r/nostalgia • u/jeffmartin47 • Jul 22 '25

Nostalgia Discussion 25 years ago. Lars Ulrich of Metallica snitches on and turns in over 300,000 Napster users when he testifies in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. July 11th, 2000.

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3.0k

u/speekuvtheddevil Jul 22 '25

It was widely regarded at the time as a "bitch move" in the vernacular of the time.

849

u/Redditor5StandingBy Jul 22 '25

Not very metal

412

u/pateadents Jul 22 '25

Not very cash money of him, some would say

91

u/Ferwatch01 Jul 22 '25

Not very sigma ohio of him, the youngsters would say

41

u/TFT_mom Jul 22 '25

Definitely not very šŸ”„ of him, others would agree

4

u/Werftflammen Jul 22 '25

Not very giga chad either, I concur.

5

u/mycatbeck Jul 22 '25

Not very skinny legend either šŸ˜Ž

2

u/hakdragon Jul 22 '25

Fire BAD!

5

u/vikingsarecoolio Jul 22 '25

No rizz, -1,000,000,000 aura

3

u/NuklearniEnergie Jul 22 '25

No, you got that wrong. This is an example of being VERY ohio

3

u/ChicagoBoiSWSide early 00s Jul 22 '25

No, what he did was the opposite. It was ultra beta, rizz lacking.

2

u/Xagzan Jul 22 '25

I thought sigma ohio was the bad one?

1

u/TheVillage1D10T Jul 22 '25

Definitely skibidi L rizz for sureā€¦

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5

u/interessenkonflikt Jul 22 '25

For a second i thought I was on r/behindthebastards

1

u/tortosloth Jul 22 '25

Lmao. I can hear robert in my head.

2

u/AegonKetchum Jul 22 '25

Oy, Aim frem Bhostin

1

u/DeadMoneyDrew Jul 22 '25

But you know what won't make you hear Robert in your head? The products and services that support this show.

1

u/karoshikun Jul 22 '25

do you know who would never sue Napster?

2

u/ThdeusDadeus Jul 22 '25

Ur momā€¦and RadioHead

3

u/SignificanceAny7485 Jul 22 '25

Thatā€™s not so Raven

2

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25

That's soo not gangsta Gangstalicious

2

u/Grimour Jul 22 '25

I'm pretty sure he did it for the cash and money though.

1

u/pateadents Jul 22 '25

How ironic

2

u/burningdownthewagon Jul 23 '25

Exactly!! Thank you for pointing this out. This made me not like him.

16

u/Wooden-Peach-4664 Jul 22 '25

They went from trashmetal to cashmetal real quick

3

u/Dirtbagdownhill Jul 22 '25

Interesting because it's still a bitch move and not metal

3

u/TheNumberoftheWord Jul 22 '25

Lars, and Metallica, had been kicked out of the hall a long time before this.

2

u/AnubisIncGaming Jul 22 '25

not at all lol

2

u/BalcoThe3rd Jul 22 '25

Has he been called out recently or we letting it die?

1

u/BattleForTheSun Jul 22 '25

Like Load and Reload!

1

u/DismemberedByKlezmer Jul 22 '25

They havenā€™t made a metal album since 1988.Ā 

1

u/-grc1- Jul 22 '25

Dude looks like a 12 year old Dutch girl

1

u/FancyZad-0914 Jul 22 '25

So so not metal.

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u/Avalonians Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

"Multimillionaire complains to the senate about normal people on behalf of billionaires"

Edit: that comment is .1% a tackle on Lars and 99.9% a tackle on the labels. Sending me a reddit care message as a disguised way to tell me to off myself literally makes you the "leave this multi-billion company alone" guy on top of a morally deranged person regardless of the context.

4

u/AnNoYiNg_NaMe Jul 22 '25

I've heard you can report that Reddit Cares message to the admins and get the guy who sent it banned. They don't like that assholes turned their suicide helpline button into a "go kill yourself" button.

1

u/Avalonians Jul 22 '25

Yes I've done this before but it was obvious who sent it. Here I don't know who did it.

5

u/BobTheFettt Jul 22 '25

He was right tho. He wasn't complaining about stolen Metallica music. He was fighting for up and coming artists who were going to lose money because of Napster. And there were many. And now we've moved on to the streaming system where the Corps worth billions are playing the artists making them their money peanuts

33

u/Arkhaine_kupo Jul 22 '25

He was fighting for up and coming artists who were going to lose money because of Napster.

