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

Re:Just think...

[omkhar]

White male breaks glass ceiling in America - news at 11.

Stop making references to things you don't understand. This has nothing to do with a glass ceiling.

... And Justice For All

[Windows_NT]

Im not sure how the copyright for music works, but i would think if you own the CD, you have a right to the music, and downloading it would be legal, because you bought the right to have it. I would also think that Lars owns a copy of Death Magnetic.
and for the whole Napster cry, get over it, Metallica stood up for what was right and im glad they did it. just like anyone else that holds a copyright or patent on something, its there to protect you, and when people bypass that and download illegally, something needs to be done.
Also, about a week after DM came out, i googled "Death magnetic CD" and the first link was a download to the whole CD.
If you dont like DM, dont buy it. Metallica Rocks, Pirating is wrong, and You suck.

Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R

[stewbacca]

If you take something without the intent to pay for it, you are a thief. The same thing is true if you walk into a store and steal an ABBA CD, just because you can, and never had any intention of buying the CD in the first place because you hate ABBA.

Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R

[furby076]

You are right that in doing this he "ripped" off people other then himself though it may have been more of an experiment in how to P2P then anything else. Do you not think he has a few copies of CD laying around the house? Do you not think he can't go to his producing company and say "gimmie"? Do you not think he can't walk into a local store pick one up and the store manager will charge him (he will give it for free and ask for a photograph to hang up).

You are wrong about this part

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?

1) You don't know if he would have or would not have paid for it ever.
2) Not having the means to purchase something is no excuse for downloading it - so yes they are thieves
3) Having no intent to buy something does not give them the right to d/l it for free. A car thief has no intention of buying a car by your logic he is not a thief.

In all honesty your post took things out of context by a LOT. First I would be safe to say that Lars has copies of the music. Both originals or cases of CDs sitting in his garage so he can give them out to his friends/family/fans.

It amazes me as to how much the /. crowd believe they are entitled to things for free. It is akin to lifetime wellfare members who believe they should be on wellfare for their entire lives even though they COULD work.
Pirating is wrong...period. If you want to listen to someone's music then acquire it in a manner they allow or write to them a letter saying how poor you are and beg them to send you a copy (hey they may do this).

Completely wrong

[orthancstone]

If anything, we are in better shape now that we don't have garbage programs like Napster (really, did you EVER use it? It was shit) and rather have torrents and numerous available online music stores.

Metallica's "whining" helped push an industry to take advantage of a new medium (yay capitalism? I digress...). New bands have more avenues than ever to promote themselves (no more Airheads-like situations needed :D) without needing the establishment to back them; how has Lars prevented new artists from entering the industry?

I love that 10 years later everyone still attacks Metallica. 1) They did you a favor regarding that piece of crap Napster, 2) They've been at the forefront of bands distributing content online to their fans pre-sale and, in some cases, for free, and 3) THEY WERE RIGHT! It was stealing content no matter how many idiotic excuses you come up with.

People who continue to bitch like a child about Metallica come off as brats who wish music was free. You want free music? Find a bar with no cover on Friday night.

Re:Maybe We Should Thank Lars Ulrich?

[Maudib]

I'm sorry but Lars Ulrich is a musician. He isn't a lawyer, a philosopher, an intellectual or a technologist. He is not informed enough or intelligent enough to have any place in this debate.

Besides, there is no debate on MP3s anymore. We won. Amazon sells MP3s without DRM and the RIAA is loosing funding and slowly giving up the lawsuits. Game over. There are other battles fight, battles in which Lars will be even less relevant.