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Regarding Napster
Metallica: I would like to begin by saying that I'm a long time fan, having listened to your music almost since your inception, over half my life. In fact, I've listened to you for so long, it's difficult to remember a time when I DIDN'T listen to your music. I have stuck with you guys, and enjoyed your music, whether hard or soft, fast or slow, "metal" or "alternative," just as your music has stuck by my side and helped me live through some of my darkest hours and enjoy some of my brightest. However, you have recently pounded a wedge in between us. That wedge is your band's lawsuit against the company Napster. I must say a few things first of all. As an amateur fiction author, I know what it's like to want to protect your copyrights. I totally agree with you that widespread sharing of your music, either for profit or no, is both illegal and wrong. In fact I believe that if a person enjoys a band enough to have their music, they should want to support that band and let the record companies know that the band is desirable by buying their albums (for example, I own every one of your albums, some twice). Furthermore, I've never even USED Napster, so that when I heard about your suit against them I had to do some research into them, their technology and the reasoning behind your suit. Throughout these investigations, however, I increasingly realized that I cannot agree with your position or decision in suing Napster or the three (now only one, actually) universities that, among many other universities and ISPs, "allow" Napster technology to be used via their systems. The Napster technology is no different than a lot of other "utility" services, in which the provider has no control over the actions or use of that utility by its users. There is no way for them to, for instance, filter out all music by a specific artist, OR to filter out all copyrighted music. Their technology has a legitimate use, that of sharing non-copyrighted material, and for sharing music of unknown bands that want to make a name for themselves. Any misuse is the sole responsibility and crime of the person misusing the technology. For you to sue Napster and the universities would be like suing a phone company for a phony bomb threat or a prank call being made using their phone system. Your suit is furthermore no different than the bogus suit that HUD and various greedy cities in the nation have brought against the gun industry, saying that they are somehow liable for the illegal misuse of their products by criminals. Nor is your suit different than if a bank were to sue a car manufacturer for the use of one of their cars as a getaway vehicle by a group of bank robbers, or if someone tried to sue the US Postal Service for delivering a bomb from a Unibomber-style terrorist. These suits shouldn't stand a chance in a court of law, and neither should yours, because in light of these analogous suits, your suit is directed at the wrong entities. And as a side question, why aren't you suing Netscape and Microsoft? People use their browsers to download MP3's every minute of every day... In addition, in your own copyright notice on your website, you state that you are concerned about bootleg recordings being sold, about Metallica's name being used for unofficial profit making ventures, about the name Metallica being used in search engines to increase traffic to profit making web sites, and about MP3 versions of your songs being offered for download on any website. However, Napster does none of these things. They do not provide bootlegs of your music either for profit or for free, they do not use your name on their website in any manner, they do not to my knowledge use your name in the search engines to increase traffic to their site or service, they do not have MP3 versions of your music for download on their site, and they do not make money off of ANY part of their service (it is my understanding that they don't even make money off of any sort of advertising). Their users may be posting your music in MP3 format, but those postings are neither on Napster's computer systems nor, as stated before, are such postings under their control. Your suit against any university in relation to this issue is even more absurd. They no more "allow" people to use Napster over their Internet systems than they allow FTP or HTTP connections, ICQ or Instant Messenger transmissions, or any other Internet protocol or technology. Sure, they can block specific ports, rendering said protocols useless, but it shouldn't be their concern which ports are being used for what. They provide their users with connections to the Internet, in all its glory and filth. Again, I present to you the anologies of the telephone company and other utilities and products given above. I also ask, why THOSE particular universities? I'm 100% positive there are many more universities "allowing" use of Napster over their systems. Why not sue them all? In your music you have often exclaimed the importance and need for Freedom and Justice. From "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" to "Escape" to "And Justice For All" to "Nothing Else Matters" and others, you have cried out for Independence, Freedom of Speech, tolerance of other viewpoints, a stronger Justice system, and other such laudible viewpoints. In suing Napster and the universities you are squashing those concepts. You are saying to them they are not free to offer a service, because SOMEONE ELSE might misuse their product. In my opinion, and in your own words, you are "seeking no truth," and in this case YOU and your lawyers are the "power wolves" besetting the door of Napster. And if you win then "Justice is lost, Justice is raped, Justice is gone." As Maynard James Keenan of Tool and Perfect Circle said recently in a radio interview, (which I must paraphrase here),
His biggest fear, and mine, of your suit against Napster, et. al. is that if you win, then you will have helped open the flood gates for government at all levels to attempt to regulate the Internet. Governments are greedy, both for money and power; it is in their nature to be so (case in point, the suits against the tobacco and firearms industries). Once a precident has been set by your suit, which would in effect regulate Napster's ability to offer their service, governments will have "proof" that it is "okay" and "legal" to regulate other aspects of the Internet. This would lead us one step further toward a day when every website could have the FCC breathing down its neck, putting a majority of websites at risk of being shut down or heavily censored... I fully supported your suits against Victoria's Secret and others for the use and obvious rip-off of your name for profit. Theirs was a blatant attempt to use your name recognition to turn a buck without compensation for that recognition and your hard work that you've had to do to get where you are. I cannot, however, support your suit against Napster. Not only does it go against my grain, but it also seemingly goes against all those things you have (supposedly) stood for over the last 18+ years. I deeply encourage you to drop your suit against Napster - or should we rename your first album to "Sue 'Em All?" Your fan,
Bob Curtis
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