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.'"

Comments

You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the RIAA

[eldavojohn]

I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download "Death Magnetic" for free, it's me.

Wrong. I'm going to apply your logic here and say that the real victims are the rest of the members of Metellica that worked hard day and night to make "Death Magnetic." You would have had to buy that in a store to get it and therefore the $18 ripoff that you avoided took money away from your bandmates who did not receive the fifteen cents they normally would have from that sale. On top of that, what about the profit your label would have made or the amounts payable to the RIAA lawyers? You have stolen something physical and real from them and they no longer have it. Those sound engineers at your studio will have to eat at Olive Garden tonight instead of Buca De Beppo.

So Ulrich's logic is that he never would have paid for this album in the first place and therefore it's ok for him to download it ... yet the many file sharers that have no intent(or in some cases the means) to pay for it are thieves?

Wrong.

[whisper_jeff]

"I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download "Death Magnetic" for free, it's me."

Now, I haven't read your contract with the record label, Lars, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that, no, you do not have the right to download the music. Your record label probably controls the digital distribution rights of the music contained in that album and, unless you got their permission, you don't have that right. Remember the war you waged for the past several years? That's what was at the core of that fight.

But, like I said, I haven't read your contract so I might be mistaken.

Re:Wrong.

[cabjf]

Well, he did say if anyone has the right to, he does. Unless his label is a sole proprietorship, I doubt there is any one person from the label who has that right. So being the creator and performer, I would say he'd be at the top of this imaginary list of people who should be allowed to download the album for free. But the point is moot as there most likely is no one with the right to download it for free.

Boring.

[zippthorne]

I mean, if he'd had some insight or something this might've been interesting, but all he did was download his own album, call the process bizarre, and.. nothing.

He could have commented on how fantastically easy it was and how that ease makes it a huge temptation and had some kind of ..thing to say.. about that..

But it's just several paragraphs of fluff about how he gets together with friends to drink wine and click about web pages*, but only just now** tried to find out about something they've been railing against..

*which, frankly, doesn't exactly sound very Metal to me...

**and by now, I mean a year ago, of course...

Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R

[moose_hp]

Is his right also to enter a brick and mortar music store and leave with a phisical copy without paying for it? mind you, most music stores won't mind if it was a famous artist, but what about those pretty oscure artists that most likely the store salemen don't recognize?

This is just the artists having a double standart, "if you do it, it is illegal stealing, if I do it is my right".

Saying "oh, it's just a digital copy, not the actual physical copy" goes both ways.

Fuck you Lars

[Taibhsear]

You're a douchebag and a hypocrite.

I haven't purchased a Metallica album since The Black Album and will never again. (Granted that was the last decent one they had...) You damn near single handedly spearheaded this RIAA anti-filesharing war. Out of spite and general boycott I do not listen to my old Metallica CDs, nor do I have any of them encoded to my computer. I refuse to go to your absurdly overpriced concerts. I will not download or share your music, not because of "piracy" but because I refuse to give any publicity to you or your whining old man bandmates. The "piracy" that you crusaded against made you what you are today. And here you are, yet again, showing what a fucking hypocrite you are and missing the entire fucking point of your previous arguments against file sharing. Peoples' lives have been financially ruined and had their education hampered or destroyed by your asinine crusade while you sit untouchable on your golden throne in your mansion. Fuck you Lars, and fuck you Metallica. Bite my shiney Metal-head ass.

Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R

[Kartoffel]

Being the middleman can be risky. You aren't in charge of the supply of the products you sell because somebody else makes it and sells it to you (and other middlemen) You can't control the demand for said products, except by advertising. Note that the most successful retail outfits are those that either (a) own a small but very reliable market of consumers (specialist mom-n-pop stores) or (b) also dominate the wholesale and distribution portion (e.g. monster chain stores).

Seriously, the very concept of wholesale-retail-consumer is obsolete for digital media. Music is not the same kind of product as groceries.

Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R

[sabt-pestnu]

Too much sense? ... except for the fact that walking into a brick-and-mortar store, walking out with an album without having paid for it is theft, not copyright infringement.

No unauthorized copy was made. Physical object taken unjustly.

Analogy rejected.