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Lars Ulrich Pirates His Own Album

rudeboy1 writes "Lars Ulrich, drummer for Metallica, and long time opponent of file sharing admitted to 'pirating' his own album, Death Magnetic last year. 'I sat there myself and downloaded "Death Magnetic" from the Internet just to try it,' he said. 'I was like, "Wow, this is how it works." I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download "Death Magnetic" for free, it's me.'"

11 of 672 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Easy one for RIAA by blueg3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It only means he was uploading it if he was using BitTorrent. Article doesn't specify.

  2. Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R by JCSoRocks · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm pretty sure all musicians with a big contract sign their rights over to the label. Some acts in the past have actually gotten rich enough to buy back the copyright and have exclusive control over their music, but not many do.

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  3. Oblig: Napster Bad Video by HockeyPuck · · Score: 3, Informative
  4. 2 words by pak9rabid · · Score: 3, Informative

    Fuck Metallica.

  5. Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R by richie2000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not necessarily. Ever noticed how the RIAA lawsuits always are by the record company, and never the artists? That's because the copyright for the recorded songs (denoted by a P in a circle as opposed to a C in a circle) almost always belongs to the record company. Most artists are not allowed, by their contracts, to upload "their own songs" on their own websites, for example.

    The rights to the song itself, as an independent work, belongs to the composer(s) and writer(s). Different actions infringe on different rights and it's been more or less established that filesharing infringes on the record company's rights to distribute, not the artist's/composer's/writer's rights.

    But I wonder if Lars knew that he most likely was seeding the album. :-)

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  6. Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R by DragonWriter · · Score: 5, Informative

    When you P2P, you not only take the data for yourself, you also help spread the data around.

    That depends on the P2P network you use and your application. Its certainly possible to download off of some P2P networks with some clients without sharing anything.

  7. Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R by Kiaser+Zohsay · · Score: 4, Informative

    Usually, your assumption would be correct, but Metallica is one of the few bands that does retain their own copyrights. This is probably why they were so vocal back in the Napster days, and why these comments from Lars are newsworthy.

    I heard the interview on Eddie Trunk's XM show a couple weeks ago, and got a chuckle out of it. He could remember the name of what he used to do the download, but something he said (I don't remember exactly what) gave me the impression it was one of the bittorrent clients.

    --
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  8. Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R by jandrese · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's not how most music contracts work though. In the music world, you pay for the production costs and touring costs and everything else and give your rights to the music away forever. In return the label will allow you access to the distribution channel (music stores, MTV, Clearchannel venues, etc...). They will also give you a loan to help with the various upfront expenses.

    Presumably bands that attempt to negotiate better deals are just dropped for another less-savvy band. Only established big name acts have the leverage to demand better terms (but it was through their poor negotiation skills that they got the gig in the first place, so don't count on it).

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  9. Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R by Compholio · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a restaurant, we have a couple of them in Colorado - they've even been spoofed on South Park a couple times.

  10. Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The first rule of USENET is DON'T TALK ABOUT USENET!

  11. Re:Shut up about USENET already! by blhack · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't know why anybody would ever use usenet anyhow. There is almost now content on it, its really really slow, releases usually end up on usenet last (I recommend using Kazaa or bearshare if you want to get anything quickly).

    Also, the chance of you getting caught is pretty much 100%. Usenet is never encrypted and most of the providers are actually part of the FBI, btw.
    Oh, and most of the files on it are viruses.
    It might also offend your cat, and make your breath smell really bad.

    AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!

    If you want a really high-quality, low-risk P2P client, I recommend either Bittorrent or Kazaa.

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