Metallica backs file sharing
Great U turns of our time
POPULAR BEAT COMBO and bunch of corporate crybabies Metallica has finally seen the writing on the wall and decided to support file sharing.
In 2000, the group was behind the lawsuit that killed Napster and became one of the loudest critics of file sharing. The band has had a change of heart, apprently, after seeing the huge wads of cash Radiohead and, err, Cliff Richard, made out of sticking albums online.
In a statement the band said that its fight was not about downloading really, it was about piracy and the money that the artists make.
At the time of the Napster lawsuit, pretentious Metallica shed builder Lars Ulrich said: "We take our craft - whether it be the music, the lyrics, or the photos and artwork - very seriously, as do most artists. It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
As a result of the band's cynical U turn, it appears that Metallica is doing only one more album with its current record label, Warner.
Anyone with more than two operational synapses to bang together might think that band members have realised that they can make a lot more money on their own by embracing the Internet without the label taking a cut.
Rock 'n' Roll, eh? µ
L’Inq
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Comments
digital tragedy
actually i think it's one of the great tragedies of recent times that music is so readily pirated digitally. i don't mind media being cheaper as a result of new technology and distribution mechanisms, but i doubt we'll ever see a great band ever again as a result of today's fickle and transient attitude to music, and as lars said, its commoditisation through digtial pirating.Dissapointed in their sound
Metallica used to be alot better before their "Frantic" album was released.. I hope they go back , to their old sound..I think ive got 14 metallica CD's.. some might be live maybe one or two bootlegs etc. but ive got most of their music.. but when they released Frantic.. I listend to it and didn't purchase it.
GREED
How many poor people have been taken to the cleaners because of Metallicas greed. I myself will never, ever buy an album and much less a song from Metallica. You guys got on the wrong bus and now want the driver to take a shortcut! Because of your lack of future thinking (Times change, believe it or not...) you are now destined to stale with stink. I hope that you guys will never make a penny and if you do, that your taxes will scuff it all up. You will be avoided because of your greed! Your beef is with the Record Label not with the small fries. Check your contract fools...kewl
I was pretty shocked when it was revealed just how much Radiohead had raked in for their new album.Metallica now, i wonder who will be next?
Metallica/Radiohead > RIAA
File sharing my ass
Just because some group is willing to sell their albums online as mp3s or FLAC doesn't mean they support file sharing. If anything it just means they don't care so much about selling compilations of their crap compared to single tracks.Those Metallica chumps can go to hell, and I hope everyone sees this "stance reversal" for what it really is.
Ironic?
It is a little ironic them talking about file sharers trading music as a commodity, when the act of selling anything that is not essential to life is an act of trading a commodity - does this band have any brain cells to help them think about whether what they are saying is hypocritical as a statement.Enter courtroom
I wonder how many people are going to think "Metallica said we could download music" and get F*#^ed by the RIAA... I just think it's awesome the band wants people to hear its music more than it wants money, not something you see too often.Its not a tragedy
Its just a sign of the digital times. Some would say its art, but its not. Its not sufficiantly different from what other 'artists' produce. The digital age has meant that 'ordinary' people can go to their bedroom and make an Album, something if the music industry had had its way, would never have happened. The artists now have mass competition, music is everywhere, and its hard to stand out from the crowd. The days of very limited studio time, and thus control are over. Period.Those people like music execs, and Metallica who complain and want people throw in prison persue an evil aim. The support of monopolistic practise with only one aim, the subjegation of everyone to control, so they can maintain rich pickings.
In terms of the UK, music for years was over priced, and this monopolistic control directly leads to people downloading. High art is not sold in a million copies, high art is when you fill a stadium and produce a one off show for those paying.
Real bands are making real money today by playing real music, and they HAVE had to do this to recreate revenue streams. Seeing real music is real art, and those who can do it, like Metallica can, will need to change the way that they think.
Independants and good musicians who ut their goods up for sale direcly - as Radiohead did, MAY make good sales. Nothing is guaranteed. But if you make millions, complaining about some more millions you deserve and bitching is stupid.
The only people I feel sorry for is the struggling musicians - but the music labels looked after them at least as badly as the downloaders do.
No Problem Really
Metallica were the only group out there with the balls to say what every other artists was thinking.I will purchase their music in any form as it easily proves its worth. Their last album, St Anger, did leave a bit to be desired but stagnation and same old is not Metallica.
Music pirates are scum. They do not deserve the pleasure that non-purchased music gives them. Those of us who pay are propping up their dirty habit. A bunch of petty criminals.
If you do not like the price, the DRM, the form (MP3, CD) then don´t come up with a lame justifications for pirating. You do not deserve the free ride.
Há!
I wait that they had lost money for the old thought sufficiently who had on the InterNet. They would have to retire, the time of them already were.Ahhhh
Fond memories...Intarweb bad... INTARWEB BAAAAD!