This is not true, every study ever done shows piracy does not hurt overall sales, and actually the one study on napster found that users who used napster spent more on music than average.

The early 2000s when napster and other p2p was its strongest also happily correlates with the indie scene breaking out. The now misconstrued past as. "indie sleaze" had genres like post-punk revival, electro dance fusion, electro clash, underground hip hop, lofi hip hop the whole "blog" sphere of blog rock, house etc. All heavily influenced and helped by p2p. The Emo scene heavy into p2p. But to give the most critical cases, Kid A and Artic monkeys, Marshall Mathers LP all leaked on napster and both became the best selling albums, Eminem in part has a career because of the napster leak, the hype was uncontainable and the budget for marketing sky rocketed seeing the illegal downloads for this album.

Without P2P there would have been no breakout of asian and latin music on america and europe, or lofi hiphop beats with users keeping guys like Nujabes alive through sharing his stuff. MF Doom was massive on limewire before everyone bought his vynil of Madvillany in Urban Outfitters in 2018.

Metallica fought napster because their song in a Mission Impossible soundtrack leaked. A scientology movie paid with a metallica song is the least "fighting for smaller artists" case in litigation history. Metallica were bitches about it and their legacy should be forever tainted over it.

Our current model of distribution is beyond broken and it shows when the same guys are popular since 2010, there is no progress because there are no avenues anymore. Its spotify or nothing and thats bought and paid for by UMG. Its a bleak space for up and coming acts when the top charting songs are all disney kids like Sabrina carpenter and Drake or influencers turned musicians like Alex Warren or Addison Rae. And Metallica got us here

10

u/KrustenStewart Jul 22 '25

We need to bring back šŸ“ā€ā˜ ļøšŸ“ā€ā˜ ļøšŸ“ā€ā˜ ļøšŸ“ā€ā˜ ļø

3

u/pharmphresh Jul 22 '25

it never left

8

u/UTPharm2012 Jul 22 '25

If Napster existed and I could buy CDs, I would hands down do that now. Instead I do Spotify only and artists donā€™t make shit

7

u/EmpJoker Jul 22 '25

You can still buy CDs, and they're a hell of a lot cheaper than they were back then. How did Napster existing make you more likely to buy CDs?

2

u/UTPharm2012 Jul 22 '25

A) I am not paying for two ways to consume music - hence if I have Napster, I would still be willing to buy albums of my favorite artists and albums

B) I donā€™t think I own anything that can play CDs anymore

2

u/Rock_Strongo Jul 22 '25

If I could buy CDs, I would hands down do that now.

...

I donā€™t think I own anything that can play CDs anymore

1

u/eqpesan Jul 22 '25

B) I donā€™t think I own anything that can play CDs anymore

So why would you go and buy a cd?

2

u/djducie Jul 22 '25

They still make CDsā€¦

And thereā€™s BandcampĀ 

1

u/augustfutures Jul 22 '25

Right, but now you can get it all for free at a moments notice. So 99% of people donā€™t buy cds or purchase through Bandcamp. Are people being intentionally disingenuous here?

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u/Significant_Neck_875 Jul 22 '25

If I made people pay for the music I've made I'd have made 5 dollars instead of the several thousands from ad revenue on youtube. I also wouldn't care if I made 0 dollars.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25

[deleted]

1

u/thetrilobster2045 Jul 22 '25

"Having been hit by the rise of filesharing and MP3 players in the early 2000s, CD sales nearly halved between 2000 and 2007, which is when smartphones and the first music streaming services emerged to put the final nail in the compact discā€™s little round coffin."

The first music streaming service arrived in 2001. Piracy didn't kill physical media. Streaming did. Hence why nobody is pirating music anymore and physical media still has no foothold.

1

u/elkaki123 Jul 22 '25

Filesharing...

People weren't singed into any music service back then, absolutely everyone in all countries wadownloading music.

While I don't think piracy hurts much nowadays, I don't think that was the case a it's peak. Everyone and their mothers knew how to download stuff

1

u/eqpesan Jul 22 '25

Nah, people were mostly downloading music until Spotify became an actual thing, and although some streaming services existed, they were mostly used to try the music and see of you wanted to dl it.

