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How can anyone fault Lars for going after Napster?


1. It's stealing. I don't care if he can spend a billion dollar a day from being so rich. I'm not preaching against file sharing. I'm just saying don't get mad when the guy you're stealing from gets pissed.

2. The song was literally stolen from their studio and uploaded online. Lars felt as though he had no control on releasing his own band's music, and that's why he wanted Napster taken down.

The "fan" that threw out his collection is a goddamn idiot.

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1. It's stealing. I don't care if he can spend a billion dollar a day from being so rich. I'm not preaching against file sharing. I'm just saying don't get mad when the guy you're stealing from gets pissed
Exactly.
The "fan" that threw out his collection is a goddamn idiot
Absolutely.

Completely agree. I don't quite understand how anyone could sympathise on the Napster side of this debate. It's theft - plain and simple - and ought to be a heavily punished crime, like all other theft.

Proud member of COW-DJ

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Um, it's not stealing. It's copying. The original still exists in his possession. If you were to spy through somebody'd window and make a copy of a painting you see on their wall, it it stealing the painting??
I'm not saying it't right, just that it's not stealing.

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If you were to spy through somebody'd window and make a copy of a painting you see on their wall, it it stealing the painting??
No, but it's probably trespassing

An economy is usually a fairly simple matter of being paid for goods or services. A band arguably provides both, in the form of a CD, and they deserve to be paid for their work. Likewise, if a consumer wants the benefit of the good or service, they should have to pay for it.

Perhaps you're technically right in suggesting it's not 'stealing' per se, but it's pretty obviously morally bankrupt.

Proud member of COW-DJ

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Um, it's not stealing. It's copying. The original still exists in his possession.

Actually, that is not the nature of digital/intangible/intellectual property rights, at least not in the countries of Europe and North America. While you might think you are making a clever legalistic distinction in terms of stealing vs copying, what you are proposing doesn't make any commercial sense. The "original" has no commercial value beyond the fact that it can be used to make copies, either on CD or in another format, that can be sold to paying customers. If what you are saying is correct, Microsoft would never exist - people would just "copy" Windows as needed, feeling no guilt because Bill Gates would still have his "original" copy.

In any case, the courts of America disagree with you, as numerous people have been prosecuted over the years for illegal trading of recorded music files.

If you are Chinese or live in some other country that has a limited notion of property rights, particularly in the sphere of intellectual property, then I suppose we have a fundamental disagreement.

The issue with Napster was that Napster was trying to build a business around running a platform that allowed the trading of recorded music without the permission of rightsholders. I cannot blame Lars for going after Napster and taking a stand on behalf of artists. However, I do think he could have gone about it in a more skillful manner where he did not come off looking like a spoiled rock star worried about his money. He needed better PR folks.

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You are assuming that everyone who copies a song would otherwise have bought it legitimately. This is clearly not the case. It's more likely they would just go without it, severly limiting the song's exposure and cultural impact. Song swapping actually performs a vital service for the music idustry in getting songs "out there", although they would never admit this of course.

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Neither Bands or Labels mostly benefit from 'having songs out there'

The reason Napster was so successful, was because of easy access. Before napster there was no such thing as sharing any kind of files on this kind of scale. And with music it was easy because mp3s are small and there's loads of content.

But if bands want to make a living and if labels want to be around to promote and sell the records of bands, then 'having the song out there' in almost full quality and full length means absolutely nothing to them on a promotion basis. because most of the time, in an digital file sharing environment, that one song will be downloaded 1000 times before someone decides to buy the legitimate version because of it.

In terms of marketing, that is extremely inefficient.

Now for smaller bands trying to promote themselves it made sense to a certain extent and a few exceptional cases have made great use of napster and other online forums for this. But in most cases, a band will benefit more from just showing samples of their songs rather than giving high quality versions away to people without buying them.







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Human Assembly http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1383243/

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So you get one sale from 1000 dowloads, so what? It's better than no sales for a song that nobody has ever heard of.

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The point is, if you're spending money recording the record, you want to employ sales techniques which cost less than the money earned.

put it this way. if you've recorded an album and it cost you 1000 dollars to do so and you earn 1 dollar per download. and if it takes 1000 unpaid downloads to get 1 legal one, you'll end up requiring 1 000 000 downloads, just to make your money back! ... and that is highly unlikely for a newcomer band. Now lets say 1000 downloads is exhaggerated (but with big bands thats not far off!), but lets say only every 10 illegal downloads before someone buys a single legal one. you still have to sell 10 000 downloads just to make your money back.

and if you're a newcomer band, that is simply not feasable or realistic. And 1000 dollars for recording an album is dirt cheap.

there are far more effective ways of marketing your music without having to resort to giving your product away.


