It sounds like most of the comments about the interview belong to the subset of people who were kicked off of Napster. Look folks, regardless of whether you think the law is wrong, if you break it, you have to take your punishment. Argueing against the law is great, starting legal action is even better. But civil disobediance, while a lot of fun, has some consequences. Let's not get in a huff because you were caught; civil disobedience wouldn't be any big deal if there weren't consequences for it.
I applaud Mr. Ulrich for coming straight out and telling us exactly what's on his mind. While I would certainly like to be able to download music for free, there are several important issues he raised that I haven't seen any real answers for.
First, it's hard to contest that a lot of smaller groups could be seriously hurt financially, if a big band doesn't step up now. Second, he made a very good point about Napster. While it may be tough to prevent people from downloading songs from specific artists, they haven't even tried. They could at least prevent someone from downloading a file with the word 'Metallica' in it, especially after the overwhelming evidence that illegal downloads are taking place. While it would be a simple step to change the name, this would prevent a lot of newbies from downloading. My father called me yesterday, wanting to know about this 'new thing called MP3' - I doubt he'd think to look under abbreviatted names. The other side of this is to consider that the programmers of Napster likely designed the program so it would be hard to trace in this fashion - it wouldn't have added much work to the original program to add one or two features (perhaps a checksum of a particular MP3 - if that MP3 is in violation of copyright, the checksum is added to a security database).
Again, however, this seems to boil back down to civil disobedience. If the guys at Napster truly want to change the way music is distributed, that's fine and dandy. However, breaking the law, no matter how ill-conceived the law may be, will invite consequences. If they're just trying to IPO & get rich off of other people's work, that's another story. I remember the furor on the net back when someone started selling user-created Quake levels without asking permission, and I can't see much difference between these situations.
I don't use Napster, simply because I don't listen to music on my computer. But I love the idea behind it. I'm glad that Metallica's focus is banning the spread of copyrighted materials, rather than destroying Napster. Not that I think shutting Napster down is entirely possible; the best comparison I can think of is Napster as a Head Shop. Sure, you can use a water pipe for tobacco (read: 'legal purposes'), but *very* few people do. However, Head Shops have been around forever, providing a service for people who *don't mind paying the penalty if they get caught*.
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It sounds like most of the comments about the interview belong to the subset of people who were kicked off of Napster. Look folks, regardless of whether you think the law is wrong, if you break it, you have to take your punishment. Argueing against the law is great, starting legal action is even better. But civil disobediance, while a lot of fun, has some consequences. Let's not get in a huff because you were caught; civil disobedience wouldn't be any big deal if there weren't consequences for it.
I applaud Mr. Ulrich for coming straight out and telling us exactly what's on his mind. While I would certainly like to be able to download music for free, there are several important issues he raised that I haven't seen any real answers for.
First, it's hard to contest that a lot of smaller groups could be seriously hurt financially, if a big band doesn't step up now.
Second, he made a very good point about Napster. While it may be tough to prevent people from downloading songs from specific artists, they haven't even tried. They could at least prevent someone from downloading a file with the word 'Metallica' in it, especially after the overwhelming evidence that illegal downloads are taking place. While it would be a simple step to change the name, this would prevent a lot of newbies from downloading. My father called me yesterday, wanting to know about this 'new thing called MP3' - I doubt he'd think to look under abbreviatted names. The other side of this is to consider that the programmers of Napster likely designed the program so it would be hard to trace in this fashion - it wouldn't have added much work to the original program to add one or two features (perhaps a checksum of a particular MP3 - if that MP3 is in violation of copyright, the checksum is added to a security database).
Again, however, this seems to boil back down to civil disobedience. If the guys at Napster truly want to change the way music is distributed, that's fine and dandy. However, breaking the law, no matter how ill-conceived the law may be, will invite consequences. If they're just trying to IPO & get rich off of other people's work, that's another story. I remember the furor on the net back when someone started selling user-created Quake levels without asking permission, and I can't see much difference between these situations.
I don't use Napster, simply because I don't listen to music on my computer. But I love the idea behind it. I'm glad that Metallica's focus is banning the spread of copyrighted materials, rather than destroying Napster. Not that I think shutting Napster down is entirely possible; the best comparison I can think of is Napster as a Head Shop. Sure, you can use a water pipe for tobacco (read: 'legal purposes'), but *very* few people do. However, Head Shops have been around forever, providing a service for people who *don't mind paying the penalty if they get caught*.
-ctf