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As if this wasn't bad enough, they decided to pick on an internet-based company called Napster. Napster (for anyone who lives under a rock and doesn't know) is this free service that allows people to freely trade music with one another. These files let people get to hear the music they want to hear, which is especially good if you don't happen to be in the top 1% richest people in the country and able to afford the ridiculous markup that is put on CD's nowadays. This also gave local, independent bands an extremely powerful avenue to promote their own music in hopes of someday making it big themselves. Well, Metallica decided that they weren't quite rich enough to suit themselves yet. They claimed with all the free trading of their songs over the internet, they were losing so much money that it is almost pointless to release another CD. I have several problems with this. Besides the points of Napster I have already mentioned, Metallica is one of the richest bands in the world due to the fact that they are one of the quickest to sell out (which makes it not so surprising that they were the first to attack Napster). There aren't enough people in the world to screw Metallica so bad that they would be hurting for money. If smaller bands were complaining, I could possibly understand, but smaller bands won't complain because they like the free advertising. Metallica needs to stop being so damn selfish and greedy and learn to not suck so much. So, Napster is facing lots and lots of legal troubles right now, and is possibly on the verge of being shut down. Even if they don't get shut down, many users were "banned by Metallica" for trading copywrited Metallica songs over Napster, so Napster would lose those users. (As a side note, I was one of the many users banned by Metallica from using Napster again. So I am banning any member of Metallica from visiting my site. I know it's not really the same, but it makes me feel a little better.) Plus Napster would probably have to remove all copywrited material to prevent another greedy band from following in Metallica's footsteps which would, basically wipe out most of Napster. On the bright side, there are many other companies out there who are very similar to Napster, except virtually impossible to shut down. If Napster does indeed go down, tons more will start popping up and hopefully they can REALLY start to screw Metallica over. I know I will never buy another CD from that band who I used to actually have respect for. |