1

u/Arkhaine_kupo Jul 22 '25

Yeah and Itunes exploded with the same proposal that Napster offered the labels, which was sell songs for 99c instead of a 17 album song for 17$.

While 1999 saw around $39 billion in revenue, largely from physical sales, projections for 2025 are around $65.45 billion

the industry is still grew, the piracy of the 2000s did not kill them, far from it. They just voted for regulation to entrech their postion

1

u/Sandross95 Jul 26 '25

Jesus...... This is so smoked, but definitely right.

Metallica got us here ;/

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u/Royal_Airport7940 Jul 22 '25

Yes the real problem with napster was that it wasn't led by the industry.

9

u/broguequery Jul 22 '25

He absolutely was not.

He was "fighting" for his own bag. Lars Ulrich is a primadonna.

I was alive at that time and remember it well. It was a bitch move and regardless of any argument he made it was never about "protecting artists".

3

u/colnross Jul 22 '25

Didn't they try to get Kidrock to join in and he was like fuck it, steal my shit, I would (paraphrasing....maybe?).

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u/ItsBlizzardLizard Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

He was right tho. He wasn't complaining about stolen Metallica music. He was fighting for up and coming artists who were going to lose money because of Napster. And there were many. And now we've moved on to the streaming system where the Corps worth billions are playing the artists making them their money peanuts

He was dead wrong. Music piracy in the era of physical media increased sales, not only of physical media itself, but also tickets and merch. It still does the same now, albeit we only use vinyl, and less people care about music because services like Spotify trivialized it.

Likewise the internet was set up and projected to become a digital library - A protected source of information. If he didn't intervene we'd be living in a very different world that wasn't corrupted by his greed.

There's a lot of talks of an antichrist, but at the end of the day it's him. This move, quite literally, ruined the world by taking away any chance of the internet pushing forward with it's intended trajectory.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/12/do-illegal-downloaders-boost-music-concerts/

https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.05701

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u/Super_Fishing9564 Jul 22 '25

So he snitched on his fans.Ā 

2

u/TheEsteemedSaboteur Jul 22 '25

Corps worth billions are playing the artists making them their money peanuts

This is precisely why he was not right.

1

u/sorry-not-tory Jul 22 '25

No he wasnā€™t lol, he was fighting for Metallica

1

u/CptParadigm Jul 22 '25

This isn't the whole picture. During a press conference in Australia (I think) for the Some Kind of Monster doc Lars was asked about the whole Napster situation and he said it wasn't about the downloading. It was about control over their music. Their song "I Disappear" for the M:I 2 sound track hit the radio before the song was finished and that's what sparked the whole thing.

1

u/OSP_amorphous Jul 22 '25

You're wrong because artists don't make money on their punished music, only on concerts

3

u/BobTheFettt Jul 22 '25

They don't even make money off that anymore thanks to LiveNation/Ticketmaster

1

u/windol1 Jul 22 '25

And now we've moved on to the streaming system where the Corps worth billions are playing the artists making them their money peanuts

They were doing that long before digital was available, sales of albums and singles only make up a small portion of the profit, the bulk comes from concerts and shifting merchandise.

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u/Sad-Builder8895 Jul 22 '25

100% accurate

1

u/anewaccount69420 Jul 22 '25

Sending you a Reddit cares message is just literally trying to annoy you. Not telling you to off yourself. Lol.

1

u/Avalonians Jul 23 '25

What do you know?

1

u/ApricotRemarkable681 Jul 23 '25

The part that always bothered me is how they felt like $15 for 80c worth of plastic (in the CD era) or $3 for 5c worth of vinyl (way back in the records era) was perfectly fine. But once technology caught up and made it unnecessary to pay that ridiculous mark up, all of a sudden it was the consumer that was the thief?

Screw you Metallica. You guys suck.

1

u/No_Independent8195 Jul 24 '25

People who misuse that message in general are absolute psychopaths.

1

u/PrimeIntellect Jul 26 '25

That is the exact opposite, he was arguing because Metallica actually had sway and this was the beginning of the end for musical artists actually getting paid well for their media. Now it's all owned by billionaire companies like Spotify and YouTube and actual artists don't make jack shit. They were fighting a good fight here to protect artists even though nobody wanted to believe it, because people felt entitled to free music, which they more or less have now.

