Metallica's attorneys issue 41-page cease-and-desist letter to Metallica "tribute band"

[Miles Archer]

Sandman, a.k.a. “Canada’s Tribute To Metallica” (we didn’t know they demanded sacrificial tributes from countries of the world, but live and learn), arrived at their London, Ontario gig Saturday night, only to be served with a 41-page cease-and-desist letter, courtesy of Metallica themselves. For some reason, Metallica took issue with Sandman using one of their “official, stylized logos” to promote live appearances, and their legal response was what those fluent in legalese refer to as a “Seek and Destroy” strategy.

This isn’t the first time Ulrich and co, intent on justice for all, have gone after Canadian Metallica fans for trademark breaches. Back in 2003, Metallica and their lawyers went after a small-time Edmonton punk band who decided the best way to get their name out there was to cut out the middleman and just name themselves Metallica. Well, maybe that’s one time the swift legal response was justified. After all, as their lawyers (Damages Inc?) noted at the time, “Your use of Metallica is particularly astonishing to the band, given that you have admitted in at least one interview that ‘you know you are not allowed to use the name.”



http://www.aux.tv/2016/01/metallica-threaten-canadian-tribute-band-with-lawsuit/

[saturnsring]

1. yes please let them fade into obscurity where they belong

Mc-tallica

[KamaAina]

2. The very same Metallica that has its head up the RIAA's a$$

on the other hand, a friend's son attends exclusive Marin Academy with Lars' daughter.

[GummyBearz]

3. Love their music, hate their money grubbing corporate inspired ways

[Bjorn Against]

4. Metallica is one band that I have never cared for

I am perfectly open to metal and am a fan of several metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Dream Theater, Opeth, Tool, and several others. Metallica does not come close to any of those bands in my opinion, they are highly overrated and they come across as complete assholes. Lars Ulrich in particular is a person who seems like he is totally in it for the money and could care less about the art. I really don't understand the appeal of Metallica, there are so many better bands out there.

[Lizzie Poppet]

9. Yep: overrated.

Bit of a metalhead here, and it amuses me no end that if you asked someone which rocked harder, this band:


or this band:


most people would say the latter...right up until the point where they both started playing.

[melman]

10. What about this band?

[img][/img]

[Lizzie Poppet]

15. They look so young!

Of course, Bridear look like babies to me...and I'm only in my late 30's...

[Miles Archer]

17. "Ride The Lightning"...not exactly "ReLoad," was it?

Like a lot of people, my first exposure to Metallica was via "One" and the video on MTV, which had me positioned for "The Black Album." I kept hearing the fans grouse about how they had sold out, how much "better" they used to be. So now, in 2016, I've heard every not this band played. As much as people love "Master of Puppets," for my tastes, "Ride The Lightning" is still the one. There aren't too many bands out there who have pulled off a gem like "For Whom The Bell Tolls."

[Act_of_Reparation]

41. Since you brought it up...

[RiffRandell]

44. I agree.

I remember 2 years ago Rolling Stone celebrated the album's release 30 years ago and I posted on FB the link with a headline 'You want to feel really old?' as I was in HS when it came out, and my best friend replied 'and it still KICKS ASS!' and she's so right.

I love every song on that album but one of my favorites is The Call of Ktulu.

Once we were of age we used to go to this total dive bar to shoot pool and drink cheap beer and that album was the best one on the juke.

We wore it out!

[ryan_cats]

39. Yes

Yes, Cliff!

Back when Kirk actually played solos.

[Bjorn Against]

12. I had not heard of Bridear before now so I just listened to a song on YouTube...

From just the one song I can already tell they are much more talented than Metallica. It might take me a while to get used to her voice, but they are definitely far superior to Metallica from an instrumental perspective.

[Lizzie Poppet]

14. Yep: instrumentally amazing.

Kimi's not the strongest singer out there, but she's also the lyricist and I suspect a lot of the wonderful phrasing and melody lines in the vocals are hers (although the vocal melodies might be Mitsuru, who writes the music). Mitsuru is also an amazing guitarist, and the combined lead stuff between her and Misa is insanely good. Fast, melodic, interesting playing, with both in perfect sync on really technical lines. This band's songwriting is a breath of fresh air in power metal.

