Metallica Catalog Returns To Napster After 17 Years

Megalith

Megalith

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Today I learned that Napster still exists and has even managed to get over 3 million subscribers. Metallica says that their 2000 lawsuit was never financially motivated and that it was about control.

Certainly a lot has changed since 2000, when the metal behemoths and the once-notorious Napster were embroiled in a lawsuit at a time when the struggle between copyright and music piracy threatened to tear the music business asunder. For one thing music streaming, unlike file sharing, has become an increasingly viable business. As it scales, streaming revenues have begun to increaseddramatically to the tune of some $1.6 billion in the first half of 2016, according to the RIAA. Also, the court of public opinion has changed as the pillorying Metallica once received for their principled stance against piracy would likely not happen today.
 
They went legit as a streaming service a long time ago.

But, this reminds me. I'll have to download the new Metallica album from the bay... Fuck Metallica. They used to be cool, but their attitudes during the old Napster days was a real turn off. It was a big F-U to their fans. They weren't wrong that piracy was bad. It was just their attitude and the way they approached it that got to me.
 
Gotta admit I like this new CD. I grew up worshiping the ground they walked on back in the 80's and basically learned how to play drums by listening to Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, Garage Days Re-revisited and of course, And Justice for All. Haven't bought or even cared about a Metallica album since the Black Album but from what I've heard off the new one, they do seem to be returning to their roots and away the sell out/Bob Rock bullshit.
 
Probleminfected said:
Fuck Metallica...

Bunch of nerds, they haven't been good since the 80's.
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Whatever troll, The new album is bad ass. Stop living in the past. Metallica hasn't been thrash is 25 years. At some point, you have to move on.
 
^ What he said. It's been seventeen flipping years. Not liking their music is one thing, but still being salty about Napster is ridiculous.

The new album is great and they'll always be one of the most influential bands ever.
 
I did not know Napster was still a thing these days myself.

The Napster wars with Metallica were epic almost once upon a time.

Metallica has really been irrelevant before Taylor Swift showed up.

I'm just making a stupid comparison, I rarely listen to her, but she has done it right as far as making money and Metallica shot themselves in the foot at the time and really have not done a lot lately I'd bother listening to myself.
 
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I'm not much of a fan of the new album but I will go to every concert near me no matter what. They still rock live.
 
Control = money. If they were a garage band releasing free music they wouldn't have cared if people were sharing it via Napster or elsewhere.

I stopped caring about their music after Black Album. Load and subsequent releases were mostly disappointing. Their music got drowned out by alternative and later active rock. The Napster fiasco was their deathbed.
 
I still remember the video Lars did - I think it was aired at the VMA awards - going on about hey is this yours, well then I can use it too about a can of soda, girlfriend, etc. Then the mocking counter videos after it were funny too.
 
I saw Metallica open for Ozzy Osbourne on May 8, 1986, at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. You could say I was a big fan when it was a Bay Area Thrash Metal band, but, like many other fans, I felt betrayed upon hearing its self-titled (black) album, which I ended up selling in early 1992 to a used CD store and using the store credit towards a Carcass CD (I think it was Descanting the Insalubrious). I eventually got over hating that record and accepted it as a more commercial heavy metal album, especially in light of the shit the band produced later in the 90s and since then, and re-bought the black album, this time as a digital download from Amazon, several years ago. I even bought Death Magnetic on CD when it was released in 2008, and while I liked Kirk Hammett's guitar solos on it, it was hardly the "return to roots" that it seems every Metallica record is erroneously described as in the hype surrounding each release, and Death Magnetic was no exception. Neither is this new album in all likelihood, one which I am in no hurry to buy nor otherwise listen to after decades of disappointment from a band that I highly regarded in my 80s adolescence.
 
Deadly Ramon said:
Neither is this new album in all likelihood, one which I am in no hurry to buy nor otherwise listen to after decades of disappointment from a band that I highly regarded in my 80s adolescence.
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The new album is awesome & far better than Death Magnetic. If you can find it in yourself to realize that the band hasn't been thrash in 25+ years nor will they ever be like they were in the 80's again, then I think you will enjoy it. Think Load mixed with Justice. If you're still on that 91 Black Album "betrayed the fans" train, then you probably won't like it.
 
Krenum said:
The new album is awesome & far better than Death Magnetic. If you can find it in yourself to realize that the band hasn't been thrash in 25+ years nor will they ever be like they were in the 80's again, then I think you will enjoy it. Think Load mixed with Justice. If you're still on that 91 Black Album "betrayed the fans" train, then you probably won't like it.
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Wait, was Black album bad or good? I'm not a Metallica fan, but I really like the Black album, so I'm not sure if I'm an idiot think so or not.

But I'm the same guy that think's Journey was better AFTER Steve Perry came on board, that Fleetwood Mac was better AFTER the girls got added. So what do I know.
 
westrock2000 said:
Wait, was Black album bad or good? I'm not a Metallica fan, but I really like the Black album, so I'm not sure if I'm an idiot think so or not.

But I'm the same guy that think's Journey was better AFTER Steve Perry came on board, that Fleetwood Mac was better AFTER the girls got added. So what do I know.
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No the Black Album was/is excellent! But it was also the album that sent them into the mainstream, which pissed 80's diehard metal heads off.
 
Metallica has sucked since 1986 when Cliff Burton passed away. He was the heart and soul that created the sound they pushed. Every stitch of music they have pushed since has tried to be that sound but could never compete. They have long been arrogant and irrelevant, to many other cool bands that sound much better and do a better job than Metallica has in the recent.
 
I don't like much since 88 and have been the first to shit on them since, but hardwired is fucking sweet. Not a bad tune on it, sounds great especially the 2lp, cd's are pretty good as they are not as compressed as death magnetic was. Hell of an album, Moth is crushing one of their best tunes.
 
yeah metallica sold out,
it was ok for them to trade pirated tapes when they weren't billionaires
 
God I hate their new album, it's like they made a second attempt at saint anger only it still sucks.

"Hey I'm Lars, and this my SNARE!!!"
 
I just went through my Metallica collection and only found 7 songs I want to hear again for my favorites list. Agalloch has that many good songs on one album called The Mantle released in 2002.
 
Ahhh brings back memories. Napster, All Your Base Belong to Us and fuckedcompany.com, dual 300A workstations...
 
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