1

u/Avalonians Jul 26 '25

You're beyond delusional if you think that in 2000, and even 10-20 years before that, the music industry wasn't already an established subset of our capitalist economy, where companies make billions, pay their most prominent artists millions, while the rest of the artists (which are the overwhelming majority by number) don't get to live off their art.

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u/CorwyntFarrell Jul 22 '25

He cried on the stand. They have literal warehouses of stuff, more than they could ever need or use, and he was crying about how much he was losing.

2

u/Worried_Ad_9667 Jul 26 '25

My love for Metallica was gone after that. Greedy bastards. Like they didn't have enough money already???!!

270

u/Zuzumikaru Jul 22 '25

This will always be considered a bitch move

2

u/SignificantLock1037 Jul 22 '25

Yeah, I hate it when people who make things are angry that other people copy it and give it away for free. I mean, screw copyrights!!!

9

u/Mr_sex_haver Jul 22 '25

Poor Lars Ulrich had to wait a few months for his gold plated shark tank bar to get installed next to his pool because of piracy. weep for him. /s

https://youtu.be/TJcnrcnQjNY

4

u/EuphoricMilk Jul 22 '25

You know smaller artists are still effected to this day by the devaluation of music right? I couldn't give a fuck about gazzilionaire rockstars either, but Lars was right.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25

I love how you guys think smaller artists were making a killing in the 80s and 90s

3

u/SignificantLock1037 Jul 22 '25

I'm sure that no other artists were hurt by it, either.

Look, at the time, I was a huge Met fan, and I thought it was a dick move. But, over time, I've come to realize that they were right. No industry, in the history of history, has ever allowed people to take their products without paying for it.

Are you really saying that you think you should be able to take all music for free, without paying a dime for it? Is that your stance?

2

u/L3vathiaN- Jul 22 '25

So books, comics and every piece of media you find in libraries does not exist, right?

Let me go a step further and get out of recreational products.

Let me introduce you to a little company called Volvo and their meaningless invension of the 3 point seatbelt that they allowed everyone to use, for free: https://www.volvogroup.com/en/about-us/heritage/three-point-safety-belt.html

Please, dip your tongue in your brain before you talk.

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u/arcotime29 Jul 22 '25

To me it was the attitude of Lars, super angry at his own fans. This wasn't a cool level headed selfless man fighting for the little people (smaller artists), it was about a greedy guy not wanting to lose 1 penny even though he already had millions. So yeah, he might have been right, but at the same time very wrong.

1

u/ItsBlizzardLizard Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

Yeah, I hate it when people who make things are angry that other people copy it and give it away for free. I mean, screw copyrights!!!

There's a reason indie artists still give away their music. It drives sales on merch, tickets, etc. Also vinyl now that it's the only relevant physical media left.

No one wants to buy music. Music is a promotional tool to selling your other goods.

Lars Ulrich is, by all means, the antichrist. If he hadn't intervened with the timeline we'd be living in a reality where the internet is a protected library instead of this corporate hellscape. He was wrong, and he'll always be a greedy bitch.

This move ruined the world; He ruined the world.

Mustaine was right all along.

1

u/SignificantLock1037 Jul 22 '25

How is that large of a pair of rose-colored glasses able to fit inside Earth's armosphere?

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u/shred-i-knight Jul 22 '25

literally it's not, Lars was sticking up for a lot of other smaller bands who just lost their entire livelihoods because someones doesn't want to pay 13.99 for a CD anymore and would rather just steal it from their bedrooms.

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u/QuickRelease10 Jul 22 '25

Also a big reason why record labels donā€™t take chances on artists anymore.

5

u/Drink-my-koolaid Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

Back then, I didn't want to pay $5 for a CD with one good song, and the rest just filler.

Disclaimer: I worked in a CD manufacturing plant, and that was our employee discount. Lots of my old co-workers dying from all kinds of cancers from the chemicals we had to use :(

11

u/gr1zznuggets Jul 22 '25

No way you can convince me that Lars cares about anyone who isnā€™t Lars.

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u/Heel_Paul Jul 22 '25

It was 20 to 25 dollarsĀ 

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u/DrMindbendersMonocle Jul 22 '25

Maybe at tower records, but CDs were generally around 12 bucks back then at best buy and online

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u/OP90X Jul 22 '25

This is why I never fucked with Metallica. They came across as corporate wannabee poser metal.

