of the self-styled rebels and outcasts of the '80s?
unDees
"I call a baby goat a 'goatse.'" -- my non-Internet-savvy 6-year-old stepdaughter
Having a little problem. See i bought these tapes about 10 years ago. I had 6 by 1999 from this band called Metallica. After a long trip through the desert most of the tapes in my car melted. As anyone knows it can be difficult to buy the Ride the lightning single. So i downloaded all of the songs from the tape. Now Metallica wants me banned. What should i do?
off and out
Without sounding too cheeky, I want to make sure you guys know that you are being interviewed by a truly unique audience...
Slashdot is frequented by some of the best, brightest, and most bored members of the high tech community. Does Metallica realize that if you asked this community to HELP you build the internet music distribution center of the future, people would likely jump at the change to help you do it! Regardless of what other opinions people may have, I doubt that anybody really wants to infringe on your rights to make money on your own hard work, but we also recognize that the times they are a changin'...
As a famous and talented band, you have a unique opportunity to work with some of these talented tech folks and build something that will be truly lasting. How cool would it be to have Metallica's legacy be: "The Band brough the Music Industry into Tomorrow" as opposed to "The Band that sued thousands of its own fans"?
Just ask! You'd be suprised how many talented people would be excited to pitch in.
Metallica said during the Yahoo chat that they always have, and continue to encourage fans to bootleg and trade (not sell) the recordings. They added that there problem with Napster was the bootlegging of their master recordings that was a financial hit to them. My question to Metallica is how they feel on LIVE MP3's of them, wouldn't this be just the same as taped concerts which they support? Cracking down on Napster also discourages the trade of the bootlegged concerts they themselves support.
sqweak
"They have computers and other weapons of mass destruction" -US Attorney General Janet Reno
Given that in Canada we pay a levy on all blank audio recording media, does it not stand to reason that we've already paid for the right to copy most music onto these types of media?
Canadian Music Levy
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
Do you feel that the significant rise in profits is related to the rise in mp3 technology?
c# - Wait, it's not pronounced coctothorpe?
Here are some direct quotes from your online chat.
LARS: It's important to understand this is not about MP3 as a format. It's a vehicle that carries music, like a CD.
Q/C: So is Napster. So why the problem?
LARS: The ideal situation is clear and simple - to put Napster out of business. LARS: We're not saying that bands who want to be part of Napster should not be allowed to.
Q/C: How can you possibly reconcile these two statements? Are you trying to put them out of business, or just get Metallica off of Napster? You need to jump down to one side of the fence or the other. You can't claim both sides.
LARS: We're suing Napster for one reason and one reason because they exist to pirate music, nothing more, nothing less.
Q/C: Neat. So any band wanting be a part of napster also exists only to pirate music? Have you ever actually listened to yourself?
JASON: There is no way to have it the same quality, or to make CD's like you can off the computer.
Q/C: To do this is trivial. What do you think they use on the radio? Albums? With a decent quality reciever, and a strong signal, I can make recordings that would be nearly indistinguishable from CD.
LARS: Two weeks ago when we served Napster with a lawsuit, there was a high degree of ignorance about this issue.
Q/C: Hardly. This has been a huge issue for some time, dating back at least a year involving similar cases with DeCSS, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the MPAA, the RIAA and many others. You guys are just the first ones silly enough to act on they're behalf. Who is the "master of puppets" again?
LARS: If Napster removed "Metallica Studio Masters", It's not about interviews, or bootlegs. If they would just do that, thank you, we're done, bye bye
Q/C: Really? Ok then, you're done goodbye. Napster just banned 345,000 users. Oh but wait, you're goal is to put Napster out of business. See, I keep forgetting which side of the fence you're on at any given point in time. And, by the way, THEY DON'T HAVE YOUR STUDIO MASTERS! Your fans do, and they're using Napster (or CD copiers, or cassette tapes or some other media to share it)! You cannot stop those who are going to break the law by shutting down companies who make tools for legitimate reasons, that just happened to be used for this purpuse. Napster CAN be used for LEGITIMATE uses. You cannot sue the conduit, I don't care what some technologically incompetent judge was told by some overpaid RIAA lawyers. So if Napster banned the users trading you're music, why are you continuing with the lawsuit?
LARS: I've never been on any of these internet sites.
Q/C: Oh goody, an educated opinion. My god how can you pontificate about something you know NOTHING about?
I've read your arguments for what you're doing, yet I remain unconvinced of you're position that you're "protecting young artists". So far most of the "young artists" I've heard comments from, both personally and on news sites, etc. say a vehicle like Napster helps them get their music out. To say that you're doing this to protect them is repulsive. I believe you're doing this to protect the RIAA and you're bottom line. You're industry takes so much money from fans in the form of $15 cd's and $60-100 concerts where the beer is 6 bucks and a hot dog is 4. If you really wanted to protect the artists and the fans you'd be fighting the bastards at the RIAA like the rest of us.
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have" - Thomas Jeffeson
There seems to be a lot of division between various musicians on whether Napster is useful tool for promotion of music, or harmful by keeping deserved revenues from those artists. It would justifiably seem that there must be some benefit to these artists that support its use, which they feel greatly outweigh the negatives of potential lost revenues through album sales. Do you feel that these artists are simply blind to the potential future ramifications of software such as Napster, or do you feel that they ave a valid point in their support of its use?
I use Napster to sample music that my kids want to buy so as to detemine whether or not I want my children to listen to a specific group. If I have to pay for CD just to determine whether or not I want to throw it away, I just won't bother with that group. Of course, if any questions existed regarding your 'art', you managed to preempt them with this action in any event.
Following your logic that Napster should be sued because they are the central company who allow for the distribution of Metallica mp3's, does it not also make sense to sue companies who make CD burners? I'm sure there are plenty of people who make burned copies of your music as well.
Project Steve
Do you think that sending Napster over 300,000 names to have there accounts deleated is oing to help your cause? I would think it would make a lot of your fans that trade your music online very mad at what you guys did. On top of that those fans regularly sample your music before they buy it. I my self have download Metallica Mp3's and have later bought the album since I loved what I heard. Wouldnt this act alienate the existing internet fans that you have?
"Always remember that reality is merely the fuel for traversing the infinite plains of the imagination."
"Lady Justice has been raped truth assassin
...And Justice For All
Rolls of red tape seal your lips now you're done in
Their money tips her scales again make your deal
Just what is truth? I cannot tell cannot feel"
- Metallica,
Considering the lyrics to this song, do you feel any remorse that you have brought out the lawyers and big legal guns to solve your grievances with Napster?
I have a P2-233 processor and it takes me at least as long as the disc itself to encode (I've tried a few different encoders). So needless to say it's much more convenient for me to use napster or my.mp3.com to listen to my music.
Since I'm a regular ./ reader, a metallica fan and a napster user(why do I feel like I'm not the only one here?),I 've read the chat transcript and I wanted to know what your real motivations are? When a fan asked you about the problem that your new song was available throught Napster thought it wasn't released yet, you answered that it was not related. I'm just wondering if after all you realised that problem and got scared,and filed this suit. Besides, you say money is not an issue in this case, but you also say that you're scared of not being paid for your work (and eventually you would have to get another job to go on and make music if you were not paid tomorrow). ./ers, music fans, and anxious artists...
;) , and I also wanted to react on this "live" interview because some of the answers just sounded like let's-skip-to-the-other-question-now-that-I've-mad e-my-statement
-So, is this all about money or not?
-why do you guys, who have sold millions of albums, should care so much about money?
-and finally, don't you think there could be a way to satisfy users AND artists? Like music bands adhering to an online place where you could download for free and bands who would be partner of this place would be retributed by some kind of advertising system. All bands registered to this web system would eventually get sponsored by this entity, plus the most downloaded artists(=most listened to by users) would get more sponsoship (==money). I know its weird to combine "free" and "money" in the same sentence, but at least, on a theoric point of view it conciliates free minded
Now realise that this is not an utopia for everybody, when you think about what I said it's close to what limp bizkit is doing with napster right now: they "admit" that napster is used to trade their songs (but also to promote them), while napster supports (== partly pays) their live shows. This is not the description you metallica guys gave about limp/napster during the online chat. If you ever read this, keep up the good music, metallica. I already own all your cds, and I encourage you guys to try the napster program where you could maybe meet and hear artists that are pleased to be able to be heard by any people...(I'm not necessarily talking about limp Bizkit here!) Money is clearly not an issue for some of them, but if Napster could sponsor them it'd finally make a sense, don't you think? alhought I can understand this is quite far from some other bands 'business model'...
I can also understand this is quite long for a question submit, but after all the question is in the title
sorry for the poor english
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/04/08212 00&cid=694
here is a link to it.
It's particularly far down in the pack.
Lars, several weeks ago you said that "It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is." Given the price to produce CD'S (Less than a dollar), the price that they are sold ($15-$20), and the average cut to the artist(a dollar per CD if they're lucky), isn't putting your CD's on the shelf with a 1000+ per cent markup making your CD's a commodity? I would think that people trading your music with others to get the word out about Metallica would be appreciating it for the art that you want it to be.
Thanks for your time. I hope you guys realize that Napster helps all the little guys, which is exactly what you used to be when you were on Megaforce. Don't forget that.
Zack Adgie
---------------------------
A wise man speaks because he has something to say.
A foolish man speaks because he has to say something.
____________________________
What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
"Make me one with everything."
You name a large number of defendants. Fair use dictates that if these users own the CD, they may download the music contained on that CD. What will you say to those that you have inconvenienced by naming them a defendant in a lawsuit that does not have anything to do with them? Do you expect to see retaliation from them? (Or their lawyers?)
"I threw up my hands in disgust and wondered if it had been such a good idea to have eaten my hands in the first place."
To Metallica: The Grateful Dead was a band that actively encouraged recording and distribution of their live concert music by their fans. Throughout their history, their music sales constantly increased, and despite Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, the Grateful Dead were one of the top 5 grossing bands by touring revenue from 1990 to 2000. Do you think that the Grateful Dead's use of free copying and distribution of concert music was something that helped the band, or hindered it?
Has this changed as your act became more popular? Do you own your music?
Also, in which ways do you see technology changing the way music is bought and sold around the world (effectively making the world one market)?
How about some of new artist who would rather perform and allow their works to stand as art, and if they are payed for doing so, so be it? Do they get any recognition as an astist first, vs. the record company desiding what they think we want to hear?
And, finally, if you were starting out today as a new band, would you feel different about Napster?
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
If trading files on Napster is stealing money from your pockets, how do you account for the 8% increase in CD sales in the first quarter this year? (http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,35848,0 0.html).
Is it not possible that the free trade (not the same as piracy!) of these files could open a broader fan base, thereby bringing more money to your pockets? If you want to stop piracy sue those that are profiting off of stealing music, not kids sharing the music of their favorite bands.
All the controversy surrounding MP3s seems to be about piracy, when cd sales are on the rise and still going. There is no doubt that mp3s can be used for downloading entire cds and records illegitimately, but it seems to me that it is, somewhat akin to libraries and books, fostering a new generation of educated cd buyers, ones that will try _more_ music out and get hooked _before_ buying, rather than hearing the top 40 on the radio or whatever and only buying those. I have seen this in a great number of people, the only ones that do not buy the cds appear to be the ones too poor to do so anyway. What is your opinion of this?
Hes not been the same since he left the Shadows...
How do you justify punishing people who trade you music via MP3 when a large part of Metallica's INITIAL success was due in no small part to the underground trading of BOOTLEG tapes?
Is there a REAL qualitative difference between trading on a computer versus trading in person? Aren't the same laws broken?
If another form of software similar to Napster comes along, will there be a lawsuit against that software developer, too? Or do you hope that this one will set an example to other programmers?
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
I have read many of the interviews, the chat transcripts, the fan reactions, and other materials proliferated (sp?) around the web, and I must say that a surprising number of users, young and old alike, have given accounts of how they "discovered" Metallica through illegal mp3s, and then made several contributions to their "campaign" or "cause" or whatever through the purchase of CDs, T-Shirts, concert tickets, etc. It would seem that your PR people would kill for promotion like that, especially when it doesn't cost you anything at all. The fans themselves are fronting the costs of making the actualy copies of the songs, and they are paying for the space to host it for you. They are even paying the connection charges so the material can get out on the Internet. Maybe the whole music industry is changing, and you have inadvertently (sp?) become a catalyst for that change. Of course, making such a venture more profitable would mean you, as a group, would have to become more involved in the process. I did read the comment by Mr. Ulrich about "barely" being able to get on AOL. Maybe it's time to embrace the technology that is creating the new world most of us are growing up in (by us, I mean most Slashdot readers). Oh yeah, my question. Do you give any weight to the evidence, though it is only anecdotal at this point, that Napster users have become Metallica fans after listening to an mp3 file or two from a service like Napster, even going so far as to listening to a couple songs and then buying five or six albums, some T-shirts, and other paraphanelia? It would seem that the fan who follows this pattern (I'd estimate rougly 65-75% of the fans do) more than pays for those couple songs he got illegally, and probably paid for legitimately in the process.
-Man cannot survive except through his mind. --Ayn Rand
Say you complete shutdown napster, they give you a big lump of money, and all napster software automagically disappears of the face of the planet, what then? People will still trade mp3 files, there is web/ftp/irc/zmodem/zip disk/cd-r's/nfs/samba/email all of which can and have been used to trade mp3 files.
