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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.'"
It only means he was uploading it if he was using BitTorrent. Article doesn't specify.
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.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
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. :-)
Money for nothing, pix for free
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.
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.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
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).
I read the internet for the articles.
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