Wired fans find it hard to forgive Metallica

[Joanne98]

Like elephants, rock fans don't forget. In May 2000, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich personally delivered to the U.S. Senate judiciary committee a 60,000-page printout of Napster users who'd downloaded his bands' songs, resulting in the banning of more than 300,000 users from the service and ultimately, Napster's demise.

Eight years later, the heavy metal act is ready to jump on the digital bandwagon, but music fans don't seem to be making things easy for them.

The quartet has launched an online fan program called Mission: Metallica, which offers fans all sorts of goodies, including the ability to hear new tracks from its upcoming album, set for release this fall.

Too bad people are viewing the move with a jaundiced eye. After news was posted on Wired.com, a slew of angry music fans posted their views about it, and they were anything but positive.

"(Expletive) Metallica," wrote a user named me not you. "These jerkwads helped kill the original napster and mp3.com. They single-handedly delayed the digital music revolution by at least 4 years. They sued little kids and grannies. Now after clearly losing the fight against progress they want to suddenly join the winning side. Go to hell, Metallica."

Another sample: "Oh I get it, now that your careers are in the (expletive), you finally wanna open up to this 'new & hip' digital world only NOW in 2008 after years of alienating thousands of your fans by suing the pants off them & treating them like criminals for spreading your music. Too little too late."

And my favourite: "You wanted me to pick between mp3s and metallica? i did. you lost."

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/story.html?id=46ad74b1-9b99-4237-80cc-948726588ebf

Maybe the RIAA should think twice before supporting the ACTA trade agreement. Rock fans aren't going to forgive that either.

[ileus]

1. Go Metallica!

[Edweird]

2. They suck now anyway. They were awesome back in the day when they were angry and hungry,

now it's tired and boring and lame as hell. Plus their pissy attitudes about the MP3's... Fuck 'em.

[BlooInBloo]

3. Great music, but Lars can fucking go to hell.

[MedleyMisty]

4. I remember seeing something once

about an RIAA person saying something about making everyone too scared to download music.

I wondered how they completely missed interacting with any other teenagers while growing up. The police officer who came to talk to us about drugs in high school got it - he said, "If I tell you not to do drugs, what are you going to do?" and the class chorused back "Do drugs."

[varkam]

5. K&R

The unfortunate thing about the whole process was that Metallica was actually in the right. People shouldn't swipe their songs and they should reap the benefits of their work. They lost the moral high-ground, and lost it in a big way, by reacting the way they did. They came across as whiny multi-millionaire babies who thought that they best way to proceed was to sue their fans.

So, for Metallica: May you get what you want and want what you get.

[originalpckelly]

8. They were right the wrong way.

[varkam]

11. That's a succinct way of putting it. eom

:hi:

[ljm2002]

10. Very debatable that "Metallica was actually in the right"...

...please read the article "The Heavenly Jukebox" published in the Atlantic Monthly in 2000, by Charles C. Mann. You can find it at: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200009/file-sharing

Even at this late date, the article's in-depth exploration of the issues involved gives a unique perspective on the advent of digital technologies for movies, music and the written word.

(added on edit):

He goes into some detail of how the music industry works:

Strikingly, the companies own the recordings even if the artists have fully compensated the label for production and sales costs. "It's like you pay off the mortgage and the bank still owns the house," says Timothy White, the editor-in-chief of Billboard. "Everything is charged against the musician—recording expenses, marketing and promotional costs—and then when it's all paid off, they still own the record." Until last November artists could take back their recordings after thirty-five years. But then, without any hearings, Congress passed a bill with an industry-backed amendment that apparently strips away this right. "It's unconscionable," White says. "It's big companies making a naked grab of intellectual property from small companies and individuals." (emphasis mine)

Here is another extract, towards the end:

For "content industries," fear turns directly to greed with the realization that digital technology provides opportunities to extract money from consumers in ways never before attempted. Consider Stephen King's electronic novella, Riding the Bullet. Not only was it "printed" and distributed for next to nothing, but in theory the book could not be copied from one computer to another—owners of Riding the Bullet could not lend it to their friends. Editors often guess that four or five people read every "hard" copy of most popular books and magazines; digital technology offers the captivating possibility of forcing the freeloaders to pay up. (emphasis mine)

[varkam]

15. Thanks for the article.

It was a very interesting read, if not long. Good grief, I just woke up! :D

As the article points out, this is a sort of debate that at times can "border on the theological". There are a number of different factors at issue, and none of them are especially simple.

Legally, though, I think it's pretty much a closed book at this point. Metallica et al was in the right. That, however, is just one facet of the discussion.

As far as other things go though, I think that file-sharing is a potential boon to the industry. I think that statement is pretty well supported by record sales data, though I could be wrong. On the legal front, though, I think that whether or not file-swapping would help or hurt is essentially a red herring. The meat of the thing is copyright infringement.

Now it may be that the RIAA and their cronies have shot themselves in the foot by going after consumers (and I tend to think that they have), but legally speaking they were in the right. It is hard, however, to have a whole hell of a lot of sympathy for megacorps and their megabucks when you contrast that with teenagers and grandmothers.

As I said, it's a done deal on the legal front. You can't get copyrighted material for free (or at least you're not supposed to). Is it right morally? I think that's a different question entirely, and I'm not sure I have an answer to that one.

[ljm2002]

21. Thanks for the reply...

...and yes, it was a looooong article! :-)

The reason I remembered it was that back in 2000 some friends and I got into a rather heated discussion of the matter. Actually, I mostly hung back while my other friends, who were on opposite sides of the issue, were nearly frothing at the mouth.