The Internet/networks/computer have been build to share and transfer data, it doesn't matter if the data is mp3/p0rn/top secert govement documents, the data can get transfered even if Metallica, the goverment, a pack of wolves doesn't want there data transfered, it will be, if it is good enough to be transfered.
I know people that have been trading Metallica bootleg rare mp3s for years, before napster and they will continue to trade these file, even if Metallica can legally bitch slap napster enough to stop production.
Kill napster doesn't slove the problem, does Metallica understand this?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
With so much poverty around the world, why do you implicate for an organization that make billions every year. Justice for all?
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Would you consider it a Victory if 300 000+ persons stopped listening to your music?
Je t'aime Stéphanie
radio stations pay relatively little for the right to serve your music to millions on a daily basis.
those people receiving the music often copy it onto tapes, play it for friends, blast the music out their windows while they drive the streets.
you say nothing about radio, but you're chomping at the bit to have laws passed that could literally devastate personal freedom on the internet.
i honesty think you have failed to understand the breadth/depth of the situation, and followed a course (on the advice of a lawyer) that may yield you great short term profits at the expense of long term...anything!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
All Metallica could talk about when questioned as to why they were striking at Napster, was that although they were not pleased to learn that people could obtain studio-quality copies of their music for free, they were launching their attack against Napster to represent "the artists who make music today and tomorrow and who want to continue making it the way we[Metallica] do without getting ripped off and undermined."
The image of Metallica being the "big brother" for all other bands is ridiculous. Metallica is not doing this for other people, they're doing it for the themselves and the money. Sure, they talk about how they've had free concerts in the past. But let's face it, the revenue that would be generated by these concerts if they were not free is hardly significant when compared to the yearly revenue of each member of the band. And it is definitely not comparable to the money they would gain/save if they could somehow manage to control all of the Metallica MP3s that have been obtained illegally through services such as Napster. I mean come on, if you were told that you could increase your income simply by ensuring that things you had made weren't pirated, wouldn't you try to make that happen?
But it isn't Metallica's aggresive money-earning policy that bothers me. Metallica has the amazing ability to keep grunting out incredible songs, and they are in their right to be payed very highly for it. People have repeatedly said in this posting that Metallica has been a big part of their lives. You definitely cannot say this about every band, but Metallica has actually earned everything they are asking for..
However...
Metallica claims to do this to support newer, younger bands so that a viable future can be secured for them. What newer bands? I'm sure Limp Bizkit truly appreciates Metallica's efforts.
I wonder what James, Lars, Jason and Kirk would have thought about Napster if they were a "newer" band like the ones they claim to protect in their internet chat. Many people, including Metallica I think, forget that they originally started out using a semi-legal method to distribute their music in order to get it heard in as many places as possible. No one can convince me that newer bands who don't have a label and/or money are going to skip over services like Napster because "Big Brother Metallica told me to". Obviously, Napster is the quickest and cheapest method to distribute music today. Think about it, a new band can post their songs, fire up Napster and people can download it. All it takes is for someone in the music industry to hear a tune by the band it and boom!...Metallica II. And I'm sure many newer artists consider it this way, and do not have the negative view represented by Metallica. And if this is such a good thing for younger bands, why haven't any spoken up? So how is Metallica protecting artists of future generations, and if so, where's the proof? Simple...they aren't, and there isn't any. Metallica, like many people who have experienced great successes in their life, have let it go to their head, and are trying to earn as much money as they can by exploiting a viable service just because they can make a lot of money from it.
Again, everybody, it's not so much the greed that bothers me, it's the dishonesty that does. As shown above, Metallica isn't worried about all the other bands out there. So who's left? Themselves. But they mask this greed with cleverly rehearsed statements designed to make us and the rest of the general public feel guilty. For what? For connecting to a service that allows us to not only hear our favourite Metallica tunes, but songs from other bands that we enjoy as well as thousands of up-and-comers that we wouldn't normally hear on the radio or see on MTV?
This strategy of appealing to the common person's sense of guilt is a classic P.R. strategy. People will feel guilty for doing something that's morally wrong, in this case, they're calling the action of downloading MP3s from Napster stealing. Bill Clinton employed a similar strategy in getting the public to side with him in the Monica Lewinsky affair. He was able to get the average person to actually feel sympathy for him in his position.
Metallica if you would just confess your true intent, I would be satisfied. You used to have the courage to stick up for what you believe in, even if it wasn't what society considered "right". So why won't you do it now? You certainly would show some "integrity" that you claim to have in your interview.
The answer to that is because now, it's preventing them from making more money. They'll be forced to live the life of petty, sniveling little millionaires instead of billionaires. I wish I had their problems.
What are your personal views on MP3 music as a whole? Are you in it for pure greed? Or are you in it to make a point against MP3s? Or even a little bit of both? Walter Waltz
In your interview, you stated
There is a software package called GNUtella that is freely distributed and maintained by many people who keep their identities concealed. There is no corporate involvement in the project, and the only corporate ties which the program previously had were cut by the corporation.
Although this software, much like Napster, allows users to freely transfer files (including Metallica MP3s), would you consider this to be acceptable given that there is no money being generated and no intention or capability to generate money in the future?
Your position seems awfully polished. Question about personal feelings: "How do you feel about taking legal action against your fans and admirers?"
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
If you already own the cd why would you waste time looking for mp3s to download instead of ripping them yourself? Just seems a lot easier to me.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I use audiocatalyst by Xing and it takes about 30 seconds to encode a 128k mp3. My cdrom drive rips them at 8x so another minute or two...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
-Elendale (Can think of one humorous reply to the question...)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
I first heard of Tori Amos by once talking with a friend, and a couple of months ago I listened to Fiona Apple's "Limp" song on the radio and liked the style. What did I do? I fired up napster and searched for both these artists. I downloaded about 5-6 mp3s of each artist, and guess what? I really liked them.
Enough so that at the first opportinity to be in a cd-store I bought a CD of each one of them. I still keep those mp3 that I don't own the CDs they were ripped from. I'm still a student, I can't buy all their CDs in one afternoon at the local cd store. What am I supposed to do? Erase the mp3s from my computer and only listen to those great songs when I buy the CDs a couple of months from now (which I really intend to do, $$$ permitting), or keep the mp3s as a means to keep me interested in the CD they came from?
What are Tori Amos' and Fiona Apple's lawyers supposed to do? Sue me for not paying for what I'm listening to right now? The mp3s work for me as a way to know artists, like listening to the radio, or listening to a friend's CD, to check that I like before buying. If CDs were less expensive, I could live with buying a cd only to find out later that was no good, but at the prices they are, I need to double-check before shelling out the cash.
And yes.. I was blocked out of Napster because I had some mp3s of Metallica in my system. Thank you for being so greedy. I quite like Metallica. I can't play the guitar, but I can play the first couple of minutes of "nothing else matters". I never bought a CD, as a lot of my friends had them, even complete collections, and I could always borrow them. Now, I'll delete those mp3s from my computer, but you'll never see a penny from me. Not that it matters much to you, though...
Greed.... And "nothing else matters".
I've been a long time fan of your music. I've been to 2 of your concerts (GTE Ampitheater and Hampton Colliseum). Heck, I learned to play guitar while I played out of your transcription books.
What's the deal? CD's are $20 a pop! I love your music. I like a lot of music. If you count my CD collection, it would appear that I've invested hundreds into your band JUST IN CD's. That doesn't count concert tickets and shirts! How much of that did you guys actually get to keep?
If you count all of the CD's that people have bought me and stuff, I have thousands of dollars in CD's, and this isn't even a good collection!
Heck, the fraternity I used to be in couldn't afford to keep a good collection!
Prices of CD's are outrageous. Yeah, stealing is bad, but you're really not LOSING any money, you're getting more exposure.
Why not embrace the MP3 technology and distribute in MP3 form? How much of a cut does everyone else involved take? The record companies/stores/so on.
You could deliver as MP3, for whatever you are making per CD now, and offer MUCH more reasonable prices, and still make a profit.
Eh...
I'm a huge Metallica fan. Lars is the reason I'm a drummer today. But something in an interview with James from "Behind the music" (I think) when he was talking about how he started to like the Misfits, when Cliff gave him a tape and they played it in the van all summer long, made me curious. Have any of you (Metallica) ever copied a tape, record, 8-track, CD, etc. from a friend? This is an infringement of copyright isn't it? I don't mean to make you seem evil, but is it simply the scale of Napster/mp3's that is of concern? PS I feel very bad about doing this as I tend to side with Metallica on the issue! Ian Farrell
What do you think of working with napster so people can buy the MP3s for something like 50 cents each? I know people will still download the music free, but i would like to be able to download MP3s and pay Metallica directly, instead of buying CDs. I pay less, and you get more.
The only problem is that some people don't have credit cards, so you would need a new system. If you work with banks and napster to arrange some payment system, there would be a lot of people who choose to pay to download MP3s
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
are you an idiot?
Used cds,cars,books,software were, at one time or another, bought and paid for at a retail store...and besides...the retail store is the one who pays the distributors so even if they bought 4000 cds...and ended up marking em down..the company(record) still gets it's cash.
When you encode and upload a song from a cd...you still RETAIN the copy of the cd...while another has their own digital copy. This is illegal. Plain and simple.
Think before you post.
Those against Napster state that downloading an MP3 is equivalent to stealing the CD. Proponents of Napster (as well as some artists and record label execs) have said that downloaded MP3s serve as a promotional sample, resulting in even higher CD sales. What hard evidence do you have to support your belief that Napster hurts record sales? Isn't it possible that by attempting to shut down a potentially valuable promotional tool and by threatening thousands of your fans, you are shooting yourselves in the foot?
I have to wonder why the record industry assumes everyone is immoral. If you think it's necessary to point out that "artists deserve to be paid", does that mean you think we're all sitting in front of Napster saying "screw you, unworthy artists"? I think most people above the age of 5 already realize that stealing is wrong. So why do you assume that your fans are out to get you?
You guys should ask yourself what Cliff would have done in this situation. Myself and many other fans believe it was his passing that changed the band for the worse in many ways. I don't think he would choose the path you've chosen.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
A friend of mine borrowed me some Metallica tapes (hey, he owned the LP records! :-) looong time ago, I believe it was the first two albums (Kill'em all and Master of Puppets? Is that right?). I don't like your genre at all, but being an avid listener and (sort of) musician myself, I grew respect of your work from listening those tapes. This is just to point out that I think my opinions are not biased (and may be easily edited off the question :-).
:-). And not to mention the feeling of having done the right thing, and that this added to the probability there will be a shining new release soon.
I feel very debated between the (right IMO) point of view of those feeling they are paying too much for a CD, and the fact that artists have to be payed for their hard work. As some advise, electronic distribution may be an answer, but it happens to be not just around the corner for various reasons. And stealing (yeah, stealing; be honest, that is more or less what mp3 is about - I'm not talking about napster) may or may not be a solution.
The question is: don't you think that adding value to your product may be an answer to the problem?
I can say I am a fan of Steely Dan. I knew Donald Fagen from having his solo records, but I never knew SD. Then I downloaded mp3s, found that I liked SD as much, and actually bought the CDs. I recently downloaded high quality mp3s of the new record. I could have mastered those to a very close resemblance of the original recording, but I haven't and I won't. I will buy the record as soon as I have occasion, and you can bet on it.
Want to know why? I couldn't settle for less than the higher CD quality, cover art, and (why not?) joyful feeling that Fagen's usual frown will eventually be displaced from a nice smile when he sees sales reports, even if for a little while, I suppose
I admit I'm biased on the quality/art topics, but what if the CD included videos? Yeah, you can pass that on the net as well, but what the heck. And what about promotions? Ticket discounts? What else?
Your fans are demanding more than the mere music. That's why they buy gadgets (upon which you also profit). Want to sell more CDs? Try and make them more desirable than mp3 files. You'll get only the good part of the mp3 (or tape, or whatever else) trading, and you can't deny there is a good part. It worked for Steely Dan, it will work for you.
Don't get me wrong. You HAVE to get your bucks for what you do, and that is a fact, and you ought not to be forced to do anything but release your music, that's what you're there for. You have the right to defend your property. But this may be a viable "workaround", until some decent solution comes along, stopping your listeners and fans from being ripped as much as (and probably more than) you are.
13-4=54/6
How do you feel about the fact that the record companies net almost all of the profit music makes, and the artists get very little?
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
I have purchased a number of your CD's and I really do enjoy your music, but taking a stand against napster and maybe even being the who ultimately destroys the company, you will become an enemy to the people around the world who use napster.
Is that a bad thing? I guess not, there are laws being broken and people are willfully and knowingly breaking them. So are you in the wrong, I say no, but you're not going to find too many happy people.
BTW have you ever thought of releasing some of your unreleased tracks as Mp3's on your website to prove that you don't hate computer users, you just dislike piraters.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I've been buying Metallica stuff since 1986. I was attracted by the anti-establishment - we're gonna do it our way and damned if we don't wind up making the world a little better in our wake - attitude. Metallica has always demonstrated that the best means sticking to your own pricipals and striving for excellence.