(Hint: Google camp chaos metallica)
Tragedy or plurality
" actually i think it's one of the great tragedies of recent times that music is so readily pirated digitally. ... but i doubt we'll ever see a great band ever again as a result of today's fickle and transient attitude to music, and as lars said, its commoditisation through digtial pirating."Haha, that's a riot. I find great new bands regularly. I have 250 bands in my digital collection, most are from the 90s or 00s. The new reality is a great plurality of music. The future is the long tail. What we will see less and less of in the future is these superstars of music, like Metallica. They're not exceptional at all.
LOL @ Metallica
"Music pirates are scum. They do not deserve the pleasure that non-purchased music gives them. Those of us who pay are propping up their dirty habit. A bunch of petty criminals"I THOUROUGHLY enjoy every second of the music i PIRATE, and will continue to for the foreseeable future. people like you seem to think that somehow your opinion of us is going to shame us into realizing the "error" of our ways, but i'm happy to report that you are as wrong as any Christian moron who babbles on about sin and soul damnation and and tries to guilt trip free-thinking people into buying their load of shite.
as for Metallica, they've sucked ass ever since Cliff died and nothing they say has been worth taking seriously since. bunch of pretentious rich bitches complaining about how much money they *aren't* making when they're loaded and most likely will be for the foreseeable future.
wild
You mean I've been able to download music for free this whole time! You've really opened my eyes!Fall off the bandwagon
These has beens are just trying to get some free publicity from all of this. So they might sell their songs off of ITunes. It will no doubt be full of DRM and your IPs logged. These guys are the devil.Ring Back
nowadays, it's all about ring back tones and ring back tones. here in my home country, the latest songs are barely different from each others as they are made to be listened in less than 1 minute and played on tinny speaker of cellphonestoo little too late
Up till that moron drummer felt it was his god given destiny to kill off file sharing, I've not paid a dime for ANY Mehellica music. Oh, I still get some from time to time but here's a suggestion. 1. Get rid of the coffee can drum sound. 2. RETIRE. Thanks to these guys, I've moved on to a better level of music, GOTH metal. Metallica sucks, Lacuna Coil rules.Thanks, Metallica
The incredible Metallica / intellectual property fan in the first post says, amid his tears: "but i doubt we'll ever see a great band ever again".Yeah, Percival, the people who downloaded songs have forever destroyed mankind's capacity to appreciate music. Pffft.
Lars and his greedy swine band are a cultural icon, alright. But they won't be remembered for what is, in music history, their rather marginal body of work. They will be remembered -- and not in a good way -- as the people that changed the internet for the worse.
Napster's demise had a global significance that -far- outweighed its loss as the largest peaceful crossroads for people in human history (the internet itself being the biggest human organization that ever was, of course). Through their Napster lawsuit, they opened the floodgates for the greedy, corporate "intellectual property rights" protections that we have today. (And we aint seen nothin yet.)
Once Metallica's lawyers won the suit against Napster, lawyers representing other interests -- recording, movie, software companies, ad nauseam -- began to charge down upon the pristine fold of the internet with the same savagery that the American settlers charged into the unspoiled West. Only instead of killing off all the buffalo and Indians, they are killing off the freedom of communication.
Now, thanks to them, we can barely read an article, hear to a song, or see a news clip without some greedy corporate swine crying, "We're sorry, that is premium content for psubscribers only".
Lars and his group of idiots began the great "fencing-in" of the internet, where now we have to pay for the smallest of things. Microsoft must have had an orgasm when they got the news.
The sad part is, it didnt have to be that way. But our kids will grow up thinking that's the way it always was.
suck it lars
Remember garage days,they didn't care of bootlegg then. they "Used" any means they could to get people to the show.I said the hell with them after puke and repuke.they suck balls now and forevermore.
last week trent reznor put one of his songs on the net , free. now theres a artist.
@AC - 1st comment
"...i doubt we'll ever see a great band ever again..."I disagree. I think we will see greater bands, more talent and a wider range of genre.
Greedy record labels have had it their way for decades and squashed a lot of great potential artists before they had a chance to get off the ground - just because someone at the label didn't like the music.
Technologies like P2P and YouTube are allowing smaller artists getting themself heard and seen when previously they may not have a chance.
Same thing with movies and small time movie directors.
Fuck RIAA, fuck the music labels.
Burn Hollywood Burn.
Aint my bitch
Metallica has sold more than 100 million copies of its "artwork." But when they sell it for $15 a CD, it is not art, it's a commodity. It's a cheap reprint, a photocopy. And when you get sales awards for selling in multiples of a million (platinum record), it is not art, it's definitely a commodity! ...so is this U-turn justice for all? Aint my bitch.