In 2000 Metallica decided to sue Napster for copyright violation. They won and Napster folded a few short years later. You can argue the merits of either side. The good and bad. The right or wrong. But one undeniable fact remains, Metallica kicked off the witch hunt that RIAA does today. A witch hunt is exactly what it has become. RIAA has been found to be suing the wrong people, claiming damages under false pretenses, and has been ruled against for gaming the legal system.

Now 8 short years later Metallica has seen the light and have come to embrace the concept of free to download music, mainly due to being off the radar screen for almost a decade. But Metallica isn’t embracing this concept because they want to be at the fore front of a new musical era. They need cash, bad. This also isn’t Metallica’s first foray into free music though. Many bands that start out tell their fans to record their music and play it for friends. This is how they build a following in the early years of their career. As soon as a band signs a record deal though all fans are told to turn the recorders off. Any fan that then lets the their friends listen to the recording has RIAA sicked on them.

This is an over dramatization of course. It is what is legally allowed to happen whether the band, the label , or RIAA actually follow through. Some may think Horny Melon is about to call for a boycott. Oh no, no, no. A boycott would just deny Metallica money from sales.

We want to twist the knife after we stick it in. We want everyone to download the free version.
We want links on blogs, links in sigs, forum/digg/reddit post links, we want T-shirts made with link printed on it. It doesn’t matter if you hate Metallica and will delete it as soon as it’s done downloading. Good! Go download it again. But why would we want this? Two words. Bandwidth Cost. We think it is fitting for the RIAA poster child to have to pay through the nose like their fan base has had to do.

Some may be saying that this will just give them press. That any press is good press, especially for these clowns. Your right the press will bring it up, then they’ll inevitably bring up the Napster case. Everyone will flock to the metallica website and download the album for free. Money good. Bandwidth bad.

Please click the donate button in the sidebar to help fund the “Metallica Free Download” server farm.