Napster, in essence, has opened a gateway for people wanting to share music on the internet. They don't make any judgements on the sharing, they simply offer a cataloging service for the internet community as a whole. No one can comment on their future actions as they havn't occured yet and have no legal bearing.(Jason has made comment to the "what about in five years" thing)
Anyone and everyone has formed their own gateway of sorts and trade mp3s through them.
Then we have the MPAA and the RIAA who have been involved in a lot of recent dodgy cases and heard to utter words to the effect of "we need to get this case through - it's a test case" on at least one occasion.
Is it the case that Metallica have been caught up in some sort of brainwashing excercise, have simply sold out, or were always just full of shit?
Get the Hell off my planet, you slimy mobster Bush!
It would seem to me that your understanding of the medium of the Internet is not thorough. The entire concept of the Internet is freedom: Freedom to transmit and share both legal and illegal items, to have complete free speech, and to communicate with others in any form possible. Bringing a lawsuit against one of the companies that upholds these principles is like tyranny against a free country. If you do not want people trading your music on the Internet, then you must change the concepts upon which it subsists. To do that would be a far greater pursuit than that which you are attempting and I don't see any success in that. If you want total freedom on the 'net, you must accept both the legal and illegal, moral and immoral, good and evil. Otherwise a legal system for the 'net will prevail and gone is that freedom.
Do you sincerely hope to change the overriding freedom and principles of the Internet with your lawsuit?
************ ORANGE 210 ************
could you explain please exactly how napster works again? you said in a recent interview that napster "takes your music". how does napster do this? it's a website, right? i've never heard of any websites like that. . .but it sounds pretty cool. i'm assuming that since you are suing them they must have a centralized server somewhere with lots of your music stored online, free for the taking. do you know the URL?
AWESOME FUCKING IDEA.
I wish the bands would think of this. Get the hit off the album out and let everyone hear it.
If I end up in their ill-concieved lawsuit, you'd better believe my lawyer will be on their ass.
As they once said, Fight Fire With Fire.
Please, God, let this be the one question the band themselves hear. Let them connect to the fans I know they love and realize what their manager and lawyers are doing to us and them. This is all we really need.
My questions is if all this hastle has cut back on sales of all those annoying metallica tshirts. Maybe if we could get all the burnt out rockers to start ordering from copyleft and made a napster logo in the metallica font we could make a killing.
The napster users that you are suing for listening to your music are your fans. Aren't you afraid that you are going to offend them?
BlackNova Traders
Are there any more?
BlackNova Traders
Do you really think this lawsuit can possibly help you? Even if you win, you lose -- you lose the trust and respect of your fans.
Have you forgotten that each of those 335,435 napster users just wanted to hear your music?
You can never equivocate too much.
________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"
Why are you guys being such assholes ?
I think a lot of this whole situation involves some misunderstandings on everybody's part. Let me explain: First, the members of Metallica seem to be a little uninformed about this case, which makes me think that their wonderful managers have shown them the evils of Internet distribution. They've claimed in the chat and interviews that they would gladly drop the case is Napster would "remove Metallica's Studio Masters from their server". Anybody who has ever used Napster knows that this is impossible. The way Napster is setup just doesn't provide a way to filter such things. Any attempt to stop the music from being traded would probably end with fans changing the names of the MP3's to get around it. I also don't see Napster losing the same way MP3.com lost, because they don't actually have the music on their servers. MP3.com lost because they were distributing music that they bought one license for and then redistributed it to thousands. If that was right or wrong is not the question; it does violate current copyright laws. I think the band needs to understand that Napster does not function in the same way and (unfortunately) it's ultimately the "fans" that are housing and distributing the music. In Metallica's defense however, I do understand that they have copyrights to worry about. They cleared up a lot of questions that I had with the chat through ArtistDirect. I think a lot of questions that people are asking would be best answered by reading the transcript. I was glad to read from the that they were not interested in going after the 300,000+ users using Napster. They also said they still hold their stance on taping shows (it's ok) and that MP3 distribution of live material is fine with them (this is also in the chat transcript) Finally, they stated that they were *not* against MP3 as a format. To me that says that somebody's concern about making MP3's to listen to in their car is not an issue. So I guess my question from all of this is: It can be said that the only purpose of Napster is to traffic music, most of which is copyrighted. What will Metallica's stance be on new tools that will develop that will allow sharing of *any* information? Some of these tools are already here (Gnutella) and will only improve over time. Will Metallica take a stance that will impede free speech to stop the *possibility* of infringing on copyrights?
When did you decide to make the change from being a kick ass metal band to the corporate whores you are today?
Hence, I would strongly suggest pointing them to the Gnutella home page and the Freenet home page. The what is Gnutella? stuff is a little hard to find on their page, and should perhaps be pointed out directly.
It might be well to provide short synopses as well... just in case they, like so many /.ers, aren't inclined to read before posting. ;-)
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
In the liner notes to your Garage, Inc. CD, the author notes that "[James Hetfield] was astounded by the size and specialist depth of [Lars] Ulrich's [record] collection. It was, Hetfield says plainly, 'fucking huge....I would stay over at his place for days at a time, making tapes of his records and sleeping on the carpet.'" (Empasis added.)
How do you reconcile your current stance toward copying and trading music with your previous history of doing exactly that?
(I would caution that arguing the sheer volume of napster downloads would fail due to the 'slippery slope' principle.)
Do you find it more objectionable for people to make available full albums of material through services such as Napster than to make just the singles publicly available? Also, do you see a live concert bootleg as being just as bad as a studio album when it comes to trading online?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Does this mean Metallica is answering questions, or that their publicist and/or lawyer is going to do all the talking?
circa75.com
Why are you doing this? I can only see two reasons.
1. You have just offended 300,000+ fans. Since you are a business (tell me you're not in it for the money) you must think that the revenue from the CD sales you'll get from your mp3s not being online will be higher than the lost revenue from the offended fans.
2. You are just puppets. A weapon wielded by the big boys in an effort to squash the users of napster.
I suspect the latter. #2 is more likely because the amount of money you would make from the extra sales probably would not be greater than the lost revenue. You are a big name band. You have a big enough name to scare universities away from napster and even some kids. The "Big Boys" can afford to lose some money from this incident because the extra money generated from all of their signed bands is almost assuredly more than the money you will lose from the alienated fans.
All I have to say is so much for being a rebel band.
My Home: Apartment6
A lot of rock bands that have been appearing on VH1 lately talk about how they're live performers first and studio artists second. If this is really Metallica's impression of themselves as artists, then one could infer that the band's art is not just the music but rather the perfomance of that music. If the premise is true, then the band is only selling half the package in their studio albums. Do you think that it may be time for artists to stop thinking of studio albums as their main artistic endevors but rather as promotional items to sell tickets to the concerts?
Check out the cover booklet from the Garage Inc. CD! They say so right in there!!
:)
"I would stay over at his house for days making tapes of his records and sleeping on the carpet"
- James Hetfield, talking about the early years with Lars from the liner notes of the Garage Inc. CD
Why, the fscking hypocrites!!
---
Impossible means no one's done it yet.
In your Note from the Band at artistdirect.com, you make the following statement:
But it seems to me that the artists who don't have the resources to fight Napster are the artists who wouldn't want to fight them anyway. I know several people in independent bands who love it when their music is traded on Napster. To them, it's free publicity; it's more people coming to their live performances, it's more people telling their friends how much they love the band's music.
I contend that the only artists who would conceivably benefit from stopping bootlegging are well-known artists with major label contracts whose music is distributed widely in retail stores--in short, artists with the resources to fight legal battles--and I'm not convinced it's even in their best interests. Word of mouth is a powerful advertising medium for popular artists too.
As far as I can see, the entities who stand the most to gain from stopping piracy are the record companies, not the artists. As a band who sued your own record company, how do you feel about that?
Your "Orion" and "Call of Ktulu" instrumentals were pretty good. Will you be making more of those? Please do!!
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
With free promotions, labels and artists get upwards sales without the need to promote themselves.
Think who had the control over promotions before the digital music revolution...
Radio, music television, record stores, graphic artists, web sites, poster fabricators: my point here is with free promotion the ones who truly lose are the middlemen.
Are individuals such as these and pressure from the business losses in the absence of corporate promotions motivating the attack on Napster and this INNOVATIVE company's users?
Metallica, escuchame! Cut out the middlemen and deliver the great profits to the artist and superb costs to the listener. You've always seemed to be about bringing down talentless powers to make way for brilliant new ones. Don't let this issue spoil the respect you pulled before giving in to your label and trying to turn your talents into a business venture.
All the justice painted green... --Metallica?
.: 2+2 = PI SQRT(1+N)
--
Have any of feedback from the fans affected your
standings in these matters in any way?
I have seen many intelligent comments and opinions
. Regardless of their being for or against you,
have you guys ever been moved, even a little bit,
by the voices of your fans?
My question is of a personal nature. Since most of the world is comprised of people who will work until the day they die in order to keep paying bills, how easy is it to forget what life was like before celebrity-dom? In other words, if you are a megamillionaire, what do you care if someone who makes $300/week gets your tape for free rather than pay $17 for it? Many rock stars/rap stars today talk about keeping it real, but suing your fans because they are trading tapes of your stuff? Do you feel like you have lost touch with the "common person"?
bjord.org
news from the revolution
First of all: I don't like your music very much, but who cares since millions of people do. I'm just saying this so no one will be mistakenly saying I'm posting this cos "Metallica Rocks Ass, dude!"
I just read the chat transcript and thought you (or your lawyers, who cares?) had some good points:
Napster is a big machine funded by big money. They are trying to smokescreen everyone into thinking this is a free thing for the fans. It's a cheap ploy, in trying to associate free and Napster together. Napster is a big machine. The person who invented Napster is an employee of the big machine as we speak.
You're absolutely right, Napster is trying to become a big corporation by facilitating piracy. You didn't make it absolutely clear, however, why you're going after 300,000 users instead of Napster directly. You're backed by a big, wealthy company. Why don't you just take Napster the company to court and sue their balls off over facilitating an illegal activity, i.e. piracy? You said it was because Napster dared you to find users who shared copyrighted Metallica songs, but why bother taking the (costly, i would imagine) detour to go after the users if you could have just dragged Napster to court and be done with it?
This is not a change in attitude whatsoever. WE have always and will always continue to condone allowing people to record our concerts, to freely trade live concerts, interview. This is not what it is about, it's about the master recording that we have recorded and written and clearly own.
Actually, that makes a whole lot of sense, though you can't possibly maintain that you yourselves, way, way back when you were poor, have never copied a copyrighted album before... again, go after the company, and you would have my sympathy, as well as the sympathy of your fans, I'd guess. Is it really worth it to alienate people who are your fans over something like this?
They could have asked us, and we could have shared in the distribution and it could have been done properly.
That's probably the most constructive remark I've heard in this debate so far. Have you actually asked Napster to cooperate in a scheme like this, where they would pay for every copy of a song that got pirated through their service, and maybe have their users pay for these expenses as a kind of monthly subscription at all? How about dragging them to court if they refuse a scheme like this to enforce it?
That's it. I'm off to listen once more to the Buzzcocks songs I just downloaded through Napster. Guess which cd's I'm going to buy tomorrow....
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
I read through the transcript of the chat that was done and one thing became painfully obvious to me. Not a single one of you have any idea what's going on. You've been told that people are stealing your music. You've been told that by suing napster you can hope to stop this terrible level of piracy. But has anyone ever explained to any of you the technical side of the situation? Sure, hearing the lawyers advice is all well and good, but I seldom trust them when they DON'T have their own money at stake. So I guess the basic idea of the question is: Does Metallica even care enough to get a clue, or are they blissfully happy in their technical ignorance?
Have any members of Metallica ever owned an illegal recording of someone elses music...?
Tape/bootleg/CD etc
aren's you guys (metallica) afraid that the whole thing will backfire?
i mean, you might get money, shut down napster or the trading of your mp3's on napsters ends but aren't you afraid that your actions will piss off so many people that your cd sales will go down?
from what i've seen/read so far, voices that "metallica sucks" (www.metallicasucks.com)are getting more and louder since the attack on napster.
I believe that mp3s raise the bar on musicians. Rather than spend money on a mediocre CD and then turn it back around and sell it to a pawn shop, I can download mp3s to see what I want. Frequently, when I like a CD, I go out and buy it. I believe that with many people following this model, the pressure is on for musicians to put together a good CD, not just a good single and wrap it up with another half dozen mediocre tracks. Do you believe it is essential to maintan the standard of exposing your best material into luring purchasers or would you be willing to accept the challenge of producing a good, full length CD knowing that people would buy it? And lastly, are you so hard up for money that you need to confront your fans and take it by force?
I own every Mettalica CD sold in the US, and have downloaded many dozens of songs. Does that make me any less of a fan? NO! Will I still go see them in concert? YES! Do I respect them as much as I used to..........
Did you guys realize that you'd lose a good number of your fan or potential fan base?
If just 30,000 (around 1/10) people actually bought your CD, you'd get around $540,000. Seems like it may've been more beneficial to rethink your strategy than to just demand that Napster bans all users who you've collected usernames of.
Also, what about possible legal issues? Perjury...after all, you probably can't absolutely verify every single name on the list, can you?
