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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.'"
He admitted to be downloading it. This means he was also uploading it.
Either he uploaded it illegal and must pay 10 gazillion in fines, or he is not guilty and he was allowed to distribute it and this means everybody who connected with him did so with him agreeing.
Most likely he did not have the rights himself and he can be fined as much as he ownes and then some
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
When you P2P, you not only take the data for yourself, you also help spread the data around.
So, my accessment is that I was freely 'given' the Album directly from Lars. Therefore, as I was freely given the album anonymously by one of the original artists- I didn't steal it either. That is assuming, of course, that I would bother to download his 'music'.
Actually the headline is technically correct.
Since Lars and the band perform the song(s) and probably have some rights to the song(s)
Precisely: some rights, but not all. Metallica signed an exclusive distribution contract which grants complete control over distribution of these particular recordings to their label, and since the copy produced by downloading wasn't authorised under the terms of that contract it is indeed a pirate copy (note that if he wanted to give away a physical CD, it would be taken from stock and billed to the band as a promotional expense). The fact that he co-wrote the music makes no difference, except that it might also be a breach of contract.
The same applies to published authors, BTW. That's pretty much what "published" means: your work in someone else's hands.
Photographers are slightly different, as its relatively rare for a photographer to sign an exclusive deal with a gallery that extends beyond the duration of an exhibition. In general, they retain all the rights to their work unless it was commissioned.
But please, let's not let common sense get in the way of people justifying not paying performers for their work.
Common sense and copyright are mutually exclusive. That's why so few people understand it.
(Disclosure: I'm a published songwriter/musician, formerly signed to Warner, BMG, Universal and a number of smaller labels, currently working in television production. I'm probably the last person who would try to justify not paying performers).
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Your are hitting the nail on the head. But something needs to be added here:
Music is actually a commodity. Really. The world is full of people who could, and would do a more or less equivalent job.
If it was a true free market situation, it would be over saturated to the point where music would be free anyway.
The major labels have positioned themselves as gate keepers and most of their work for the last 10 years has been about keeping the sender from the receiver, and maintain the artificial scarcity.
But thanks to the internet their days are numbered no matter what, and that makes me happy.
You're clearly missing GP's point. The point is that the RIAA wants to call file sharing and infringement the exact same thing as stealing a disk from a store. If that's true, and it's ok for Lars to 'Pirate' his own music, then it's also ok for him to walk into any music store and walk out with one of his CDs, because it's the exact same thing.
So here's the valid choices:
A. Piracy is theft, and since Metallica owns the rights to their own stuff, it's ok for any of them to pirate any of their music or walk into a store and grab one of their CDs.
B. Piracy is theft, but it's not ok for Lars to walk into a music store and grab a copy of his own disk and walk out without paying for it, therefore pirating his own music is also not ok, and the RIAA has to sue him and demand the same fines from him that they demand from every other "pirate".
C. Piracy is not theft, therefore since Metallica owns the rights to their own music, it's ok for Lars to pirate his own music even though it's not ok for him to steal a disk from a store.
There are no other options.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I feel really bad for Lars.
First, he had to suffer the financial losses from all this p2p stuff, and now that he's publicly admitted to it he's going to have to pay for an expensive legal battle against the RIAA.
I mean, unless the RIAA doesn't go after him. But a high profile music person like him admitting this in a highly public venue? Not prosecuting him would be tantamount to the RIAA admitting their side is not logical & internally consistent...
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.