The music industry fucked themselves. Charging 25 bucks for anew cd that costs under a dollar to make. The difference of cost vs production of the albums just got more and more widened to the point where customers didn’t want to shell out that kind of money anymore. 25 bucks in 2000 was a lot of money for a cd. I love that music is more and more available easily, and they’ve restricted so that they can find new ways to fuck bands and artists, which is why artists have become more creative at being their own commercial entities. Anyway, fuck it. Lars was totally off base here
Not at all....artist literally make the least they ever have because yall want to push theft so much. You aren't a artist's an have no idea how much money it takes to create music lol. People were stealing unfinished music, now we have AI stealing artist's voices an making music an selling it...sound familiar? Cassette an vinyl has also dropped in production because people have made physical music worthless.
"They are the middle men. If you make a living selling water in the desert and suddenly it starts to rain you've just got to live with that", oh my god, this was a very wise thought coming from an 23 years old!
For a band, the albums are the investment equity. The continuous sustained income until the end of time. Touring and selling merch is the sweat equity. You make a lot of money but you can’t do it forever. Napster was in a sense taking away someone’s 401k and equity of their house.
Rob Chapman was one of the few musicians who got it and rolled it with the times. It astounds me why more artists are not mostly focused on their RU-vid channels rather than getting a few punters along to a local gig. Even big like incubus played very innovative music and should be focusing on their online presence like Rob Chapman before he got busted for his shenanigans..
Ask today's new artists that formed after the early two thousands if they think Lars was wrong. Without the royalties from album sales it's a constant struggle for young artists to make ends meet unless they stay on the road.
I used to get my mom's '70s cassettes put a piece of paper in the tabs and record songs from the radio stations LOL. She would get pissed when she was trying to listen to Donny Osmond and guns n' roses or Dr Dre would on the cassette. Who taped over this LOL
Lars was not right. Napster should have been monetized, not killed. His temper tantrum set online music back 30 years. It was easier to find rare tracks in 2002 than it is in 2021. This action crippled the potential of the Internet. Paid pools paid out to the copyright holders by quality and download count was the right solution. At $5 a month you'd have still had many millions of users. Just ending whatever you do not understand is never the answer.
Stop making excuses for theft for something you didn't even buy. While artists are getting more fucked now because of napster. Now we have AI stealing voices an making music and selling it as if it's their's...
Lars was absolutely right, file sharing completely gutted the music industry. It was never about Metallica's bottom line profit. It was about ensuring a healthy ecosystem of music for the future and what you see now is that indie rock doesn't even really exist anymore. No one on the lower end of the spectrum can make a living doing their art, it's just the big acts like Metallica. Lars was fighting for them, and now we'll never have an underground scene.
I kind of agree. However, it isn't so much that Indie/underground scenes no longer exist, it's moreso that the internet, along with the development of home-recording technology and social media has just led to massive amounts of oversaturation in the marketplace. We live in era where there is a lot of great music out there, but the instant access to an infinite stream of new music means that people just don't approach their relationships with musical artists in quite the same way anymore. Literally everyone has the chance to gain 'flash in the pan' or 'flavour of the week' levels of fame, but long-term, dedicated cult followings are far harder to create in this climate as the consumer just has too short of an attention span.
He wasnt fighing for just metallica, how about the bands that were just starting at the time who needed the money from sales. 90% of people will take a song for free rather than pay. Its music to us simple entertainment but its a job for those guys. Imagine a mechanic working on your car and you just decide to not pay them for their work. A lawsuit would happen, this is no different
Currently, only about 38% of consumers pirate their music. But artists are getting fucked by legitimate consumers too. Itunes, Amazon and Spotify pay only pennies on the sales and streaming of legal content. Bands like Metallica sold out their fans to huge corporations, and are still barely getting paid. These days, most band make close to nothing on their albums. They have to make it up with touring, endorsements, merchandise, acting gigs and commercials. Don't believe me? Look up Taylor Swift/Spotify and Steven Tyler on Joe Rogan's podcast. They're still becoming billionaires. So I have no pity for them. Lars is douche.
napster provided new talent with a platform for exposure. It was the big companies that wanted to suck every penny dry from their music that had a problem with it.
Metallica were absolutely the wrong people to make this arguement. It stunk of greed. But also, you can have a purely principled point of view on this. Lars said at the time when he was asked 'Do you not have enough money?'. He answered that of course he did and he had enough money for 10 lifetimes. Is it not conceivable that this could be about something else? Whether people despise him or not it's a fair thing to point out.
@@wanderingskeleton52 the something else was as he said the control of how his music was distributed. And also the fact that I dissappear was leaked before it was released. He said it was a point of principle. I dotn agree metallica should have done this with napster but equally don't take the over simplistic view it was all about money. They had more money than they could spend in 10 lifetimes.