Additionaly, why not just ask Napster to ban all Metallica music rather than its downloaders; that'd stop the problem at its source.
------------
Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
Piracy by students, deadbeats and sociopaths is nothing new and was done long before napster and will continue long after napster.
The old world establishment is certainly threatened by the amount of freedom the internet is capable of bestowing on individuals and as a consequence they have launched an extensive propaganda campaign. All we read about lately from the government and organisations such as the RIAA and MPAA is that something has to be done about piracy and cyber criminals. There solution is to turn the internet from a place of (relatively) free exchange of information into a 'big brother' network. Essentially changing the world wide web into the world wide prison. Of course this is justified because they are after all fighting cyber crime. Are you personnaly comfortable with the implications of your law suit and the likely ramifications and why is this issue so important for Metallica that it is willing to stick it's neck out so far for what seems in my opinion is the RIAA's fight anyways?
I'd also like to know how they collected this data; Was the means of data collection legal, or were they basically pulling some NSA-style spook sh*t?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This really isn't Metallica's responsibility. While I'm hardly a stickler for paying for all the music one listens to, in the end this is Metallica's IP and Metallica's Revenue stream, and the law says that you can't have the data without paying for it.
In essence, it doesn't matter whether Metallica makes it possible for you to buy MP3s or not, if you copy them without permission (and you don't own the media they came from originally - more on this in a moment) then you are breaking the law. Period.
Notably, if you have one CD that has a song on it, you are probably technically not entitled to that song from a DIFFERENT ALBUM. I doubt this has ever gone to court, but if someone really pisses off a label, I think it probably will. Unless the versions are dramatically different, however, mp3 artifacting will make it impossible to prove in court if the defense has a good lawyer and a reasonable expert witness.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My other first post is car post.
As I would have to pay fifteen quid to buy a Metallica album, is it true that 'I can't believe the price you pay'?
And when Lars said of Napster 'I've never been to one of those websites', would you agree that 'Arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand'?
---All rights reserved. Copying and swapping these quotes strictly forbidden.---
----------------------------------
What are the weapons of happiness?
Several times during the Yahoo chat, it is stated that Metallica needs to be able to control the distribution of its music.
As you know, guitar rock is the most unpopular it has been in years. Billy Corgan outlined a paradigm for distributing material in a re cent interview that would release EPs every 3 months. He has reached the opinion that "the editing process is inconsequential," and says "even amongst the crap there's still something to be heard. That's why I buy bootlegs, or Picasso's sketchbooks."
Metallica obviously thinks that something like this would be ineffective, and wants to control its music. What advantages do you believe the current distribution method has over the hypothetical one above?
"Napster is a big machine funded by big money. They are trying to smokescreen everyone into thinking this is a free thing for the fans. It's a cheap ploy, in trying to associate free and Napster together." - James from artistdirect.com chat
and
"This is not a service that they're offering for the good of man kind, to spread love and music. They're doing it for potential IPO's for alignment with a big company where there will be a major cash transfer to the investors. This is about money. " - Lars from artistdirect.com chat.
So, once Napster is 'gone' and all the hundreds of thousands of people using Napster switch to using another program that is not owned by any company but was created by a collective of people on the Internet... Then what? It's no longer about money. It's no longer about IPOs. It's now about the love of music (Or at least it's against having to pay $19.95 for a CD for one song..) Then what?
It will be back to the days in the 80s of 'mixed tapes'. Where every stereo had two tape decks because consumers demanded it. (And they weren't copying their own tapes.. Let's face it. Everyone was copying the 'one good song' off of their friends tapes. And, even today, I can't tell the difference between an original and a 1st generation copy of a tape).
What then? Are you going to go after the 100,000s of people still 'illegally' trading your music around?
You state that you aren't doing this for the money, but in the same breath you say that other occupations would never give away their services for free... make up your mind...
My question: You have said that you are not technically advanced, do you realize what this decision is going to do to the internet?
i love music and think music is a wonderful thing... I think that Metallica is a wonderful band... who makes great music, but if you win this battle against Napster, you are no longer musicians, you are no longer artists, you become simply a thorn in the side of technology... you will lose many, many fans... and most of all you will lose respect...
The reply, from "jaymz" and I think "kirk" was "We don't give a f***!".
My question :
1) Did this interview really take place, or is this guy just basically putting words in your mouth? (I've seen enough bogus "quotes" to take that kind of stuff with a grain of salt).
2) If it did take place, what made you change your opinion? Was it just that piracy wasn't as rampant at that point? Was it that you didn't have a solid grasp of the technology, and have since grown to understand it better? Did corporate reel you in? Or something else entirely?
---------------
I just wanna add that I've been a Metallica fan for a long time. I own (almost) all of your albums, have been to several shows, and my favorite t-shirt in the world is a ragged-out old "Ride the Lightning" tee. When I saw that quote, I felt proud to support a band who thought it was important that a depressed kid hear "Fade to Black" and know that he's not the only one in the world who's felt that way. A band who felt it important that someone mulling over the realities of war could hear the inciteful commentary of "Disposable Heroes" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls". A band who put the message and the music before the buck. Everyone needs to make a living, but for God's sake, you don't need to cut the throats of kids who just wanna hear your message in the process.
I've been a Metallica fan for a long time. I've been a geek for longer. Please don't draw the line, and don't make me choose.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Since it appears that Metallica et al. don't dig the shareware try-before-you-buy model at all, what would they think of a crippleware/demoware model for music distribution, like the one at http://www.destinympe.com/ perhaps?
So my inquiry is this: Does Metallica (& affiliates) make more money from concerts or CD sales? I put this in the context of a year that a new CD is released, that a tour is held, and from sales of older CD's. Given that, how much is lost because people might not buy a CD, instead trading an MP3? How much could be gained, from new 'fans' that can now listen to the studio-produced music and decide to attend a concert?
Cryptomancer
I would support the artist I liked, even if their art were made free, so that there would be more.
Yes, we understand these tags always apply: fud, dupe, typo, slashdotted, topic name
Please don't tell me for one second that prior to being "famous" and/or signing a record deal, that you guys never made a a tape in your lives. I'm sure after hearing this that your lawyer is going have you "not respond" to this question. -the truth hurts sometimes...
ASCAP/BMI already charge fees to radio stations (and other music users), and distribute those fees to publishers and songwriters -- which, these days, are often the artists themselves. They're already getting involved in internet music licensing. It wouldn't be difficult to keep a tally of how many Metallica songs get downloaded, and make payments accordingly. Napster or its competitors/replacements would have the option of passing the cost of licensing fees onto customers (charging for access) or advertisers.
It might take a bit of tweaking -- changing ASCAP/BMI's mandate so that it pays artists as well, instead of just the songwriters/publishers -- but wouldn't this be a fair and workable solution for everyone?
Carousel is a lie!
can you please pinpoint the exact moment when you changed from rock musicians to camera ready rock stars?
THANX!
James, Lars, Kirk and Jason,
As an avid fan and slashdot reader, this fight has been interesting for me to follow. On one hand, the "live free or die" attitude has appeal, and on the other hand, your Brunching Shuttlecock's letter and the chat transcript were interesting. I especially liked your reference to the "'we don't suck' money".
My Question Is This:
Why not embrace the MP3 format for *your* music as well? If you'd (and other artists) set up a content delivery system where we could buy a single at a time? Or is the POINT of a CD to push out the songs that might not be as strong as others? I'm not targeting Metallica specifically with this, just a general thought. Another problem is the high cost of CD's - barring the fact that this *is* still piracy on the software part, perhaps the RIAA should be targeted for piracy and racketeering as well - for CD prices.
Cheaper prices, or a new method would both improve this situation.
Don't shun Napster or it's like - understand it and work to make Napster/the like *not as accessible or viable as an alternative*.
It also appears that you (according to your chat) are allowing the DL'd music to stay on people's machines as long as they don't trade it.
A gracious move, and one that will soothe a lot of bruised egos and "hurt feelings".
Metallica, you made (and still make) some great music - but please don't isolate your fan base by intimidating them.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
A friend of mine was one of the 335,000 napster users that were kicked off recently. The funny thing was, he didn't have any metallica mp3s that were copyrighted. He was sharing a live recording of enter sandman and some live performance of the charlie brown theme. Obviously if he was booted for this, metallica should look at how careful they are being in their zealous persecution of napster users. And when your static IP gets banned for doing nothing wrong, you often get a bit angry. PS: He did get back on napster after about 2 days despite having a static IP because its REALLY EASY. So a few words to metallica: The internet community is ALWAYS smarter than and at least three steps ahead of you and your lawyers. I advise changing your approach on the matter, not trying to control the actions of millions who care a whole lot more about their freedom than your music. Remember the california grape boycott? Perhaps a metallica boycott...
Yo fellas - I understand what your doing as far as your studio stuff goes. At one point I owned all your CDS. After a car breakin - I have embraced MP3's. However I just wanted to say thanks a lot for not going after people with your live stuff.. The new Years show rocked!! Wish I could have been there
Hey, I thought that Jerry Seinfeld was the highest paid freely distributed entertainer, oops, guess not. You Metallica boys feel you need to get out and show how anti-anti society you are. Television and radio are probably the oldest 'freely distributed' mediums, and I hadn't heard of Jerry Seinfeld suing every VCR owner for taping his episodes, and passing them on... hey I mean I could go and see his stand up act, and pay money to do that... I could buy his comic tapes, and on and on, but where would I see him for the first time? The first time I heard of Jerry Seinfeld was when his show aired on TV. The first time I heard of Metallica was on a cassette tape COPY of Master of Puppets. Hmmm I guess I shouldn't have borrowed that tape... then you wouldn't have profited from me purchasing every album you've put out. Well, thanks for listening, I'm off to find a new band to idolize for their morals... Maybe Rage Against the Machine... oh wait, I just heard they made nice with the machine... it seems to be doing their laundry. regards, Benjamin Carlson
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
Many bands have openly embraced the online musical revolution, making their music available online (in RealPlayer format if not mp3). Artists such as Slipknot have even released new songs directly online in mp3 format. This certainly doesn't seem to have hurt the artists or their record sales at all, as Slipknot's album is currently number 54 on the Billboard charts (Metallica's S&M is 93). I can think of several other bands who have released entire albums online in mp3 format (along with selling them in the real world). It's fairly well known that one of the best ways for bands (esp. metal bands) to grow is through word-of-mouth. By transferring music files through a program such as Napster, word-of-mouth becomes even more efficient. I can think of several bands that I heard were good, downloaded some of their songs (some even from Napster), purchased the CD, and then went and saw them when they came to town. You stated in you online interview that the goal of this lawsuit is to shut Napster down. This is a futile exercise since Napster clones already exist and mp3s are here to stay. Why do you think that fighting this new technology is better for you, your music, and your fans than embracing it? Those artists who have don't seem any worse off.
"Truth is like a tragedy" -Coal Chamber
Do you think that if a situation occurred (as did happen to me lately), and my original Metallica CD was damaged (stepped on and shattered), that I should not be allowed to use a service such as Napster to recover my "now useless" music? When you purchase a CD, are you purchasing the actual plastic, or the right to use the material ON that plastic? If it is the latter of the two, then I would think that this would be a valid use of Napster, and going after EVERYONE would NOT be feasible. Jay Kramer jay@mojomole.com
"What's this script do? unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep Hint for the answer: not everyth
Well put. I'd had stirrings of similar thoughts in my feeble little mind but lacked the eloquence you've demonstrated to put it down (or up).
I also toyed with the thought that some of the antagonism here is a reaction to a perception that someone is trying to halt the advance of technology. Which for this group is never going to be acceptable.
Metallica has said repeatedly that they don't have a problem with the MP3 format as a whole just how it's being used.
That being said though I still think that they are grossly misinformed (as someone else said) about what's happening. They simply don't understand.
I hope your post gets a +5 mod and makes it to the band.
It really seems like you guys have sold out. When your first few albums came out, whether you realize it or not, your name was spread by people passing tapes around. Not only that, but admit it - you guys were all poor starving musicians at one time, and I don't think you could tell me with a straight face that you guys never made copies of someones albums or tapes in order to practice a song. You guys have done a lot of covers. Well, I was in a band once, and here's how it works. Everyone gets a tape from the person who owned the album. Then we all learned the song. Are you going to tell me that you didn't ever do this?
Given the fact that you guys once did this yourselves and that your own music was spread in this fashion, how can you justify your actions? You guys should get a clue about the internet and realize that passing your music around is only helping your sales, not hurting them.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Do you really believe this is about being ripped off?
With CD's costing less then a buck or two to produce, and then being sold for 20+ dollars, who is ripping off whom? It perplex's me to understand why you aren't spending your money making sure the Entertainment Industry (who regularly posts billion dollar profits) isn't ripping you off.
Worse still, are you sure that the fine name Metallica isn't being used as as puppet to front a battle that others are too cowardly to fight. I mean it doesn't really matter if you lose support, for fighting a battle that will alienate millions of fans, by going against the will of consumers. On the otherhand, the company you work for isn't going to lose face in this if you piss people off - they still get their cut.
I have always bought CD's and taped the songs I liked for friends. This provision is covered by Law in the Acceptable Use clause. My Friends would then turn around and buy the CD's that contained the songs they liked because I would them them the CD was worth owning and there were other good song on the CD worth having.
