April 13, 2000: Metallica's Napster lawsuit "unwittingly became a defining moment of their career"

[Miles Archer]

Metallica is one of the biggest rock bands in the world, but their April 13, 2000, lawsuit against the file-sharing site Napster unwittingly became a defining moment of their career.

The path to the courtroom began in June 1999, when college dropout Shawn Fanning and teenage hacker Sean Parker launched a program whose moniker came from the former’s childhood nickname. Napster’s original aim was to create “a way for people to search for files and talk to each other,” Newsweek reported in 2000. “‘To build communities around different types of music,’” Fanning was quoted as saying in the article.

However, the expansion of high-speed internet, particularly on college campuses, made the program the perfect solution for students eager to search for and download mp3s. Finding rare (or even common) songs became as easy as typing in a band name or a song title in a search bar. Soon, thousands of people were swapping music files like digital baseball cards, using Napster as the conduit.

Naturally, the music industry was not pleased, and acted swiftly. In early December 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Napster. The organization released a statement, which contained this quote from Cary Sherman, senior executive vice president and general counsel for the RIAA: “Napster is about facilitating piracy, and trying to build a business on the backs of artists and copyright owners.” Gold Mountain Management’s Ron Stone was even blunter in that same statement: “It is the single most insidious Web site I’ve ever seen.”

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/metallica-napster-lawsuit/

[tkmorris]

1. Screw Metallica

[randome]

2. Napster in its heyday was a glorious thing. Fond memories here.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Capt. Obvious]

3. They're attrocious

And it's hilarious to read Lars saying this was not about money.

Fuck him. If shit wasn't about money they'd still be putting on the Orion Festival.