Metallica’s Lars Ulrich Calls Other Artists Out For Being Too Scared To Support Their Napster Battle

Photo Credit: Marv Watson

Metallica and Napster have been in an ongoing lawsuit in regard to accusations from Metallica’s Lars Ulrich that Napster allegedly granted users permission to illegally download Metallica material without paying royalties to the band. Ulrich stands by his ongoing claim that the lawsuit is not about money, but more about principle and control over the band’s music. It would seem as though Metallica is well off enough to be truthfully indifferent to the monetary aspect of this dispute, as their $175 million net value. They seem to continue bringing in the dough, as they have recently announced an upcoming winter 2017 tour, and forthcoming album Hardwired…To Self Destruct.  The group gained total ownership of their music rights in December 2012, and granted rights to share all their albums as well as singles and other material to Spotify at that time. Since this legal dispute Ulrich has befriended Napster co-founder and Spotify investor Sean Parker, and even attended Parker’s wedding.

Ulrich said in an interview with Mojo, “I’m proud of the fact that we stood up for what we believed in at the time. Could we have been better prepared for the shitstorm that followed? Absolutely! We were ignorant as to what we were getting involved in. But that’s always been the case… In the beginning, Napster was a street fight. It’s that simple. We perceived somebody to be fucking with us so, fuck it, you fire back. And then all of a sudden this whole other thing happened and we were in the middle of it, alone. Every day that summer, there was not a musician or peer or somebody inside the music business who wouldn’t pat me on the back and go, ‘You guys are standing up for the rest of us.’ But the minute we were out in public, we were on our own. Everybody was too shit fucking scared and too much of a pussy to take a step forward. The only other person that said something in public was Dr. Dre…. The only annoying thing that still resonates 16 years later is that the other side were really smart: they made it about money. But it was never about money. Never. It was about control. Yet still to this day there’s this perception — small but it still lingers — that Metallica are greedy [and] money-hungry, and that’s not who we are or ever were. We were the band who [in 1991] invited bootleggers to come to our shows and tape them. We sold ‘taper’ tickets and we’d have a section where you could bring in a recorder and tape the show and trade them with your friends. And all of a sudden we’re greedy… [sighs] All those years later, that’s part of my reputation.”