However without this word of mouth I have purchased CD's of song's I'd heard on the radio, figuring that if one song was good their must be more on the CD. Unfortunately, there are one hit wonder bands out there that produced 'a good song' and not much else.
To discover that a CD only contains one good song is an expensive lesson to learn. It is a lesson that profits the Entertainment Industry but not Metallica, so why would you risk alienating the hundreds of thousands of fans that support you and your music by fighting a battle that probably isn't yours to fight?
Come on, do you really believe your are being ripped off? Don't you think that perhaps Napster might not have uses you could benefit from with proper use. Isn't it possible to reach out to your audience more directly through programs such as this without hurting the consumer or bloating the pockets of the executives in the entertainment industry?
I read your live chat interview over at Yahoo and you gained a lot more respect from me when I found out it wasn't just about the money. From what I derived, one of your fundamental concerns is that you want to have control of the way your music is presented. I feel this is actually a noble cause, but I also think you're fighting for something that doesn't exist. Napster is just a conduit and there are more less-centralized (less law suit-able) conduits out there. What makes you think a successful law suit of Napster will give you any more control? Wildmage
------
wildmage
Memoirs of a Mad Scientist
What if I bought a tape or record and already paid you guys? You later release your art in a format (CD) that is technologically superior. I shouldn't have to pay you twice, but I did. My Metallica CD "And Justice for All" was stolen my freshman year in college. I even filed a formal police report about it to the college I was going to. Now all I have is the tape. Now, I could choose to listen to the tape and even convert it to MP3 file format OR get an improved quality above tape via Napster. The only difference between my Kill 'em All tape and CD is quality. Now, you have to pay for increased quality of recording between tape and the available CD. That makes the cd more valuable (which I begrudgingly understand). There is an obvious value attatched to that discrepancy. Since, however, MP3 files are not distributed by the record companies, there is not value. That's right. NO VALUE. You can extrapolate that the value would between the quality difference of the cd (whatever that dollar value is) and 0 (which is the quality of the tape to the person who has already purchased the tape). Since that value has not been determined (totally indefinite), no value can be attatched to the recording to the user.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
It's very interesting that you would get the names of 335,000 users who have your music available for trading online and you automatically assume that they are all pirates. How is it that you can jump to such an accusation having done absolutely no investigation and having no idea whether any of these 335,000 people do own the cd's and have the right to have an mp3 copy of the music? It's important to remember that all Napster users are under an agreement that obeying copyright laws is the responsiblity of the downloader. They commit no piracy by simply having your music available.
Surely these people stand to lose more than you? After all, they might actually need the money.
Perhaps in some countries, where your songs are banned, the internet allows people access to them. Is that not protecting your rights as an artist to be heard?
I understand the suit only names US Napster users at the moment. I guess I'll just wait to be sued when you get around to it.
What would you guys do if people started distributing MP3's of bootlegs (just like way back when with tapes/etc)? Certainly this would be no different. Would you still endorse bootlegging of this sort?
- Leam who enjoys every minute of the insanity he suffers!
Since you guys have the influence to make major changes in the music industry, will you use the current publicity to promote transfer of digital music that preserves artists' copyrights?
I just read the chat transcript over Artistdirect and I was wondering... if this crusade is only against Napster
why the hell did you break into 334+ thousand of users privacy and threatened to prosecute?? This was WAY beyond the line and I would love to know what do you think this will accomplish?.
I think you guys shot yourselves here, making enemies where you don't need them...the consumers itself.
You better not go blind into this trusting your managers cause you could end up in pretty bad shape thanks to those suckers...and they won't give a damn about it, I'm sure they only care about you because of your $$$.
Loose touch with your fans...aka 'customers' and you will do great...(sarcasm...)
.oo00OO
As an individual hosting web pages I am currious as to the reason WHY you havent set up or had set up a page or pages to sell your music?
This would be a technicaly easy thing to do, you would get all (or at least virtualy all) of the profit, you could "control" the release of it and the format it was released in (album or individual song or both).
This seams to me to be the best move for you. It would make alot of your fans happier andprovide an example for others.
Over all, I was curious as to the reason it isnt more widly done by you or other musicians?
You have stated that you are currently looking into methods of online distribution; you have also stated that you feel that you, as a respected band, must get up and take a stand for your rights. Instead of trying to delay the inevitable, then, and at the same time leaving yourself open to getting hurt by the above scenario, why not act as a leader right now and begin the revolution -- from the inside -- to the paid online music distribution model? If anyone is in a position to do this, it's Metallica. If Metallica can prove that paid online distribution can work with its fan base, then it will have shown that it can work with anyone's. It would entail taking a risk, yes; but sticking with the record-company model doesn't seem exactly safe either.
Has Metallica considered the future from this perspective and the possible courses of action, and if so, what are your plans in this regard?
Soy el plátano! No tengo gusto de monos!
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!
Ok, the starting of metallica was rough, being a metal band in the 80's had many challenges, and the hardest thing was getting your name out there so that people actually know who you are. If i recall correctly, the biggest way that metallica really got started was by giving out bootlegs of thier material, or letting bootlegs of live concerts go around to the public. Why didn't they stop it right there? Because it helped them too much. The way i see it, napster is a great way for new bands to get started and to get some recognition. I think we all know that MTV won't play metal bands because they are too concerned about luring in 13 year old girls with all thier boy bands. Me personally, i've downloaded a couple of CDs from napster, and if i really liked the music, i went out and actually bought the CD. Since i've started using napster, i've actually bought MORE CDs, because i've heard of a lot of newer bands, and was able to listen to thier music before i bought it. anyways, my question is, by doing this, don't you think it's going to hurt smaller bands that don't have that much recognition instead of helping them?
Let me say first that I agree with Metallica's legal rights as far as Napster and trading of copyrighted music. What I don't agree with is the business sense.
When I was 13 years old, (1985) a friend of mine gave me a dubbed cassette of "Ride the Lightning", and I was an instant fanatic. When I told him how much I liked it, he also dubbed "Kill 'em All" for me. When I finally had the income for it, I bought both of those on cassette, along with "Master of Puppets", and eventually everything Metallica ever made (until recently) on CD.
If it had not been for the original "illegal" copy that I obtained, I would never have bought anything, nor do I think would most of the people I know that were into Metallica back then. I can say for a fact that there are several people that I introduced to Metallica in the same way.
I am convinced that this was pretty much the way Metallica got to be as big as they are today. Does the band feel that this is not the case? And if not, how do they think they gained their popularity?
-Tommy
------
"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
How is this different then when you were starting out, like "Kill 'Em All", and you covered other peoples "Art" like King Diamond? You know people thought that it was your music.
"I think you know what I'm talkin' about, Mr. President; We're gonna kill us a mummy!" - Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley
It follows that those dowloading and exchanging your music are your own fans, so why are you trying to alienate them by punishing them?
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
I'd seen a few t-shirts and heard some buzz but there was no way in hell our radio stations were going to play anything like what you guys were doing then.
14 years olds don't have much in the way of cd buying money either.
I heard your stuff from tapes made of tapes made of tapes. I loved it, i was hooked.
And when i had cd buying money it was your cd's i bought.
Can you tell me how Napster is any different from the cassette copying that made you what you are today in spite of the "mainstream" opinion?
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Metallica. 1. This is negative publicity. Not good. 2. As most people know, there is no real loss for you in people downloading MP3. Those who would buy your CDs otherwise do so anyway, and those that wouldn't, well... This lawsuit won't help that, neither will anything else.
Wait a minute, I believe I've heard of a band called Metallica before. They wrote this song called "... And Justice For All" back in the '80s that would apply nicely to this situation, and it was against what this band is trying to do. Hmm... So here's my question: Are you that same band (doubtful)? Or are you some imposter who ripped off the old Metallica's name?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
In your statements you claim to oppose napster not because of the money but because of the lose of artistic control. I am sure other posts will cover the specifics about how downloading an mp3 vs. ripping it has any effect on your control of the content but my question is more basic.
There is a long and grand tradition modifying and creating commentaries on great works...think of the variations on classical pieces. Moreover many people might claim that being able to modify and engag in constructive refinement of our culture is a sign of a vibrant society.
So, irrespective of payment, what is your opinion on modifications (like wierd al songs) and the evolution of your material if it is properly labeled.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
It is now easy for your fans, once they have
acquired a copy of your music, to share it
freely with friends. Regardless of Napster's
fate, or the fate of other distributed
sharing mechanisms available today, this fact
will not change. Piracy will only become
simpler.
It seems that the method by which artists
get paid for thier music is going to have
to change fundamentally because:
1 - Distribution cannot be controlled
2 - Only a small fraction of people
are willing to pay for something
which they KNOW they can get for
free anyway.
Does Metallica have any alternative ideas
on how artists can make money in such an
environment?
Thanks,
Chris
Setting aside the legality of the parties' actions, because the law is not the limit, and forgoing any moral implications toward all involved, because none of us here are really moral enough to know what we would be talking about, this is about productivity, progressiveness, and highest good.
The RIAA having effectively poured cement shoes for the service My.MP3.com, possibly the only service actively trying to preserve the recording industry's interests, two co-existing movements are further aligned: users previously [and for the time being, still] able to listen to albums, the rights for which they have paid, online will shift to services such as Napster, Gnutella, FreeNet, etc. which do undermine the standard capitalist music/entertainment industry, partially in retaliation, and partially because of no other alternative; the entertainment industry in return will have a clearer view toward and more ammunition for the support of possibilities like ultimate control of the entire life of a piece of "art", from conception to sales to use, and even secondary sales.
Many argue this system is not sustainable unless it is totalitarian, but the risk is too great, and for any end user or artist/ supplementor to support the chance of this happening is certainly damage to the self. (Q.) How can attacking another service such as Napster benefit any parties beyond the RIAA itself, which of it's own free will countered their ability to profit from and co-operate with the direction of information dissemination which it's public has embraced? (/Q.) As fortunate as it is for a party as influential as Metallica to be given the option of whether to be counterproductive and attempt to stand rigidly against the surge of change beyond a point-of-no-return, or to take means to improve and pioneer the quality of life for every creator and consumer of art, no one will stand aside and accept whatever may be passed down on them. Please educate yourselves on what you are fighting both for and against, and how your own interests might be realized without destruction of someone else's.
-"Quick, think of something great to be my last words..."
hows about "Buttload". Very catchy!
Lars -
After reading some of your quotes, I'm not confident that your lawsuit is based on your desire to profit. You seem to be conveying some kind of technophobia and resentment towards people who use technology.
For example, I saw a quote this morning that, paraphrased, read: "If you want to steal our music, why don't you go out and steal it from Tower Records instead of being a coward and downloading it from home?"
I've also heard it said that you've made statements condoning physical shoplifting, and it's common knowledge that you don't know much about technology or the web.
If this were a group of 300,000 physical shoplifters, would you sue them, or applaud them? Is it the act you're upset about, or the character of the people performing the act?
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Question: 335,000 is a very large number of users to identify in a single weekend. I'd like to know what means were used to determine that they were offering copyrighted Metallica material. Presumably your agents didn't have the time to actually listen to each recording allegedly in violation. Was the mere word 'Metallica' in the filename deemed evidence of infringement? If so, couldn't you be targeting innocent users? Wouldn't those users have a case against you?
Three years ago I had over $6000 in CD's stolen from my house, including every Metallica CD I could get my hands on. They were never recovered, and I was out $6000. I have since began rebuilding my collection. My question: Would Metallica, or any of its lawyers, agents, or representatives consider it illegal for me to download, using Napster, digital copies of their songs? Wouldn't this be an application of "fair use", even though I no longer have physical evidence that I once bought their CD's?
Lars (from Denmark, right?), how much do you think American culture has influenced the way you dealt with Napster (by calling in the lawyers and focusing on 'the bottom line')? And to what extent are you willing to be influenced by the Internet culture, with its emphasis on open access to resources and power to the end user?
Have you read the 1989 OTA Report on home taping, which concluded that so-called "bootlegging" was no threat to music industry profits, and that it in fact served as free advertising? It turned out that the users making tapes illegally were also both more likely to buy more music themselves and more likely to encourage other fans to do so. While obviously the technology has improved significantly since 1989, aren't we really dealing with the same issues? After all, CD sales are way up, despite Napster. And you yourselves have credited bootleg tapes with your own popularity - why are you seeking to put napster out of business and deny other artists similar outlets?
"It is therefore sickening
to know that our art is
being traded like a
commodity rather than the
art that it is."
-Lars Ulrich
With such a statement, it would seem that you guys do it just for the music (the art), making a statement like this makes it seem so.
But things are otherwise, if it is truely art doesn't it deserve to be heard by everyone, meaning it is solely for the ART of the music, not just the money you guys may be losing now?
To me, it's more about the ARTist, "oh no, my pocket is getting thinner"
I feel that if it was truely for the art, Metallica would not care about how it is being heard, as long as it is. True art is deserved to be seen or heard by everyone freely. Of course art can be bought, but it seems the true art is displayed in museums freely. With Napster, the art can be heard by everyone, Napster is a museum of sorts, and if they want to buy a copy of the art (like replicas of paintings), they can go to a music store and buy.
