Blacklisted by Metallica

On May 3, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich delivered the user names of 317,377 of the band’s fans to Napster, demanding that the Internet music-swapping service ban them for supposedly downloading tracks for free. This week, Dr. Dre followed suit, naming 935,500 of his fans. With a software fix restoring Metallica fans to Napster already out, and Metallica titles continuing to circulate on the site, taking fans hostage appears a dubious tactic in the online-music revolution wars, asWeekly contributor Doug Harvey explains:

It isn’t enough that I catch some intestinal plague in Lufthansa steerage and have my can of sausages confiscated at the end of my trip to Sweden. After attending to my backlog of e-mails, I try to log on to Napster, only to be informed that I am being denied access at the request of Metallica, in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “Sued by Metallica,” I thought. “Cool!” My pride shrank a little when I learned I was merely one of 317,377 users named in conjunction with the band’s lawsuit against the online MP3-sharing company. The more I thought about it, the more pissed I got. First, in order to reactivate my account I had to fill out an online declaration of my innocence and willingness to be tried for perjury in federal court. Then, regardless of my own quarrels with issues of intellectual property (let alone real estate), this had to be the stupidest PR move since U2 sued Negativland, devastating U2’s tenuous political credibility. Metallica members’ whole mystique is based on their status as outsiders and underdogs, not fat-cat music-biz mouthpieces surrounded by lawyers and picking fights with helpless freelance writers. Not to mention the fact that our society is in the midst of a fundamental renegotiation of the relationship between capital, information and humanity — for Metallica to take sides now seems premature and foolish. And for a sample-savvy outlaw like Dr. Dre, it’s just sad.

But, as James Hetfield argues so eloquently, “We have nothing to do with the Internet being used to share, but when it’s done illegally, it’s wrong, plain and simple.” It was apparent from Metallica’s post-blacklist Yahoo chat that they don’t have a clue how Napster works, nor have they even looked at the site. What demons are they chasing? I don’t have a CD burner, only a wee modem and sluggish phone line connecting me to my free Internet server. I still haven’t been allowed back on Napster. Here’s a rule of thumb I think is fair: If the artist whose work is being stolen made over 1,000 times as much as the perp in the last fiscal year, they should go cry into the complimentary champagne in first class and leave their fans alone.