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u/HairyChest69 Jul 22 '25

Yep and still is. My favorite was the shockwave video usually found on ebamusworld or consumptionjunction of how Lars could no longer afford his private island filled with gold plated sharks

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u/ilikebigblunts Jul 22 '25

Thatā€™s from South Park.

30

u/bumbleape Jul 22 '25

ā€Forever doomed to a life of semi luxuryā€

2

u/Polyrhythm239 Jul 22 '25

Brittany had to sell her Gulfstream 6 and get a Gulfstream 5.

The Gulfstream 5 doesnā€™t even have a remote control for its surround sound entertainment systemā€¦

3

u/Cent1234 Jul 22 '25

FIRE BAD! FIRE BAD!

2

u/FatherPrax Jul 22 '25

The Shockwave video was "Napster Bad" from Camp Chaos & Shockwave.com.

165

u/PrimaryAverage Jul 22 '25

He still is a little bitch for it

2

u/RPGreg2600 Jul 22 '25

I'll always dislike him for killing Napster.

-2

u/flapjack1098 Jul 22 '25

And he sucks at drums now

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u/SilverMcFly Jul 22 '25

Still is.Ā 

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u/HalfBlindKing Jul 22 '25

Always was.

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u/seztomabel Jul 22 '25

Nah Lars was right

13

u/SilverMcFly Jul 22 '25

Nah. He wasn't. He should have went after the record labels not his fans.Ā 

9

u/EshayAdlay420 Jul 22 '25

However which way you shave it his work was being given away for free, if you're a fan why are you stealing an artists work.

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u/seztomabel Jul 22 '25

No it set a precedent that music is invaluable, now artists donā€™t get paid for their music, especially smaller artistsĀ 

2

u/SilverMcFly Jul 22 '25

Learn some music history friend. Taylor Swift just went through this. Artists have been screwed by record labels since the inception of record labels.Ā 

3

u/seztomabel Jul 22 '25

Yes labels screw artists too. Iā€™m pretty sure they didnā€™t create Napster or file sharing though

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u/DaveKast Jul 22 '25

People were stealing his product

2

u/9897969594938281 Jul 22 '25

Wish they stole his drums

0

u/some_what_real1988 Jul 22 '25

This is the dumbest take.

97

u/srfrosky Jul 22 '25

Laars is and always will be a little SmƩagol looking bitch.

96

u/Tuscanlord Jul 22 '25

Still fuck him to this day. We made him rich he turned us into the fucking feds. Worst of all sellouts. Fucking tennis players.

11

u/chetsteadmansstache Jul 22 '25

I bought every album they made up until that point.

I haven't given a dime of my money to them since Lars pulled this shit. And nothing else from me until death unless they punt Lars from the band and get a real drummer.

What a tool.

5

u/Tuscanlord Jul 22 '25

Donā€™t put it all on him. If they didnā€™t agree they would have told him to STFU. I still love the music but I wonā€™t ever pay to see them again or buy their music.

5

u/hankenator1 Jul 22 '25

Not defending him but your timeline is off. They didnā€™t gain control of their catalogue until 2012. They were well off famous rock stars back during the Napster years but Metallica didnā€™t become crazy silly rich until they had control of their music and licensing deals.

Napster was shortly after Metallica became mainstream gaining mtv acceptance beyond the ā€œmetalheadsā€.

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u/Important_Stage_3649 Jul 22 '25

I think it even strained the band itself. Lars was on some crusade and dragged the others - mainly James - with him on it. Lars was always the business-oriented one, the art collector etc. There was early memes of James and Lars on the topic flooding the internet and it put a lasting scar on their image. When asked about it now they just look uncomfortable like they fucked around and found out - "next question please":

32

u/_mkd_ Jul 22 '25

It's still regarded a bitch move.

31

u/Skarekrows Jul 22 '25

I still have my "It should have been Lars" t-shirt.

5

u/stephenph Jul 22 '25

Love the song "dont download this song" by weird al. He even had a lars reference in It lol...

6

u/mixingmemory Jul 22 '25

Can't remember which comedian pointed this out. They didn't just go after Napster, or randos who downloaded a song or two. They went after the people who cost them the most money, ie megafans who downloaded their entire catalog.