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
-madd
How do you respond to allegations that you are only trying to use your superior financial backing to force Napster (who is simply providing an open forum) into an unfair settlement instead of going after those who are actually breaking copyright law--the named users? Or is it just your recognition that it would not be worth the effort to *actually* protect your copyright instead of trying to milk this for as much $ as you can?
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
If Napster bans the 3XX,XXX users that you have named, will you continue to seek monitary damages? You realize, of course, that doing so would make it blatantly obvious that your primary motivation is not "protecting your music" but pursuing the almighty dollar...
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Are you aware of the irony inherent in trying to control the actions of fans to whom you sing about resisting authority? Do you expect your fans to perceive you differently after this fiasco? How will you react if they do?
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
A while ago www.metshrine.com got slammed.. it was a site that traded in bootleg MP3s. I went there to get the MP3s of a Metallica gig I went to a couple of years ago and all the bootleg MP3 trading had been shut down - the reasons specified were that Metallica were obligated to through their contract with Elektra.
Given that it seems fans can't openly trade these bootlegs on websites, and now that Napster is no longer an avenue for live Metallica MP3s, have you guys considered setting up your own website, or similar, for fans to discuss and trade bootlegs?
Andrew Francis (remove the n0sp4m. to mail)
I got Garage Days as a bootleg in High School. It was a prized possesion and especially rare where I come from. Still, a vast increase in income since has not stopped my bootlegging. I will buy an album if I think it is worth the price. (Software the same.) My question is this: If the price of CD's was dropped, so that the record company earned a realistic profit margin, do you think you would sell more copies, or do you think piracy would continue in the same vane as before?
I am a man, not a toy.
Who owns the copyright to the words and music Metallica creates as a unit? Is it Metallica or is it the record company?
As far as I know, there is only one (small) record label where the copyright resides with the artist, contrary to common practice in the record industry.
More details at,
http://www.disciplineglobalmobile.com
I am a man, not a toy.
Has any of Metallica heard what Chuck_D of Public enemy has to say about music distribution and rights? What do they think of his upstanding morals and good common sense?
I am a man, not a toy.
Do you think that you, as a band, sold out when Cliff Burton died, or was there another reason you broke your promise to the fans that you would 'Never make a video, and never become a sell out MTV band'?
Dusty Hodges
Word of mouth!!!
...which very often took the form of people trading illegal bootlegs and copies of your music. Napster is the 'word of mouth' conduit of the moment (legality TBD in the courts). Now that you're banning the users and suing the company, how do you think that will affect the future of Metallica's popularity?
What about the new bands who need word-of-mouth advertising to get popular?
Aren't you biting the hand that feeds you?
We know that James is an avid hunter, and as such, he would obviously be a opponent of increased gun control. Guns are a tool that can be used for good or evil, and are quite frequently used for evil, to break laws, etc. How is Napster any different? One cannot prove that Napster exists for the sole purpose of allowing people to violate the laws. In fact, Napster warns its users against violating the laws, just like there's a waiting period on a gun, etc. It is perfectly reasonable that people might want to use Napster to share legal, uncopyrighted MP3s, just like it is perfectly reasonable that people might want to use guns for something legal, like hunting. Cracking down on Napster for not enforcing the laws is valid, just like one would crack down on a store that sold guns without permits, but isn't eliminating Napster all together akin to banning guns entirely as well?
How much money have you so far received from PayLars?
And you obviously haven't heard anything before "Countdown..."... Dickhead. Geez I hate pseudo-metallists. Yeah, Metallica was better off dead without Clif, as for Dave, well, he wasn't for Metallica too - much better where he's now. Geez I hate pseudo-metallists.
Sieg
This is a really good question that speaks to a certain cognitive disconnect on the part of the band. I really hope that one version or another of this question gets asked.
To avoid "weasel" answers, we should make sure to include this fact with the question:
The sound quality of MP3 compression is good, but not perfect, and certainly no better than a good cassette tape copy. In layman's terms, some of the sound quality is sacrificed in order to make songs easier to send over typical Internet connections.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I am a music collecter and I also use Napster. Of the 500+ cds that I own, a majority of them I have purchased used at a used books, music, and software store. The arguements that I have heard against Nanpster go something along the lines of "we are trying to protect the artist's interests and give credit (and money) where it is due." In this case, how is buying a used cd (or for that matter book or software) different than downloading the software? For the album to become an mp3, someone had to have the cd in the first place. For the cd to show up in a used store, someone had to own it as well. Money is not going to the artist either way.
Putting aside the rhetoric about "trafficking in stolen goods" and the other legal issues, this issue boils down to control. You perceive it as controlling your music but it is the behavior of your fans that you want to change. Where are you going to draw the line between controlling your music and controlling you fans?
Whether or not you ever personally planned to sue individuals, the fact remains that the actions of the RIAA acting on your behalf sent a clear message to your fans that there is a threat of future lawsuits. With Napster there is a company to sue but what happens when the RIAA turns its guns on Gnutella? Who are they going to sue on your behalf if there is no company to sue? Your fans. Who are they going to monitor to find copyright violators? Your fans.
I think you must carefully consider the future reprecussions of your actions. You've opened a Pandora's box of problems and I don't think you've realized it yet. In a year, you'll wonder how you did what you thought was right and ended up creating a leviathan that monitors the behavior of your fans.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
You stated in your Yahoo! interview that you are trying to make a living and that's why your music isn't free. My question is where do you draw the line between making a living and reaping huge profits. While musicians might not be filthy right, they still don't live middle class lives. Are you under the impression that what you do for a living has a greater value than the average person? I have no problems with you charging for your music, however, the amount being charged is absurdly high. If you are not to blame for the price of a CD, then maybe something should be said about the influence of the record labels on the music industry.
I use Napster for downloading songs from new bands, and it automatically opens all of my MP3's to download. Should I now forgo using Napster? I own your CDs!
In addiition, what if I find myself on "the list"? Even though I am a loyal Metallica fan, and paid for all your albums? Should I be prosecuted? What should I do?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I can put .MP3 files on the hard disk of a Windows machine.
If I put that machine on the net then Windows security features ensure that anyone can read those files. Does this mean that Windows should be illegal134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Sound too unrealistic?
Not unrealistic at all; in fact, that's exactly what some of the proprietary digital formats were trying to push (I don't remember exactly which ones or what the details were). That's why I threw that in, although it was slightly off-topic for the gist of my post.
It's no secret that the music industry would love to change things so you would only license the music, and not own it. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't tried it with CDs. Probably too much legal precedent.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
First of all, let me say that I completely support musicians being paid for their work. That said, I am not going to pay $15 for an album when I only want 1 or 2 songs. In the past, that would have meant taping from a friend's copy of the album. Nowadays, I would rather just buy them directly. I want to pay for those songs. Tell me where I can purchase MP3s of your music. And by the way, some proprietary digital format that limits my ability to copy my owned (not licensed) music for my personal use is not acceptable. My question: What are you doing to make the record companies allow me to pay you? Or how about letting me pay you directly?
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
What is the difference between the underground metal tape traders you thanked in the liner notes of Ride the Lightning and Napster users? (Other than they're trading different kinds of music.)
Even as late as 1991, people were exposed to Metallica via tapes of albums before actually buying the albums.
I think you cared even more about the art back then, yet for some reason, you didn't try to stop the tape trading.
To quote your interview in Tuesday: This is a clear case of a middle man cutting us out Why don't YOU cut out the middle man? The idea of a system whereby artists have their own websites and sell their own work for 50 cents a track has been mooted on Slashdot recently. Artists would probably make the same amount of money (if the artists slice of record sales is as small as we are led to believe) and music would sell on it's merits, not record company hype. Everyone would win.
I've been wondering about something else .. Isn't music all about making fans happy, and having fun making the music? Correct me if I'm wrong, or don't, since this is purely a matter of opinion, but isn't it starting to seem like it's all about the money? Otherwise I see no purpose in suing Napster. The music industry has too much money as it is. The doctors and teachers are the ones who really need it. I just don't understand the reasoning here ..
Given that the RIAA has already filed suit against Napster, what do you hope to accomplish in filing a separate suit? Specifically, what would your suit accomplish that the RIAA's would not? IANAL, but wouldn't it be to your advantage to wait until the RIAA's suit is resolved, and then collect on any damages incurred?
I would just like to know how it is that you, Metallica, and your lawyers, actually think that by suing Napster and a group of (mainly) kids you are going to make an impact upon the Mp3 community. If you took the time to study it, rather than downgrade it, you would know that by taking this kind of action against the internet, you are actually losing money, not gaining it. Mp3 is a way for artists and performers to promote themselves without being signed, and I would think that is something you guys could relate to, seeing as you once used to be very starving musicians at one time. Come on guys, we've all seen the VH1 "Behind the music" where you talk about how broke you were. Mp3 is here to stay. Thanks for listening to what I have to say.
brian botkiller "Condensing fact from the vapor of nuance" - Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Much like music videos you WILL embrace the distribution channel of the web. It is inevitable. All this lawsuit stuff aside, what are your future plans for distributing your music? Instead of being the first to "stop" the problem, why not be the first to solve it?
I remember watching "Cliff 'em All" for the first time around 12 years ago. Back then, I listened to Metallica and little else. We even had a room in our barn that we called the "Metallidome" where my young brother would play guitars with his friends. I had introduced him to Metallica, introduced my whole high school to their music. Watching them play in a parking lot in the closest city was the ultimate. I couldn't hear for three days and my neck hurt for a week.
... After that I lost track of the band.
Remember the beginning of "Cliff 'em All"? The band walks into a convenience store, takes a bunch of sh*t off the shelves, and walks out without paying. Their lack of respect for everything was excellent. They wanted to call their first album "Metal up your Ass" but the record company wouldn't let 'em - so they called it "Kill 'em all" instead. Man, that was when Metallica were men - Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, and finally And Justice for All
So, my question: what would Cliff think of all this Napster crap?
Metallica,
I wish to share with you a vision of what the internet means to us as a community. It means freedom- freedom to express oneself, and to share information in such a way that no one can ever be hoodwinked, cheated, or attacked without justice. It means that no one need ever fear a purchase, or mistrust a contract- because the community of the world, connected via the internet, will make known all that needs to be known- the good and the bad. In the future world of global freedom of information people cannot be ripped off, because they make purchases knowing exactly what they are buying and exactly who they are buying from.
Services like Napster are the beginning of this new system- a system that is greatly evolved over the present situation where those who hold and control the flow of information control consumers and citizens alike- a system where people can be and are being 'screwed'.
As the years roll by, it will become more difficult to keep anything hidden from anyone. People will continually find better ways to share information and data (music files included). You can attack the tools which show us the evolution of this idea, but you cannot kill the idea, and one tool will be replaced with another.
You can make the choice to fight this, or flow with the will of the majority and allow a new system to evolve that would be more just and true than anything we've seen before. It's about trusting in basic human nature. People will gladly pay for things they enjoy and appreciate, especially if it is made easy for them to do so- and they will have more money to do so because their resources will not be wasted as they are today. Those businesses and artists who are truly sharing their gifts with the world will be rewarded far beyond what success means now, and those who try to extort that which is not theirs by means of deception will fall far behind. Metallica produces inspiring art, and that is all anyone needs in the new world to survive and prosper- not army of lawyers playing out visions of fear. That is a big step backwards- one the community of those who celebrate music will remember.
We are beginning to see the dawn of Justice For All. What say you, Metallica?
We've all seen the quote by Lars that claims he's disgusted to see their music traded as a commodity, instead of the art that it is. So let me get this right: Instead of the appreciation of the listener, it's now whether the listener *paid* for it that makes it 'art'? Isn't demanding money for it in the first place making it a commodity (albeit, a valuable one)?
I recall a time when the music you played was _music_. Good Old thrashing, throw yourself against the wall type music. Now you call what you do _art_. I don't get it. You knwo they say age changes people, but I never thought it would happen to the most innovative band of the '80s. How is it possible that you have lost focus of what drives this world? CHANGE IS INEVITABLE. Those who do not adapt will die. How have you forgotten that? Your fans will never forget this. Embrace the future, don't cling to the past. That's what made you the band you are.
Pax Vobiscum
This is a two part question: 1. Assume for the moment that the practices of the "US music industry" (e.g. through selective use of play time, and advertisement budget) have lead to the creation of a music monopoly which has enabled a few elite bands to be paid far too much for the music they create. Please list ways in which artists and the music industry competed fairly and unfairly. Feel free to provide examples that are specific to Metallica. 2. If you think (as I do) that the music industry and supported artists are extracting a monopoly price, why shouldnt consumers jump all over free (even "illegal") music when they get the chance?
Ever since I can remember, one of the few goods that I am stuck with after purchasing is music. If I think a particular album is junk, I have no remedy to get my money back. I can try on shirts, pants, belts, and shoes. I can take cars for test drives. And as this seems to pertain to the issue of copyright, I am able to preview a book in the store. I can even read an entire book at my local Barnes & Noble without ever purchasing it. No authors are trying to stop me from doing that. Yet Metallica and most of the music industry seem to think that music is somehow different. Music is no different than any other "art" that is sold. No offense to Metallica, but I was not very thrilled with 3 of the 4 previous CD's that were released. The availability of mp3's of the 4th prevented me from making another bad (in my opinion) purchase. Why doesn't Metallica use it's influence to change the distribution model of the recording industry so that people have easier access to music without the cost penalty?
