Napster vs Metallica – Tales From the Internet

Happy Whangsgiving!

Does Taylor Swift Use 4Chan? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrfMvvADRI4
The Brian Peppers Story – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5tj2eWRuDw

Wait, I downloaded "I disappear" back then from Napster in summer 2000. Was I in the 300K list? I never got a not that I might be sued 😀

eh lars was kinda right

It is pretty funny thinking about this now, considering every artists posts their stuff on youtube for free in hopes of getting views.

oh my god, this video is 6 years old and unlocked a mystery from my mid teen years… that zelda song, i had it, mis labelled as a system of a down track and then I appear to have forgotten about it for 20 years

I just watched this video today and I must say the Chrono Trigger trial music is a nice touch

Money, goooood!
Napser, baaaaaaad!

NAPSTER BAD!
MONEY GOOD!

Ironically Metallica's war against Napster really did more to insure file sharing not only continued but had a boom more than any other instigating moment in the history of file sharing. It took it from just another service to a lifestyle, communities formed around filesharing, multiple heads of a hydra popped up to replace Napster. Lars unironically solidified filesharing as a major part of internet culture.

How do these songs get their random names and connections? Who decided linkin Park by System if A Down?

I’m Missed Napster, WinMX, KaZaA, Limewire & Sharebeast.

Money Good
Napster Bad

I really liked their last album And Justice For All, I wonder if they're gonna make another one.

I think the people that are accusing Metallica of being hypocrites are forgetting a few very important differences.

Number one the tape sharing that they were doing were largely artist that didn’t have record labels, or they were trading albums that were imports that you couldn’t go to a local retailer and buy .

And no, Metallica didn’t rise to fame for anything in the early 80s their first album only sold 30,000 copies domestically I don’t think we can call 30,000 units rise to fame .

And artist like Metallica, Dr. Dre and Eminem, some of the artist that sued Napster yes they had all the money in the world, but two things there.

Let’s say you built your business from the ground up and you got to a point where you had $10 million in the bank and then someone says they can just start stealing your work because you have enough money. I don’t think anyone in this comment section would be like “oh yeah you’re right I do have money so I’ll just keep going to work and you guys can just steal my shit. “

On top of that fans/music lovers that loved getting free music most artist today are probably some of those people. While Metallica is OK because they already made the bulk of their money. It’s all the younger artist that were probably stealing music from Napster that have to work 9 to 5 job now while they’re releasing music. Unless you’re in legend or a big star like Kendrick Lamar or you’re probably the only ones that are OK. But that’s not most of the music industry. That’s like the top 10% are artist like Metallica, Eminem, Jay Z, Rob Zombie, Ozzy, Snoop, etc. all of the new artists that are having a hard time is kind of because people can just stream music now.

I wish I could remember the artist, but there was an artist that was brand new in their debut album. They got like 17 million streams that only equal to 13,000 units and you are only getting a dollar per un and there are four or five people in your band you now just made less than a McDonald’s employee.

It’s a band that is a worldwide band that tours all over the place, but their guitar player has to work a construction job when he’s not on to pay the bills.

Ha! Bearshare. I had forgotten.

I've used napster forever for streaming audio, but then again have you ever tried to migrate playlists/audio libraries from one service to another? Completely a PITA, there's some paid services that in my experience, do not work, and I have over a thousand songs in my playlist, even when some of them are moved elsewhere, so many of them are incorrectly matched, or not at all.

This was about the time I gave away all of my Metallica CDs and memorabilia.. Somehow it just didnt feel very metal of them to sue their fans.

Hey, excellent summation of the Napster story. I remember it well, one of the best times I had online. I was on dial-up too, haha took about an hour for a 3mb file.
When I found Napster it was in the real early days, The first song I downloaded was The Beatles – Twist and Shout. I then started downloading all my favourite songs from the albums in my Cassette and CD collection, just "Shifting" them to my computer hard drive. Then the Chat rooms started and this was my first real experience of Social Media, it was fantastic. I formed part of a group from Australia, France, England, Scotland, Finland and the US and we'd chat all the time while we shared our favourite songs and artists with each other. My CD purchasing increased dramatically over this time as my friends put me onto new artists and songs from their countries. One of the best things about Napster was all the rare live versions of songs that weren't available to buy anyway. Oh I also found George Carlin on Napster, which is something for which I'll be forever grateful 🙂

Beer good!
Napster bad!

Winamp anyone?

We found out how to install Napster to any computer in my high school. So we would download and install and then download whatever we wanted and then used a ZIP disc to transfer the songs home. The school had a T1 line which was 200x faster then our cable internet at home-cable internet was in its infancy. Good times!