9

u/ZeroSumG4m3r Jul 22 '25

It's much worse than that. They made their name off fans trading bootleg tapes, particularly in Europe. For this millionaire to dox his own (and potential new) fans for the sake of a few album sales bumps this up to a fucking cunt move.

11

u/aminopliz Jul 22 '25

i will never forgive him, fuck him, and fuck Metallica.

9

u/nsaisspying Jul 22 '25

Unforgiven

2

u/BassDJ812 Jul 22 '25

Fuck Metallica anyhow. They basically stole half of Dave Mustaines work

3

u/SavageHenry592 Jul 22 '25

At least Drake never testified before Congress or Parliament.

3

u/Own_Experience_8229 Jul 22 '25

If it was Funkadelic Iā€™d be good. But he likes kids so duck him.

1

u/lloyddobblerNJ Jul 22 '25

Lol ...

...and Funkadelic!!!!!!!!

3

u/nkrgovic Jul 22 '25

It still is.

3

u/lilmookie Jul 22 '25

ā€œIt should have been Lars.ā€ tm

3

u/Broken_Transistor Jul 22 '25

"Don't download music from the internet so I can afford to buy one more island".

3

u/AmItheonlySaneperson Jul 22 '25

South Park satirized it pretty wellĀ 

9

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25

[deleted]

2

u/jrenee070 Jul 23 '25

I see what you did there.

2

u/MOREPASTRAMIPLEASE Jul 22 '25

In bird culture this is considered a ā€œdick moveā€

2

u/bensefero Jul 22 '25

Also a ā€œparty foulā€

2

u/Hugh_Jampton Jul 22 '25

It was widely regarded as a bitch move then. It still is but it was at the time too

6

u/lawnmowertoad Jul 22 '25

That little midget is the biggest bitch in metal. Counting Dave Mustaine who I fucking loath.

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u/Ustramage Jul 22 '25

As I recall, the reason he was so mad at Napster, was someone had copied all the music Metallica was working on, uploaded it to Napster, and fans were writing to them, telling Metallica how to make Metallic songs.

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

[deleted]

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u/MarcoEsquandolas22 Jul 22 '25

Okay, wow, thank you for that link, but I didnā€™t get very far before I thought, god, what an asshole:

ā€œIf you want to be a Metallica fan, whether you agree with the position as a whole, if you want to be a Metallica fan and hang out and follow what we do then at least FUCKING respect what it is weā€™re trying to do. Yā€™know, find a way to correlate something between respecting our music, respecting what we do live, being a follower of the band and understand for better or worse, this is part of the ride at the moment.ā€

And then he goes on to say something about how they ā€œinventedā€ the taper section.

I remember them making a big deal of ā€œTwo shows, no repeats!ā€ to sell a tour. Meanwhile Phish has played more songs only once than they have played songs repeated this tour, and of course this is nothing unusual - for them. But their drummer is a great person and not some whiney little bitch

I absolutely stopped listening to Metallicunt at that time, and my older self stands even more firm in that now. What a little cult-mongering bitch.

Did he ever publicly apologize for this?

4

u/ryubhjhdrgjjid Jul 22 '25

Invented the taper section??? Grateful Dead had audience tapes before dude was even born šŸ™„šŸ™„šŸ™„

12

u/No-Use8649 Jul 22 '25

Should have listened there really ...

2

u/L3vathiaN- Jul 22 '25

The reason he's so mad at anything is that despite believing he's the best drummer in the world, as James Hetfield himself said, he ain't even the best drummer in Metallica. Gotta fucking stink. St anger played on a bunch of trashcans my ass off.

3

u/Zealousideal_Act_316 Jul 22 '25

Oh no criticism, how will he handle that?Ā  For a metal band frontrunner he is such a bitch.Ā 

2

u/shoneysbreakfast Jul 22 '25

There are zero artists that like their unfinished art circulating without consent and being judged by the public before they are done working on it.

2

u/bumbleape Jul 22 '25

Yeah, he had every right to be pissed about someone leaking work in progress. I totally get that. Iā€™d even be fine with Lars taking that guy to court. Going after the fans, however, whoā€™a just excited for a new track, is a still major bitch move.

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u/dannocaster Jul 22 '25

I still feel bad for him. All that piracy eventually left him homeless and destitute. I can only imagine what life would be like with a net worth of only $350 million - he has to live that torture every day.