And of course this is just considering bands who might actually want their songs traded on the internet. If a band doesn't want their music to be shared like that, then they dont really have a say so in the matter because people will do it anyway, despite the artists wishes. And even if it increases exposure, it doesn't increase sales. And if a band wants to do this for a living, its really difficult to justify.

Now obviously a lot of bands do make a good chunk of money on touring, and depending on how successful and rigorous you are, you can actually make more money with that, than with record sales. But thats not a guarantee, and not all artists tour or are able to tour. Film composers dont really tour. They may have a concert which they conduct (if they conduct!) somewhere. But thats it. Songwriters dont tour. What about bands who have changed band members in the past. If they have writing credits for a successful song of that band, they should deserve compensation for it. But none of that applies if people just download it without paying for it.

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Human Assembly http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1383243/

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You are assuming that everyone who copies a song would otherwise have bought it legitimately. This is clearly not the case. It's more likely they would just go without it, severly limiting the song's exposure and cultural impact. Song swapping actually performs a vital service for the music idustry in getting songs "out there", although they would never admit this of course.


Whether they would have bought it legitimately or not isn't the issue. The issue is that the song is copyrighted, and a person doesn't have the legal right to own a copy of the song unless they've paid for it.

Sure, it's great that Napster provided artists who didn't have fancy and professional distribution/publishing deals with a means to get their music "out there" and get exposure. That was the perfect use for Napster. And if that's all it was used for, nobody would have complained. The problem with Napster is that it was being used to put EVERYBODY's songs "out there", whether the artist/publisher wanted them out there or not. People were using it to give away music that wasn't theirs to give, and to take music that they didn't have a legal right to. That was problem. That's why Napster was wrong and Lars was right.

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http://www.icanhasinternets.com/2010/08/a-big-fat-thanks-to-record-execs/

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Like I said- if Napster was only being used to promote bands who needed it/wanted it (which is what Rolling Stone was referring to in that letter,) there wouldn't have been a problem.

That letter is stupid. The music industry is on its knees thanks to downloading/stealing. Napster was only the beginning.

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[deleted]

Absolute rubbish. Downloading is what saved the music industry from such consumer distractions as xbox, iphone and internet. Without downloading the music industry would be dead

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Absolute rubbish. Downloading is what saved the music industry from such consumer distractions as xbox, iphone and internet. Without downloading the music industry would be dead


Ha! *slaps knee* Good one!

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There will always be a demand for music, but plainly speaking, if you receive something for free, someone else is bearing the financial loss.

When you're talking about extremely famous bands such as Metallica, the costs associated with creating a song, let alone a full album can be astronomically high. If a song costs $100,000 to create (that's an example figure), and then a person receives it for nothing, obviously a loss will be incurred on the creators and producers of the song.

Say an average artist receives 5% of the sale of a song. The song is available for download for $2. This means that the artist would receive 10c per song sale. That's pretty common. So if one person received the song for free, that's a loss of 10c. Won't miss that. But if 1,000,000 people illegally download that same song, the loss is now $100,000. That would have covered the cost of the song. But it was gained illegally so the artist is left with less. That means that the band will still have to bare the cost of creating the song, despite the fact that if it had been downloaded legally, it would have already been covered. If a band makes a loss on their albums, there's no point making more.

In terms of "downloading", you'll have to be more specific. Are you referring to "legal downloading" (eg. ITunes) or "illegal downloading". To say the music industry needs downloading, it was just fine existing before the internet.

But that said, I think the main problem with Metallica going after Napster is that they named and shamed specific individuals who were involved. They created scapegoats for the world and that's really not fair on those individuals. This was at a time where the general population of the world was unsure about the legalities of file-sharing sites, and every teenager and his dog were using Napster. They should really not have picked on those guys, it doesn't help their image at all. They should have just made a plead to the fans, and that would have been enough.

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So who bears the financial loos when the song is played on the radio? My point is that wide distribution of a song is a valueable assett, not a liability.

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The radio stations pay royalties to record companies for the right to play the song publically. The band also receives a minimal cut from that.

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So who bears the financial loos when the song is played on the radio?


Nobody, because there is no loss. Radio stations pay licensing fees for the music they play.

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[deleted]

If you want to get down to semantics, then if you take a CD from Best Buy, that's just a copy too. Why is that theft if copying isn't? The fact is that the product is the music. That's what's copywritten and having a copy of it without paying for it IS stealing.

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No matter how you spin it, you have no right to take someone else's copyrighted material so that you can distribute it. Each time someone downloads a "free" song, the band loses money. That is theft.