Funny note: Mitsuru has the highest-pitched speaking voice I've ever heard in an adult. Not just like a kid, but like a little kid. The juxtaposition with her really heavy guitar playing is so much fun.

[snooper2]

38. I give them the instrumental part, but the singing SUCKS

Checked a couple of the vids and yeah, not working for you lady

[Lizzie Poppet]

42. Live, Kimi seems susceptible to her voice tiring badly by the end of the show.

I have a DVD of an entire performance, and Kimi's voice noticeably fades by the end. Her technique isn't really correct, and she strains her voice too much, making it start to "go" on her after an hour or so. She's also one of those singers that has a hard time holding pitch if she can't hear her monitors really well (not uncommon). I guess I cut her some slack because she's one of the two songwriters in Bridear (almost all songs are credited to her and Mitsuru, except one Kimi wrote both the lyrics and music both), and their songwriting is top tier.

[chade]

18. Oh my gosh!

I hadn't heard of them before, I love Japanese bands and metal. You made my night!!!

[Lizzie Poppet]

19. Yay!

Bridear haven't been around all that long (late 2012, iirc). A very happy discovery, to be sure!

[Egnever]

30. Holy carp!

Just listened to this

Brought me right back to my metal days. Good stuff!

[Lizzie Poppet]

43. I love that one.

That was the first track they previewed off an upcoming second album, too. If it's any indication, their songwriting hasn't dropped off one bit. Kimi and Mitsuru (who combine for most all the songwriting credits) just plain get how to structure a song (something a lot of modern metal bands just aren't good at). Those beautiful, soaring choruses! They're particularly effective live because all five members sing.

[hunter]

5. Seriously? They should make their own stuff...

... in the same way I avoid Microsoft or Apple license unless someone is paying me big $$$, and maybe not even then.

[longship]

6. Let's have some JS Bach instead.

[kentauros]

26. Of course Peter Schickele ripped off everyone

and still didn't get sued

[longship]

27. Oh dear! What to do!

I guess one can only put up "New Horizons in Music Appreciation"

[kentauros]

29. That'll keep ya awake during boring Baroque concerts!

[opiate69]

45. I'd rather some Vivaldi, at the moment....

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Don't worry Lars, I'd never download your music. Ever. n/t

[Drahthaardogs]

16. Worst drummer of all the hair bands.

He sucked.

[JI7]

8. don't most bands like tribute bands of them ?

[Angleae]

21. Only as long as they're being paid.

[melman]

11. Is it supposed to be bad that they protect their trademarks?

Any band would do the same.

[TBF]

13. In fact they could lose legal rights if they don't protect them

not that I think it's a great system, but if we're playing capitalism this is how it works.

[Orsino]

40. Yeah. It isn't clear, though...

...whether Metallica is banning the use of their logo (totally understandable) or is trying to prevent Sandman from presenting itself as a Metallica cover band. The latter would be hilarious overreach.

[CBGLuthier]

20. Nothing new from them.

[kwolf68]

22. Why don't they

just perform at the Republican convention and be done with it. These pricks are insufferable.

[kwolf68]

23. This band ...

THIS band was the best heavy metal band in history!!! In my view Kill Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, ...And Justice For All, and Black album are certifiable genius level heavy metal. Absolutely no doubt they saved heavy metal in the 1980s when all the glam shit was taking over. There is no way to explain just how good this band was without draining every superlative you know....I am VERY proud and happy they MADE IT BIG without radio or MTV play...they did it the old fashioned way...toured their asses off and wrote masterful music....we told the glam posers that OUR metal was better, OUR metal was legit, and in truth it survived. Nothing today is inspired by glam metal, but NUMEROUS bands and many genres have the fingerprints of THIS band on their existence. REAL metal won the war....while the posers were out selling out arenas and having orgies, Metallica was WRITING history....loved these guys. This is why what they've now become is so hard to swallow.

