Lars, Lars, Lars... (Score 1)

I am a HUGE Metallica fan. I own every album, and I just shelled out $300 for 4 tickets to this summer's opening show (Ticketmaster -- now there are some crooks). I respect where Metallica is coming from, but I think they're very misinformed about the technology here. This is an unwinnable fight. The cat is out of the bag, and people will continue to trade MP3s with or without Napster. I wanted to comment about Lars' statement that only established, financially secure bands could escape the need for the record companies' marketing and promotion support. Lars, have you forgotten your own band's history? Metallica was selling a LOT of music before they'd even had radio play in a time when most chart-toppers were making MTV vidoes. I think Metallica is forgetting the value of word-of-mouth. And that's really what Napster and similar software is. Free advertising. I have and will continue to download Metallica tunes, and I will continue to buy their CDs (or DVDs or whatever is next). If they manage to get Napster to block all songs with "Metallica" in the title, I assume the vast network of fans will be smart enough to trade the tunes using another name, say Britney Spears. What musicians and record companies ought to be doing is transitioning into a business model that does not rely on how many copies of the music are out there. You still can't trade a live concert experience over the internet, or T-shirts, books, videos -- well OK you can trade really bad quality videos. It was only about 100 years ago that NO ONE was getting filthy rich selling copies of music. Why? The technology didn't exist yet.