Metallica's & The Music Industry's Disastrous Fight with Napster (I Disappear Leak)

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Napster's Fight with Metallica and the music industry. SIGN UP for 10 of the Craziest Stories in Rock N' Roll [Secret Playlist]: https://bit.ly/3vVPAEF Check out our Top 25 Favourite Albums Here https://rockandrolltruestories.com/ Have a video request or a topic you'd like to see us cover? Fill out our google form! https://bit.ly/3stnXlN -----CONNECT ON SOCIAL----- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rocknrolltruestories Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RNRTrueStories Twitter: https://twitter.com/rocktruestories Blog: www.rockandrolltruestories.com #metallica #napster I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee On April 13, 2000, Metallica filed a lawsuit against napster claiming the company was guilty of copyright infringement and racketeering, The band was soon joined by Dr Dre who filed his own lawsuit. Metallica sought 10 million in damages from the company and. also named in the metallica lawsuit was also three universities, The University of Southern California, Yale University and Indiana University, claiming that the three schools did nothing to limit access to napster on their networks. Metallica would issue a press release at the time that read “With each project,” read a press release from the band, “we go through a gruelling creative process to achieve music that we feel is representative of Metallica at that very moment in our lives. 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. From a business standpoint, this is about piracy — taking something that doesn't belong to you. And that is morally and legally wrong. The trading of such information – whether it's music, videos, photos, or whatever — is, in effect, trafficking in stolen goods. The band continually said in the press and in interviews it wasn’t about money, but rather control and giving the artist a choice as to whether they want to be involved with Napster with lars contending the band were never consulted about having their music on the file sharing service. The three universities would be eventually dropped from the lawsuit after they blocked access to the file sharing program. Metallica soon faced a backlash from fans who accused the band of being hypocrities and greedy rockstars. If you remember Metallica had long encouraged their fans to bootleg their concerts even having special areas of the venue for bootleggers. On top of that the band’s rise in popularity in the early 1980's was a result of their cassette demo tape, ''No Life Til Leather,'' that the band gave out free and encouraged fans to bootleg. It was said to be amongst the most traded demo tapes in rock history. Metallica soon went from being seen as anti-establishment to being corporate fat cats in some fans eyes. Even longtime supporters of the band LA Radio station KNAC told the new york times in 2000 . ''There are going to be Metallica CD burnings if they try this,''. ''They're the No. 1 fan of George Washington,'' he said, referring to the president on the one-dollar bill. ''They're just being the man,'' he said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoJHs3Oaze8 (32 min) Metallica not only got blowback from their fans, but also other musicians including Motley Crue who had already feuded with Lars a few years back. wBassist Nikki Sixx who told MTV at the time. “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered,and I think Metallica’s hogs. They make enough off T-shirts and concert events and other forms of corporation. I think that it’s not acceptable behaviour for an artist to do that to their fans.”” The band went as far as paying for a video called metalligreed that was done by campchaos the same website that did the lars and james spoof on napster. The band also got slammed by long time fan Dave Grohl as he told Dennis Miller here. Metallica would end up hiring a british consulting firm to monitor napster over a weekend in April of 2000. The firm delivered to the band a list of users who were involved in downloading and distributing the band’s music. The list included more than 350,000 users with The song "Nothing Else Matters" being the most downloaded track with 116,574 copies posted by 73,772 users. The SF Gate would report that on May 3rd, 2000 Lars famously showed up to napster’s california headquarters in a chauffeured chevy blazer with two attorneys and two more document roadies who brought in 13 boxes with over 60,000 pages of documents which contained the usernames of those 350,000 users. On hand during his visit were dozens of media cameras as well as some of the band’s detractors. Here’s some of what Lars had to say and one fan getting into it with Lars as well.