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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 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!
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
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)
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.
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?
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...
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 **
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...
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
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.
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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?
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
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!!!
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?
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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*
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
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
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..
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 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 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
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
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.
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.
...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.
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").
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
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?
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?
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.
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
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
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?
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?
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
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...
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 $20 a CD, yet you'd make more money in the former case.
The cake is a pie
There are three of them at modernhumorist.com. Strangely enough, the original poster had the website name on it. Not giving credit where credit is due isn't really nice.
Since Napster is basically a share, search, and download application, would you plan to take similar action against search engines that help people find and download your music like Scour.net, Lycos, and others? If not, how would you differentiate between them?
First off I want to say that I own all the Metallica albums except Re-Load (which I will) and Kill 'Em All (late comer to Metallica, can't find an original copy). Yes, I bought Load the day it came out (first new Metallica album after I started listening.) Yes it kicks ass. It took me a little while to warm up to it, but I did, and it's just as edgy as anything they've ever done. I love all Metallica old and new.
Now for the question: (And don't anybody jump on me, I seriously doubt that they'd manage to 'not notice' Scour.) What do you all think about people trading your (or anybody's) videos? Back to the old argument, this is how I found out that there even was a video for S&M (I figured there was, but this clinched it) and I bought it the same day. And I will buy the DVD. And I will eventually buy all Metallica videos. (Is there anything more exciting than watching Lars kick ass?) Now, anybody that knows me knows how much I hate MTV (GODDAMM TRENDY MOTHER-#$&@$*) 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 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!
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
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?
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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.
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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.
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?
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!
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?
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.
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?
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
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
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!
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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?
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!
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..."
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?
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!
It follows that those dowloading and exchanging your music are your own fans, so why are you trying to alienate them by punishing them?
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"
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..."
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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!!!
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'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.