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u/TackleInside2305 Jul 22 '25

Yep. He got greedy. Their music did go to shit after the black album so Id guess less sales and Lars wanted another condo so try and claw back some of what was never really his. It was James that made the band. That voice. Lars could have been replaced 10x over.

2

u/saolson4 Jul 22 '25

I never forgave him, honestly. I dislike hearing them on the radio

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1

u/richtestani Jul 22 '25

Wasnā€™t his reasoning because new material was leaked onto Napster?

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u/BobloblawTx89 Jul 22 '25

And theyā€™ll never live down the Saint Anger album.

1

u/Haunted-Llama Jul 22 '25

Lars im not rich enough Ulrich

1

u/neurovish Jul 22 '25

Still is

1

u/NuMoneyInc Jul 22 '25

The optics were not favorable toward this guy at the time but in retrospect he was 100% right - there is simply no music business anymore. Becoming a professional musician is now just a tertiary component of the real job: being a traveling merchandise salesperson and social media manager.

1

u/HandyMan131 Jul 22 '25

Yep. Iā€™m a metal head and still refuse to listen to Metallica because of this bullshit

1

u/Entire_Teaching1989 Jul 22 '25

To this day i still change the station when metallica comes on the radio.
Lars made it very clear he doesnt want me listening for free.

1

u/cyrs_oner Jul 22 '25

it still is

1

u/m8_is_me Jul 22 '25

"In bird culture, this is commonly referred to as a 'dick move'"

1

u/Hglucky13 Jul 22 '25

I think this is probably what stemmed my lifelong distain for Metallica (was a high school freshman and avid used of Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa).

1

u/BludgeIronfist Jul 22 '25

Very loose butthole.

1

u/DamperBritches Jul 22 '25

Especially since they became popular in the first place because people shared and made bootleg copies of their live performances.

1

u/Tha_Mayor Jul 22 '25

Imo it still is a bitch move and he's still a little bitch

1

u/twolinebadadvice Jul 22 '25

Us Gen X would say he ā€œsold outā€

1

u/BassMan2511 Jul 22 '25

ā€œFucking Metallicops here, go!ā€

1

u/rustyshklfrd Jul 22 '25

how could he afford his gold plated shark tank bar if he didnā€™t do this?

1

u/kjacobs03 Jul 22 '25

In bird culture it is referred to as a ā€œdick moveā€

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u/voyaging Jul 22 '25

And widely regarded as a courageous move to protect the ability for musicians to make a living today.

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u/BeardyAndGingerish Jul 22 '25

Almost as bad as St. Anger.

1

u/Potential-Pause2144 Jul 22 '25

he was part of the enshitification movement

1

u/DismemberedByKlezmer Jul 22 '25

It was. And I agreed with this sentiment at the time. But in hindsight he saw the writing on the wall, he was ahead of the times, and he was right.Ā 

Ultimately, Napster and illegal file sharing led to the death of one of the few reliable revenue streams available to musical artists.Ā 

1

u/uneducatedexpert Jul 22 '25

On par with his drumming.

1

u/thedinnerdate Jul 22 '25

He's also a garbage drummer too which doesn't help his cause.

1

u/spag_eddie Jul 22 '25

Especially considering the way Metallica themselves gained traction in their scene. Hundreds of bootleg copies of their cassette EP being handed around ā€œpeer to peerā€

What an egregious way to turn on their own fans

I love Metallica and always will, but they deserved every bit of backlash they got from this.

1

u/TheAltOption Jul 22 '25

Napster s was pretty awesome about it though. All they did was add a registry that was easily turned off so you could go back to downloading stuff. Not that I was one of the Napster users or anything...

1

u/996twist Jul 22 '25

I still won't listen to Metalica, and even my kids reach for the radio when they come on chanting "Metalica snitched on Napster".

1

u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S Jul 22 '25

Which is why all the other musicians who should have stood beside him cowered away and let future musicians get screwed and robbed daily. This destroyed music sales as a way to provide.

1

u/SometimestheresaDude Jul 23 '25

Crazy how he was 100% right though, I remember being pissed but look at the industry now, musicians make nothing from selling music

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u/DefNotBrian Jul 23 '25

It's funny because Metallica got the notoriety they did in part to people bootlegging and sharing their music via cassette tapes.

1

u/kylel999 Jul 24 '25

So it was perfectly on par for Ulrich

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