Ah, memories...

[Mythsaje]

24. Here's an interesting read on a similar topic by Eric Flint

About the Baen Free Library and such.

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver8.htm

And then there's MY response to that.

http://sajewilliams.wordpress.com/

[NashVegas]

6. 2008 Is the First Year Bonnaroo Didn't Sell Out

I reckon Ashley Capps is re-thinking this one.

[originalpckelly]

7. ACTA is different from real copyright. Shouldn't someone be rewarded for making music that's good?

Of course, going after grannies and kids was the wrong approach. Napster should have been, as it eventually was, taken down, not it's users.

If someone can't afford what's being pirated, it will not harm the person who produced it, because a potential sale is not being prevented.

On the other hand, if it prevents the sale of something a person can afford, then piracy causes material harm to the copyright holder.

I'm willing to bet most of the people who downloaded Metallica off of Napster could have afforded it, and that band probably suffered material harm because of that service.

However, all that should be done in a case of piracy that causes material harm, is that the person should be forced to pay for what they pirated and any associated costs necessary to force payment (within reason.)

These massive penalties are truly wrong, and end up causing more harm than good. Filing a lawsuit is unnecessary, piracy should be treated like a parking ticket. Hell, it's far less severe a "crime" than parking in the wrong place. No one's going to die because of piracy!

I hate ACTA because of the fact that it enables globalization.

[U4ikLefty]

9. Fuck Metallica.

I spent more on music AFTER Napster than before.

I was able to download/sample groups like Dream Theater & Porcupine Tree. It built my interest in their material.

I decided to spend my money on show-tix to a few of their shows at 75+ a pop.

...and they are both better than Metalli-can't.

[Feron]

14. I agree.

Although I am more of a Judas Priest/Megadeth/Slayer person than a Dream Theater one. My CD collection is full of artists I never would've discovered without file sharing. Mp3s are free and effective publicity.

People who sell unauthorized CDs and DVDs should be punished, but if labels were smart they would've taken advantage of filesharing to promote acts rather than sue their customers.

Metallica can bite me. Back when they were trying to make it big, they encouraged tape trading to build up a fanbase. Then they pissed on all of their fans during the Napster debacle.

And the black album was the last decent Metallica album. Even glam bands like Motley Crue are better than the Metallica of today. Hell I'm not interested in streaming much less downloading anything of theirs anymore.

[U4ikLefty]

18. I like both. I just saw Maiden/Anthrax at Irvine Meadows on 5/30

the show was incredible. They started a freakin' bonfire in the lawn & were moshing around the fire...what a great time!!!

I'm also heading to the "Masters of Metal" tour with Heaven&Hell/Testament/Motorhead/Judas Priest in August.

...but I here ya about selling unauthorized CDs vs private downloading. I remember seeing an up-and-coming Metallica here in California in their infancy & they were real cool with folks copying their demo tape.

[arcadian]

12. Rock & Roll bands testifying before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee = uncool

There is nothing more uncool than a rock band conforming to the establishment and aligning themselves with "the man".

[AngryAmish]

17. I thought Frank Zappa was pretty cool.

Remember that Tipper Gore abortion?

[U4ikLefty]

20. Zappa was for (and testifed for) expression vs the gov't/the industry

while Lars was FOR (and testifed for) the industry vs the music consumer.

That is a significant difference in my mind.

[Mythsaje]

26. Frank and Dee Snyder.

Both earned major kudos in my book. The whole debacle resulted in the banning of Pat Benetar's "Hell is for Children" being banned from the radio, which is the fucking STUPIDEST thing they might have done, considering it was about child abuse and well worthy of a listen. I never completely forgave Tipper Gore for that.

[Edweird]

19. Especially one that railed against authority like they did.

[lame54]

13. Narcallica

Those were there fans they turned in - the ones that made them rich

[frog92969]

16. They showed us that the heart

of the Music Industry lies squarely in the industry.
Any artist worthy of the title would want their work spread far and wide, especialy when they're raking in millions anyway.

I could understand if people were handing out (or especialy selling) their albums saying "hey, check out MY band".

The band that told us it was cool to steal cryed like babies when a small fraction of their obsene profits got skimmed. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

:nopity:

[pepperbear]

22. A couple of things....

There are progressive rock bands half their age who BLOW THEM AWAY. They should take a cue from RADIOHEAD, who released their album digitally on the honor system (actually, they offered it for free or for whatever anyone was willing to pay). Then they released the actual CD...and it made the top ten.

You can't tell me they didn't make money hand over fist, and they didn't alienate any fans.

Metallica is cool. Fuck Metallica.

[John Kerry VonErich]

23. This is what Lars meant...

I saw an interview with Lars and the Napster question was brought up. His problem, he said, was not the free songs, but their songs that were downloaded were unfinished. The band wanted the songs finished and officially released before it can be downloaded, not the money issue. But as I said, that was Lars explanation.

[the other one]

27. cough cough BULLSHIT

If Lurch really meant that, he would have gone after those who stole the unfinished material in the first place. It sounds like an inside job to me.

[the other one]

25. The death of the recording industry is the best thing for music.

Its the Grateful Dead model: Give the music away for free, but sell tickets to concerts. Of course this only works when a band is able to play live. This eliminates most of the over-produced crap that the recording industry deals with. Real musicians are doing fine (or were for Bushonomics) selling their shows and shirts and letting people spread the music for free.

How ironic that The Grateful Dead were 40 years ahead of the rest of the industry.