-- Gah!
However, as was pointed out, at another point, they said they didn't have aproblem with anyone who wished to be involved in Napster. Kinda' hard, when they want to put them out of business.
Also during the chat, at several points, they say it's about the money. Then a bit later, as they start to sound like greedy bastards, it's not about the money, it's about CONTROL. Then later, it's about fairness. Then even later, it's about money again.
Bottom line is that Metallica doesn't know what it is about. And with this whole process, are turning a lot of fans into ex-fans.
On another note, I would like to know one thing..... how can this "rebel" band really justify the use of a policing agency for the internet such as the one they called for in their chat?
-- Gah!
There's a tie from here to Napster, but you've been asked about that - I'd like to hear about just this. Thanks.
-- zenfubar
In the beginning, the listeners bought your Music because they were pissed off, they agread with your words and hostillity, saw a voice to speak out for them. THATS USUALLY WHAT SELLS HARD ROCK MUSIC. And you milked that cow for all it's worth. Those people who always stuck by you are the ones who constantly felt being steped on. They stood up and screamed their lungs out,.. THROUGH YOU. They are the ones that go around payment if they see the opertunity. Feel that they have payed enough through the years, swinging there middle fingers in the air, Making statements about that THEY DON'T HAVE TO IF THEY DON'T WANT TO. Now you try and state that you are being srewed, cause they swap your "ART" over the internet. You say that they should pay for your service. HOW ABOUT YOU PAY FOR THEIRS FOR ONCE. Since you used them to get where you are today. ..halls of Justice painted green, money talking. ..power wolfes beset your door, hear them stalking. ..and justice for all.
I think your logic is a little flawed in going after the company that makes the software, instead of the people that are doing the actual stealing from you. Criminal and civil suits prosecute the people commiting the offending act, however, you are going after the company that made the tool that was used in the offending act. This makes about as much sense as suing a crowbar-maker because a thief used their brand of crowbars for breaking into a house.
If you don't agree with the statement above, let me give some other examples: What if I sued the phone company for listing my name in the local phone book that is then used by telemarkers to harrass me during dinner? What about suing a bar for selling alcohol to a person who drives home drunk and kills someone while DWI? How about if I sue Metallica because my son commited suicide while listing to your music? If you think all the above sound far-fetched, think again: Each of those events has happened, of which all of the suits failed. The last one, although it never happened against Metallica, did happen against the band Judas Priest back in 1985, so it is not all that far-fetched and is, in fact, very close to home.
Again, I don't see the logic in going after the company that merely provides the tool, and not going after the criminal. Maybe you can help us understand this line of thinking, so that we can avoid the cat-calls of hipocracy and simple greed by others who don't take the time to ask "why".
Your fan for 15 years,
-Jonathan Paris
On your website in your bio section you boast about how you arrived in NY in a
STOLEN UHAUL.
On your Garage Inc CD in the liner notes James talks about going over to Lars
house for days at a time to TAPE his records.
The best is from the band FAQ: "Where did the name Metallica come from? Lars
stole it. "Mr. Metal" of San Francisco, Ron Quintana, was getting ready to
launch a metal fanzine and he had a few names. He asked his friend Lars for
help.. after hearing the name "Metallica", Lars quickly suggested a different
name and kept "Metallica" for himself!""
Yet Lars feels the need to tell fans what is "morally and legally wrong"?
In your lawsuit you state "students of these universities and others who exhibit
the moral fiber of common looters"
What right do YOU have to question MY moral fiber?
Do you have any idea how ludicrous you sound to your fans from the early days?
Now according to your answers in the chat you think there should be some kind of
government monitoring of the internet because there might be something illegal
going on there?
Maybe the goverment should be monitoring YOU backstage at one of your shows. You
know, your a rock band, there MUST BE some kind of illegal activity going on
there.
It's technically possible to create a file-sharing system which does not expose a file's sender to the receiving party or intermediary systems. (For the technically inclined: "Mixes" are used today to provide this functionality for email. Combine with gnutella, enhance, done.)
Such a file-sharing system would definitely mark the end of third party control over sharing activity. It is thus arguable that - despite the current lawsuits - the copying will continue. In your opinion, is it a good idea to criminalize an increasing number of people although it is impossible to enforce the copyright law? Shouldn't you instead give people an incentive to give their money to you other than "be good, go buy it"?
Some say "copyright is dead" and seeing the faster networks and better programs on the horizon, I feel they have a point. "Copyright is unenforcable as far as personal use goes" would be my way of phrasing it. I do understand that copying copyrighted MP3s means breaking the law and I agree that artists have to have an income, too, but aren't you trying to resist the inevitable?
The recent defeat of MP3.com leads me to believe that Napster will also be shut down. But at what cost? I viewed Metallica as one of the founders of the metal genre that so much of America listens to. After reading the recent news and interviews, there's no doubt in my mind that Metallica has bowed its once musically inspiring heads to the mighty power of the dollar. Napster was wrong to freely distribute copyrighted material. But was it worth it for Metallica to pursue this litigation at the cost of being defamed as sellouts? I've always held "Master of Puppets" and "Fade to Black" as a classic to the metal genre, but when I listen to them now, all I can think of is "How could have these money driven people created such good music?" It's beyond obvious that MP3s and the distribution of copyrighted music (or any type of digital media, as a matter of fact) will not stop. Why Metallica chose to degrade their integrity to attack one instance of a large problem is beyond the scope of my understanding. I can only assume that Metallica's label is using Metallica as their puppets to retaliate against the recent blatant copyright infringements. Kinda puts a whole new meaning to "Master of Puppets"... doesn't it?
I'm curious as to Metallica's opinion as to the various musicians that are coming out in favor of Napster and it's use. And does their anti-Napster stance have anything to do with the fact that they are in control of their own label, and thus are acting more on the side of the Recording Industry than the artists themselves.
Also, Napster will become a major tool for unsigned and independent artists to get their music out to fans that would normally not hear their music. Does Metallica have any opinion how bullying Napster is essentially bullying the little guys that haven't made it big yet.
Are you, as well as Elektra Records, looking into ways to sell your music on the Net? Stopping people from infringing on your intellectual property is one thing, but it would seem silly to not put some effort into creating a business model for this new distribution channel.
I assume that Metallica will cull through their 335K list and look for users of Napster at their place of work. It is easy enough to record a download session into a logfile and then use this log as evidence in court, of course verifying that it was in fact a valid Metallica song. Can you imagine the money they could make by suing a user of Napster that did the deed at work, at Microsoft, Sun, etc... They will sue the user and the company. Whee!
If you say that all you want to to is getting napster out of buisniess, then why sue all the universities? Any why sue all the fan sites out there that has been sued? As you have sued all fan sites you possibly could during the last 6 months I think you might be getting gool ol greedy!
The Following text is supposed to be a question to Metallica: "In the Napster chat, you clearly state that you support bootlegs, and as a hardcore fan, I know you USED to support bootlegs. But that was two years ago. Now, every site that has ever hosted a bootleg gets a nice mail from your lawyers. Just check with the guys on www.metshrine.com and see what happend to them. So if you support bootlegs, why do this?" and actually, almost on the same topic, "and when your FAN-sites can't even use ANY of your logos or ANY picture of you on their site if you have a banner on it (check www.encycmet.com), is that being "close to the fans"? I (and everyone on www.metshrine.com) would really aprecciate an answer to at least question #1 Rock on ;)
I have seen alot of news and posts on this subject, but I haven't seen anything adressing this side of the subject.
I am prolly close to the same age as most of the members in Metallica. I grew up between LA and SF (or the Bay Area). I was into as much hard stuff as I could get into in 80's.
This seemed to be a time when bands like Laaz Rocket, Violence, Sachred Reich, and METALLICA were trying to get themselves known. They would spend late nights putting up and passing out the flyers, AND, it seemed that all these bands would distribute their music to ANYONE who would listen. Piracy was a way to defeat the Radio gods who wouldn't play the kick-A** music of these bands.
In the 80's I lived for the "new" crappy sounding re-re-re-re-re-recorded tapes of bands coming out of LA (Rainbow) and the Bay. Eventually when my isolated spot of the desert (Antelope Valley) got the album, I'd be one of the first to by it.
Now with napster I have the 90's version of that. There are stations out there that will play the occasional "good" band (subjective opinion), and I wanna see if that was the one good song on the album, or does the whole album rock.
Nowadays I check out an album on Napster, instead of waiting forever to hear "this killer new band I got a tape of!" then I go buy it in the store. If it sucks it doesn't get listened to.
I expect a completely good album from Metallica, BUT:
#1. What about people who don't know about Metallica? (yes they do exist), and
#2. what about me using Napster in basically the same method I did back in the 80's (with tapes) to check out and buy bands now.
If you tell me I was wrong in the 80's, then I know you are truly corporate. Don't BS ME MF's!!! I was there, I know you begged people to just give you a listen!!!
I don't think boycotting metallica right now is going to work. Because lots of people don't care if they are trying to ban napster users cause I know lots of my friends and me also don't care what they do because we aren't the ones getting in trouble for trading on napster and we'll still buy metallica albums
Very very nice
Here's the question: Have you considered the impossibility of putting the genie back into the bottle...and that your lawsuit against Napster will achieve exactly the opposite of what you hope to accomplish by introducing the masses to an alternative to buying your music?
My Question to Metallica: When CD's were first released, we were told that the price was going to come down to well below the prices of tapes at the time, and the medium just needed to catch on. The price has not fallen, and for the most part remains at $14-$18 for a CD that realy only costs $1-$2 to create, plus a percentage that goes to you. Why hasn't the band fought for this issue if it really goes care about it fans, and you are not just a bunch of money grubbing aging alternative icons? When the band TLC came out with their first album, they sold nearly 7 million albums, and they were screwed so badly on their contract that they went broke while making a lot of record company exec's very rich. This has nothing to do with artists losing money, this is about the RIAA losing a 500%+ markup, and customers finally getting some control over this far too corporate market.
After almost a year of using MP3s, I can safely claim that MP3s are the best thing that happened to my musical tastes and one of the worst things that happened to my bank account aside from Starbucks. Why? I don't go for the usual rubbery chow that the mass media is feeding me. When MTV plays a song over and over again, they need to know they're not taking a risk. It mustn't be something that's radically different than anything else the audience has been fed before. And so, prior to finding out about MP3s, finding music that's truly worth my time would be a true rarity.
Enter MP3 -- I get to discover the truly innovative and individual is nothing as uncommon as I thought it to be. Artists like B.T., Nine Inch Nails, Orbital or Peanut Butter Wolf, all pioneers in their respective genres -- won't get any play time on your favorite music channel or radio station. Not because their genius is not recognized but rather for fear of alienating the casual listener.
But MP3 changes all that. Of the hundreds of thousands of users that downloaded Metallica MP3s, doubtlessly many were just going on their usual experimentational binges -- the same ones that all too often end up with very expensive trips to the local record store. Honesty plays a part in this, but not as big a part as we'd like to think. Most people just like having the real thing. I know I do.
Raging MP3 trade is not going to put an end to making money off MP3. MP3 trade is going to expedite the evolution of music many times over, it is going to bring to the foreground otherwise largely unheard-of artists, it is going to make music a much more diverse and interesting experience. MP3 trade is going to win you new fans, regardless of how big you already are. Seeing things as they are now, Metallica is going to have to work very hard to be as accessible to the public as Britney Spears is. And somehow I can't imagine Lars in a Leotard being anything as appealing.
Can you not see the incredible potential in all this?
-- In every war there is war with yourself. In every victory there is damage to yourself.
Since Napster is nothing more than a computer program which allows remote users to connect their computers together and relies on the users themselfs to govern the legal trade of MP3 music( with no MP3 files ever actually go through or reside on the Naspter servers) do you feel that other companies who provide archetecture that the MP3 files go though(such as the phone company, who provide the phone line) should also be held legally liable for MP3 trade?
Since we're going after Metallica, here's a great movie that does the job pretty well. :) http://www.newgrounds.com/assassin/metallica -Tom
Listen, everyone has been intelligent and logical about this whole thing. I say fuck it. In three years time every label will have a 'direct download' site and will continue to rape the artists' out in the open. Bands who prance and preen on the TV screen are lucky to take home a dollar for that 14-18 dollar disc you bought at "insert bloated retailer here". I will continue to use Napster, and all the FTP outlets, downloading bands I have never heard of, if I like them I'll go see them. It's so funny really. Lars said in several interviews that back in "the good ole days" people passed thier music in 'bootleg' tapes cause Metal Blade was not giving them the distribution they needed on tour, yet when they played europe, everyone new the words and they were so amazed... Well, I hear enough of thier music on what little radio manages to creep in my ear, I have no intrest in supporting someone who would take the music away from a kid who might think they are gods, just cause they don't have the cash to buy. They should be lucky anyone even cares about thier worn-out ass anymore.
My message is this: underground with the bootlegs and Major Label artists, use your own judgement. Let the new bands take this on with a fresh new attitude for the future. They need the fourum. Puffball, Laika, Abscess, Magic Dirt... Great bands I may not have heard if it weren't for the MP3 'revolution', and yes, I bought the cd's after
I commited the crime.
Metallica and all the bean counters in the world can't stop this...