Tom Servo: He's a pretty good candidate for monster food.

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[deleted]

best thing that could have happened, just look at the advancement in ripping, trackers, dns masking, bit torrent sites.
i watched this show on youtube in 720p, now that's progress. :)

dont like it metalica? tell it to your therapist silly old farts.

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Easy. Metallica is a band that made their name on people trading tapes in the eighties. Napster was tape trading for a new generation. So they took what made them famous and sued it. That's why I can fault them. If it had been a band that didn't make their name on that exact thing, then I would feel different. By the way, they hock their music on napster now.

Is there a chemical in X that makes you dance like a prick?

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There is nothing wrong with downloading something and then buying it if you like it. I mean, I think it's okay, I do it all the time. Problem is, most people only download and don't buy anything, even if they love it, which is wrong.

I was a Napster user when it was big and still download to this day, so it's not like I don't understand why people do it, I do, but I also understand where the bands are coming from. This is THEIR work which people are stealing. Yes, it is theft, because they don't give it away for free.

And Metallica got really annoyed at the "I Disappear" demo being leaked, which they probably didn't want out, so it just added up.

I think it's pretty immoral to steal from bands and studios and then still claim we're in the right. I download a lot too, but I also buy a lot of albums, DVDs, etc... So I don't want to be a hypocrite, I'm one of these guys, but at least I'm unbiased enough to admit what I'm doing isn't exactly right.

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Nrmally I'd agree to stealing, but in Metallica's case

I know certain people who are aware they just aren't the same after ...and Justice for All. And would not pay money for later albums such as ST. Anger, because it just isn't to their personal tastes. Yet every album Lars is always like 'This is like our old stuff.' But they've been fooled before...

This is the process:

DL before release as skeptical of quality, yet still kinda excited.
Listen to first few tracks.
Get bored.
Sigh "maybe next time..."
Delete.
Play Ride the lightning (official cd copy to console.
Money saved.

On the day they make another epic (as in literally, massive.)true *beep* thrash metal album, these fans will run to the stores, because it'll be something worth paying for.

These folks are the minority though as they still sell millions everytime.

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Its a very optimistic approach you're putting on here. Thats assuming that people if they like it would then BUY it. Point is, you can listen to samples of all the music in online stores everywhere. If you like it, you buy. if you dont like it, dont buy.

before there were downloads, people would get a preview of the album with radio play. They'd get a taste that way. If they like the single, they buy the album or if they dont like it, they dont buy it.

but to get a full quality full length sample and after you already have it, then still decide to go out and pay for it... that just doesn't really happen.

And I dont know why the standard should be different for Metallica than for any other artist. They just get singled out because they had the balls to say something. And one thing to remember, when this napster thing was in full swing, Metallica songs were traded more than ANY OTHER ARTIST! ...

Its their content, and they have every right to have a say in how it gets distributed, sold, and exhibited.




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Human Assembly http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1383243/

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[deleted]

Seriously, I don't see any difference with the 80's or 90's. When we was borrowing cassettes and re-recording them or getting cd's from the music library and recording them. They even said you couldn't make a copy then but people are not stupid. If it's for free they're gonna get it. 'Stealing' music has always existed today it's just in a different form/medium.

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It's either spend ridiculous amounts of money on the album, or download it FOR FREE.

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[deleted]

Well you can be a corporate wanker or like Trent Reznor. He asked the concert crowd about the pricing of he's cd's in Australia and was disgusted by how high they were. The next words out of he's mouth were to download and steal he's album, *beep* em he said.

So in the music business who looks cooler to the fans, the millionaire whining about not squeezing every penny on the inflated prices of cd's or the guy who is on your side, despite that it may hit he's own bottom line a bit.

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It never ceases to make me laugh listening to people trying to justify stealing music and movies. The excuses, the Holier than Thou attitude, the bitching.

Never gets old.

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1. No problem with Metallica going after Napster. The problem is them suing individual Napster users, some of whom didn't even download any Metallica songs.

2. If "I Disappear" was taken from the recording studio and posted in five different unfinished versions, as Lars claims, Metallica has a security problem within their own ranks. Taking out their rage on people who downloaded the song (or in some cases, did not) is an extremely douchebag thing to do.



Metallica built their career on taking other people's music (Budgie, Diamond Head, etc., and of course Dave Mustaine) and telling their audiences to copy the tapes for their friends. Make of that what you will.

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Now, 10 years later, it feels shortsighted of him to sue Napster and its users. I would expect more from an artist and a fellow European :) But oh well, we all make mistakes.
It was still a dickish move, more fit for an executive of a company than a idol to thousands


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