Lars Ulrich Pirates His Own Album 672
rudeboy1 writes "Lars Ulrich, drummer for Metallica, and long time opponent of file sharing admitted to 'pirating' his own album, Death Magnetic last year. 'I sat there myself and downloaded "Death Magnetic" from the Internet just to try it,' he said. 'I was like, "Wow, this is how it works." I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download "Death Magnetic" for free, it's me.'"
Re:Easy one for RIAA (Score:5, Informative)
It only means he was uploading it if he was using BitTorrent. Article doesn't specify.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:5, Informative)
Oblig: Napster Bad Video (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS6udST6lbE [youtube.com]
2 words (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nice hyper headline (Score:2, Informative)
The assumption you have made is that the content creators hold the copyright to their works. In reality, many content creators sell their works to middle men.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily. Ever noticed how the RIAA lawsuits always are by the record company, and never the artists? That's because the copyright for the recorded songs (denoted by a P in a circle as opposed to a C in a circle) almost always belongs to the record company. Most artists are not allowed, by their contracts, to upload "their own songs" on their own websites, for example.
The rights to the song itself, as an independent work, belongs to the composer(s) and writer(s). Different actions infringe on different rights and it's been more or less established that filesharing infringes on the record company's rights to distribute, not the artist's/composer's/writer's rights.
But I wonder if Lars knew that he most likely was seeding the album. :-)
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:5, Informative)
That depends on the P2P network you use and your application. Its certainly possible to download off of some P2P networks with some clients without sharing anything.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:5, Informative)
Usually, your assumption would be correct, but Metallica is one of the few bands that does retain their own copyrights. This is probably why they were so vocal back in the Napster days, and why these comments from Lars are newsworthy.
I heard the interview on Eddie Trunk's XM show a couple weeks ago, and got a chuckle out of it. He could remember the name of what he used to do the download, but something he said (I don't remember exactly what) gave me the impression it was one of the bittorrent clients.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:5, Informative)
Presumably bands that attempt to negotiate better deals are just dropped for another less-savvy band. Only established big name acts have the leverage to demand better terms (but it was through their poor negotiation skills that they got the gig in the first place, so don't count on it).
Re:Metalica's New Look (Score:3, Informative)
Per Clark Howard, anyone who wants a free copy of their credit report should instead go to annualcreditreport.com. That's the official site that's sponsored by Equifax, Experian, and Transunion.
I have no connection to either site but honestly, freecreditreport.com annoys the hell out of me with their advertisements and they have faced government action several times in the past because of misleading advertising. So, I can't say I'm eager to see them succeed and if one is mentioned then the real thing should be mentioned also IMHO.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:1, Informative)
Caution: low-flying jokes, going over your head.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:3, Informative)
I believe two seconds of googling would have found a solid answer:
Metallica's label (for Death Magnetic) is UMG. Pretty sure Lars Ulrich doesn't own Universal Group, not even the tiniest part of it.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:2, Informative)
Metallica own their masters. They also get somewhere in the range of $3 per CD, which is one of the best in the industry. Rolling Stones had a story on it right before St. Anger, but I don't have a link.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:3, Informative)
Easily...just like you'd get any other file off usenet for free...provided you have access to a good usenet server.
People have been trading all sorts of files on usenet long before there were any P2P applications...way before they were even thought of.
There is also IRC you can look at too....
Get a good news client...do a little googling...and you'll find out. Take a look at Slyck [slyck.com] for a start...look into nzb's and the like, they make downloading off usenet a snap.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:1, Informative)
Wrong! Let me fix that for you:
"When you P2P and *don't turn off uploading*, you not only take the data for yourself, you also help spread the data around."
Being fully in control of your network and applications you should have the ability (unless you lack the ingenuity) to throttle your own bandwidth. I personally don't accept unencrypted connections and have throttled my upload to 0k/s.
So I contest that, *I*, do not help spread any data around when I P2P.
Re:Completely wrong (Score:2, Informative)
The real question is: Did you ever use anything that came before Napster? Ratio-ed FTP, crappy personal websites with the filenames obfuscated, Scour Media agent...napster is only crap by todays standards. It was like night and day in terms of usability and selection. Which is why it got attacked. It made the process too easy, esp for novices.
Re:Shut up about USENET already! (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know why anybody would ever use usenet anyhow. There is almost now content on it, its really really slow, releases usually end up on usenet last (I recommend using Kazaa or bearshare if you want to get anything quickly).
Also, the chance of you getting caught is pretty much 100%. Usenet is never encrypted and most of the providers are actually part of the FBI, btw.
Oh, and most of the files on it are viruses.
It might also offend your cat, and make your breath smell really bad.
AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!
If you want a really high-quality, low-risk P2P client, I recommend either Bittorrent or Kazaa.
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
I think this bit of history is lost on the Slashdot crowd, but Metallica originally signed a typical "we own your work" contract. Around the time of Master of Puppets, Metallica sued their label and won their copyrights back.
(there's a video out there, somewhere, of a younger Jaymz arguing with an EMI executive - long before they were swallowed up into Warner Music - saying "this contract shit is all about control. You want control? Well fuck you, you can't have any. If you want Metallica you lose control.")
They've owned the copyright and distribution rights to their music ever since, which has allowed them to do some pretty neat things, like releasing a remastered vinyl version of the pre-load albums, as well as a vinyl version of Death Magnetic. I'm not privy to the details of the contract, but I'm sure the wording is specific to sales, and not distribution.
The band also released the entire album, for free, on their own website. Fuck knows why they didn't just point a link to a TPB torrent and be done with it - maybe they just had too much bandwidth to spare that month.
Re:Shut up about USENET already! (Score:2, Informative)
Since I use the USENET all the time, find anything I want and get it fast, I agree with blhack.
Stay off the USENET!
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:1, Informative)
I use easynews. Not because I'm afraid of a real nntp client - I was browsing groups back in the early 90s and active on some rec. groups - but because they will automatically decode and provide a preview of the movies. Their global search isn't the best, but you can get what you need if you know the groups. x264 is nice for HD; there are 2-3 active DVD groups, and when all else fails you can wade through boneless. I spend $10 a month for 100day retention and good completion. No, you don't get much download, but the unused Gb roll over so that I've got about a 200-300GB cushion now. I really don't download that much, so it works for me, and I get the occasional porn fix thrown in for good measure.
The downside is that older content is harder to find (though, to be honest, most torrents have an effective shelf life - who want's a torrent with a single (or zero) seed?). The upside is it's damned fast.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:2, Informative)
OLD NEWS IS OLD. MJ never bought all the songs, and he sold the rights at least 10 years ago.
Re:You Have Stolen From Your Bandmates & the R (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm given to understand that under Work For Hire, your employer is not just the copyright holder but actually the legal author of the work.
See http://www.stopworkforhire.com/site2/why-work-for-hire-hurts/ [stopworkforhire.com]