May 10, 2000

9:29 AM

Napster did it-blocked more than 317,000 names used by its subscribers, which have been identified by the hard rock band, Metallica, as allegedly infringing on the copyrights of the group's music.
posted by TuxHeDoh (11 comments total)

I'd love to know the average time it took each of those users to create a new account.
posted by harmful at 9:43 AM on May 10, 2000

Metallica seems pretty clueless. If we keep it quiet, maybe they'll think they actually accomplished something, and go back to their head-banging.
posted by Calebos at 9:45 AM on May 10, 2000

Napster CEO Eileen Richardson says "There are systems in place to keep them from coming back," referring to those bumped users. I guess we'll have to wait and see if she's right.
posted by owen at 10:20 AM on May 10, 2000

Register factoid no.666
Our thanks to Register reader Dave Martin who spotted the following: in the liner notes for one of Metallica's Garage Inc. album, lead singer James Hetfield explains that when he first met Lars Ulrich he would "stay over at his house for days making tapes of his records and sleeping on the carpet".

To misquote those great Brit rockers, Spinal Tap: How much blacker can this pot be from this kettle? None more black...

posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 10:42 AM on May 10, 2000

And again, I have to ask, why use napster anyways? On Gnutella, no one can hear Lars scream. Of course we still need to improve the model so that reception of a file is anonymous...
posted by nomisxid at 12:14 PM on May 10, 2000

I think that the removal of the 317,000 users was very effective. When I search for Metallica now I get no hits on Napster...
...and by "no hits" I of course mean over 100...
posted by dogwelder at 1:15 PM on May 10, 2000

The other question is, how does Metallica know its music is being downloaded? From the titles of downloaded tracks? So all the Metallica fans need to do is come up with a good alias...
posted by owen at 5:05 AM on May 11, 2000

Convention would seem to suggest replacing 'Metallica' with 'LarsSucks', no?
posted by baylink at 6:56 AM on May 11, 2000

test ...
posted by silusGROK at 11:24 AM on May 10, 2001

zest ...
posted by pnevares at 12:12 PM on May 10, 2001