Okay, so lets say you get what you want from Napster... You going to go after public libraries next?
Everyone knows (or should know) that music CD's are available at plenty of city and county libraries across America. How much you want to bed your CD's are in their collections?
Anyone can just check it out, take it home, rip as high a quality set of MP3's as they want... then return the CD.
They can even dupe the CD if they have a burner... and many MP3 collectors do. Why? Because you can put, oh say, 6 - 12 hours of music on it, depending on the quality of the MP3's.
So you win a battle, but lose a war. In the end, all you do is get bad P.R., ticked fans, and people more determined to cut your revenue then ever.
*Pseudo Spock
P.S. Did you guys hire whatever bonehead to loose that virus today? Wouldn't surprise me after what you've already pulled.
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I am curious about the hypocrisy involved in this lawsuit. At one point in their career Metallica actually advocated the bootlegging of their concerts. Why would Metallica go in such an opposite direction, even going so far as to violate the privacy of thousands of their biggest fans who were simply looking for a song which the band told people to bootleg?
In your chat transcript, you mentioned: "setting up police monitors to see who's trading. some kind of monitoring or policing of the internet..." Have you considered renting the NSA's Echelon system for a weekend to do a little monitoring of global communications in order to find out how many people are even CONSIDERING trading Metallica MP3s?
HTTP header ad space for rent! Advertise to thousands of server log readers - only $50 a week per header! 1-800-SURFALOT
I read your interview from earlier this week on www.artistdirect.com in which you state that you are standing up for the right of the artist. You were not asked by Napster for permission to trade freely your material online. Napster.com is backed by big money and tries to play their side of the story as if they are doing something pro bono, for the good of all people, when they are really a corporation of paid employees hoping to strike it rich with an IPO.
I agree with on those points. I also applaud your efforts and look down the road and see that even though Napster is not having a significant market impact now, five years down the road it will, and it will take five years to get laws passed to protect musicians.
My concern regards the material that Napster is used to trade. It seems to me that if I turn on the radio, I regularly hear the same songs. For instance, I know that my local rock radio station (which sucks) is playing Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" right now, for the 3rd time today. Before the hour's end, I'm confident they will play a song of yours that they play everyday, such as "Hero of the Day". They will probably follow with Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to make sure that they get their daily quota of 5 plays of that, then Santana's "Supernatural" for the 7th time today followed by Kid Rock.
Now, the radio station plays some of your songs, which I hear for free, but the selection is limited; they rarely play more than two songs off any given album. So I could tape a subset of your songs off the radio, albeit at somewhat lower quality than an MP3.
I do own one of your CD's, but my favorite band is Dream Theater, and I own every album, plus several bootlegs, plus several t- shirts. The band's drummer has his own web page on which he has placed concert recordings, demo recordings, and "material from back when the concert audiences were smaller than the band" in mp3 format.
My question is: once you win the lawsuit or at least make your point, do you plan on releasing some of your material in MP3 format? Since people can record a certain subset of your songs from the radio already, why not right now make those songs available in MP3 format from an official Metallica web page and/or encourage Napster users to only trade your songs that make radio cuts? That way, you have free publicity provided by the internet and Napster, but can still rest assured that people who like your music will still buy your CD's in order to have those songs that didn't make singles, and contributing to the recording costs and putting food on your table. This is similar to the philosophy of several software companies including Eudora, which releases a free, good email program with basic features, but charges for the advanced version with the most and best features.
Hypothetically, if there were a piece software that allowed people over the internet to freely trade those select songs that were normally played as radio singles (the songs played repeatedly on the radio), would Metallica release its radio singles and perhaps other special material to be traded by that mechanism?
I would also like to point out that I have both chosen to buy and chosen not to buy several bands' CD's based on songs I download via Napster, bands that I only learned of through internet mailing lists because they would never get air time on my local radio stations, radio stations which suck so bad, they suck the "metal up your a$$" (in 1980's Metallica terminology).
Signed,
Someone who believes free software and free music both have their places alongside commercial software and at-cost music.
Why are you under the impression that MP3's are any easier to pirate then any other format> Tapes?CD? Do you understand that you are trying to destroy a new technology that if given its coarse will provide access the widest audience ever and increase your personal profit by cutting out the middle man? Hire a hacker and let them explain to you how this whole internet thing works
An Open (and Sincere) Letter to Metallica Metallica: I appreciate the opportunity to have this message read and considered by you. I hope that you read this a sincere and honest letter to help you decide the way that you wish to continue in your suit and your decisions regarding Napster and the mp3 debate. I understand your wanting to protect your intellectual property from those who would disenfranchise you from your well-deserved rewards. As a fan from the early eighties, I had always respected your anti-establishment attitude, anti-corporate message, and anti-control positions. Like millions of other fans, I supported you when you were underground and shared your triumph as you broke into the Grammy's and skyrocketed to stardom. Being young and impressionable, the message to me was very important: You do not have to be establishment or subjugate your ideals in order to be successful; that the people will listen and freedom and passion can prevail, However, more distressing than your decision to attack the very fan base that believed in you and helped put you where you are now are the ideals that you are now professing. From your Web-Chat: "...Also to spearhead some kind of activity within the powers that be, the government, to lay down the laws with the computer, to exercise some kind of control, and govern companies like Napster ..." "...to get Congress to start setting relative parameters about where technology is going..." "setting up police monitors to see who's trading. some kind of monitoring or policing of the internet..." Honestly, these are not the words that I ever thought I would ever hear Metallica saying. These suggestions fly against everything that I was under the impression that you have protested against for 20 years, and are more akin to those who expound fascist and oppressive ideals. I ask that you rethink the ramifications of what you are asking and be careful of what you wish for. You further state that nobody should be fooled by what Napster represents, "Napster is a big machine funded by big money... The person who invented Napster is an employee of the big machine as we speak." I am quite certain, however, that the _business_ that is Metallica, not the four of you as artists, is itself a much larger employee of a vastly larger machine. You may own the rights to your artistic creations, but you have somebody pulling your strings as well. You four have made many people and companies a vast amount of money. I believe that many of those are part of the RIAA. This machine has yet to find a way of reaping profits from a revolutionary new technology that empowers both artist and fan, therefore this technology must be repressed so that the corporations that benefit most from your work have time to figure out how to use it to further their wealth. Indeed, you yourselves have already stated that "We have no issue with the MP3 format. Rather, it is how the format is being used, and who controls it." That is, it seems, as long as it is the large machine that you now represent in your lawsuit that control it. Perhaps you, Metallica, do not realize the way that you have been used to further this agenda. I would hate to think that you have become what you have despised and asked us to join you in fighting against. It is rather obvious that you have very limited experience on the internet and have many misconceptions about what it is, the community it fosters, and the issues of freedom and privacy versus corporatism and control that is constantly being fought in its electronic frontiers. Mind you, this is not an attack-I am no more a professional drummer or lawyer than you are an active netizen. However, what I do know is that the precedence that you are potentially setting is dangerous and those who stand to benefit by it are not who you think they are. I know that you put in years and years of hard work and must have faced incredible emotional and psychological challenges during your hard climb to the top. As such, I am confident that you realize that there are so few super-artists in music that will ever attain your success, but the publicity and distribution of mp3 music helps a staggering amount of lesser known or even unknown bands. Your suit against Napster and the chilling of those who trade mp3 music will undoubtedly adversely affect these artists who are not doing this for the money but are rather following their muses and passions. Please reconsider what you want out of this lawsuit, evaluate the message that you are now expousing, consider who this will _truly_ benefit, and remember who you really are. Sincerely, Kulte
Use Angelfire before the com to email me.
I wonder if anybody here remembers when you used to be able to wonder into the local record store and purchase just the one song that you wanted, (well there was the B side, but who's counting). I mean lets face it, many people hear the latest hit on the radio and want to buy it but have to put up with purchasing a complete album at a complete album price on CD. Lets say for example an album costs $21 and contains 10 songs and the cost of the media was $1. That means that in order to get the one song that I wanted I effectively throw away $18 on songs I don't want and $1 on obselete media that can't be reused. It is no wonder that people turn to programs like Napster in order to get what they want when they want also at a very attractive price too :-) Metalica's time and money would be much more worthwhile spent developeing a competetive method of distributing their songs via the Net instead of placeing it in the bottomless pockets of lawyers whose only interest is in ripping their clients off for as much as they can get. ps:Sorry Dad but you ARE a lawyer so you know it's true :-).
One last thing, if any of Ozzy's people out there are following this debate, please learn from it, I don't think I could take the kick in the nuts if Ozzy did something like this. Say it ain't so Ozzy!
And kiss my money good by Metallica, since you assume that everyone that uses napster is a thief, f*** you I will be. Metallica will never get another dime outta my pocket, and since that's all they care about anymore that'll talk in a language you and your net ignorant lawyers can understand.
( What a surprise you guys get commercial and it turns out you've been talking shit all these years.)
Still pissed off
Reverend John
I've been a Metallica fan since a buddy played a crappy kill 'em all tape tape for me way back in the 80's. And years before you were real big, my band was playing "Seek and Destroy" before anyone up here in Canada knew who you were.
You made it with no radio play and because of people like me, you hipocritical bastards. You wouldn't have the cash for the lawyers to sue us now, if we didn't spread the word about you way back. Now you repay us like this? I've bought every album you've put out in muliple formats. I've paid you SOCAN ( copyright group up here in Canada) to play your music to people.
I've been a pro DJ up here in Canada for 12 friggin years and There has never been 1 day that goes by that I haven't played Metallica tune in the DJ booth. In fact I was the MC of Miss Nude Canada 1999, and we used your cover of "So What" as our theme song for the week) Full blast outta kickass stripclub sound system, in a rocking bar filled with the hottest chicks in the country while we're getting loaded. You coulda filmed a video for the tune in there man, we lived up to it. The bar is called Showgirls up here in lil Edmonton Alberta and we play Metallica all the time.
So you see I loved you guys, but then you turn on the very same people that made you. You should be making the future possible. You guys gotta know that There has been a lot of cool shit invented or coded for the internet with your tunes playing in the background. Embrace this stuff guys, it's your fans that are building it. Freethinkers, that don't trust goverment, or big business. You helped teach us that by the thought and passion in your music. Help us change things for the better. Where music stands on it's own merits, not on how much the record company wants to throw behind the flavor of the week. Where the artists get paid, and so does the company that helps get them from the bar room to the recording studio. Remember that? I know what it was like being a starving musician. I was one,just like you, the bad gigs the sleazeballs, the groupies. I've been there. I know where you're coming from.
You're real fans will buy anything you want to sell 'em. I know I've spend at least 1k on albums, concerts, and other lil crap. Look at napster as that first freebie that drug dealers give to people to get them hooked. Once they're hooked they'll pay anything. It's the same thing guys. Use it to your advantage and you'll come out on top, all artists will, the creme will rise to the top, and even the crappy stuff will have a fan or two, the market is that HUGE.
In closing all I have to say is, don't betray those that made you, instead, get some smart people to figure out how you can best make the future happen, and make it better for all artists. You have the money, you have the power, you have the control over your own stuff. If you won't do it, then it'll have to be all the lil guys that are making use of it. In the end they'll win. Earn back your fans respect and reconsider.
Reverend John
a True fan.
Why go after kids who will probably run out of disk space and delete the songs after a while rather than the companies making money out of software/music piracy such as Sony - or do you really think tape decks, video recorders, cd recorders, mini-disc et al are used merely for making original material ? When digital radio comes in do you really think Sony will ignore it or will we get minidisc/radio combos ?
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/metallicaboycottclub the first step to take into boycotting Metallica when they realize that nobody is buying their albums, maybe they'll learn a few lessons
Can you please explain to me how the "artist" is loosing money by the existance of Napster, when last year the sale of CDs was up 30%? ---
There is no Black and White. Only shades of Grey.
it is "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
When I go to the store, and pick up a Metallica CD, before I leave the store with it, what do I do? If I'm honest, I pay for it. What is this act of... paying? Trading. I trade my money for Metallica's CD. The CD is the commodity.How does one trade art? You have stated that people on Napster "trade your music like a commodity rather than the art it really is." What are your suggestions? How can we trade your art? Believe it or not, your music is a commodity, sold in stores, for which millions have traded their money for. How should we solve this problem?
The very next album, Metallica (referred to as the "Black" album) contained mostly catchy songs ready to be piped into standard video format on MTV - and pipe they did.
I am allowed to "test-drive" automobiles, televisions, recliners, refrigerators, stereos, clothing, and sometimes even food and jobs, before accepting these items.
I feel that your artistic integrity is in question. I test most other forms of intellectual property (30-day software demos, browsing books and magazines before purchase, etc.) Should your songs be exempt? Why do you hold this opinion?
Why are so freaking greedy. You have like what 100million dollars. I agree its wrong for poeple to download the entire CD for jack sqaut but a few songs here and there. Come on why are still doing music, For money or For the Music??? JEr
I thought they were like um,... an '80s band?
so - why not just delete all metallica MP3 files! not like their worth anything....
better yet, everybody save the MP3's they have of metallica onto FLOPPIES and send them to the band.
Du hast keine Ahnung von meiner Reichsamkeit! Du hast ein einsamkeit und du sollst nicht hier sein!!! AufWiedersehen!