[Egnever]

25. They stopped getting money from me back in the Napster days

they haven't produced a decent selling album since either.

They made great music but turned on their fans I will never purchase anything from them ever again because of it. A shame really I went from a big fan to a detractor after the Napster crusade and with this nonsense I feel it was clearly the right decision. Makes me glad I never forgave them.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Metallica, yawn.

Sorry, but, yawn.

They should be glad there are tribute bands out there. If anything, it will help keep sales of their catalog going with potentially new fans.

Stupid business move.

[Miles Archer]

31. There are copyright issues, and then there are copyright issues...

I haven't had a color printer for a while. For the amount of color printing I do it is cheaper for me to put my files on my flash drive and go to a local "pay per page" place.

When i was in Colorado I went to the nearby Fed Ex. Everything was OK until they sent the employees to a copyright seminar.

I had a Led Zeppelin mix CD I'd made. People who know me know that i have something of a fetish about capping off a well-made mix CD with the best color booklet insert I can muster. I get all of my album art from the Album Art Exchange website. For this particular CD, I just let iTunes do a color collage of the album covers from the playlist.

I take my drive to Fed Ex, the employee loads my PDF file, and then points to her screen and says "Copyright, copyright, copyright, copyright, copyright" (pointing to each album cover in the collage).

I respectfully said "HUH?"

I then explained that I made a mix CD for my own personal use of music I purchased. I asked her to print one insert for one CD. I did not mass-produce the CD and had no intention of selling them out of the trunk of my car.

My belief, as mistaken as it may be when facing "the letter of the law" on copyright, is that since I purchased every Led Zeppelin album on vinyl when they were released, that I purchased the first round of Led Zeppelin CDs (which we now know were shit, because Warner / Atlantic / Reprise was infamous in the early days of CDs for rush-releasing discs that were sometimes amstered from an existing copy of the vinyl album instead of the master tapes), and that I once again purchased all of their music when Jimmy Page did what was supposed to be the "definitive" remaster (before his second "definitive" remaster series that ended last year), at this particular point in time, I feel like I owe Jimmy Page jack shit, and that if I want to make a mix CD of music for my own personal use in my car, I will do that, and he can accept it or fucking bite me.

I feel the same way about this tribute band. They are keeping an interest in Metallica alive. People who attend their shows are extremely likely to purchase Metallica MP3s or CDs or concert tickets for "the real thing" after getting energized at a "Sandman" show.

[Warren DeMontague]

33. Yeah, Exactly.

That's one thing about the Dead; they always understood that a loyal and happy fan base would pay off in the long run. That's why they pioneered the then-unheard of idea of actually allowing people to tape and trade their shows.

And man, I've given those guys a LOT of $, over the years. But I also never felt ripped off. (I saw some clunker shows, to be sure, but the astronomically ass-kicking ones made up for it and then some)

[hobbit709]

32. I have seen the great, the near great, the good and the bad

Metallica belongs in the SUX category.

[MrScorpio]

34. Yeah, but they'll never be as bad ass as Dethklok

You don't impress me by sending lawyers, that's for wimps.

To make a real statement, you send DEMONS!

[HughBeaumont]

35. Ah, yes, that band that purposefully ruined their album to haze their bassist.

Small wonder why this album had no shelf life with me. Maybe it would have had it sounded like this . . .

[RiffRandell]

36. Love them, but they are greedy assholes and love Dave Grohl's response.

Despise Dennis Miller, but Lars: You were even such a dickwad in Some Kind of Monster, you balding fuck.

[Demonaut]

47. foo fighters, nirvana....they have talent

[Iggo]

37. At this stage of the game, the tribute band probably sounds better than the genuine article.

I went to Death Magnetic, and oh my fucking gawd, Metallica was Hor.Ri.Ble. They sucked. They sucked sooooo fucking bad. Really really bad.

[Demonaut]

46. never liked their music.............like a post turtle to me