James Delahunty
16 Mar 2005 10:54
Ok, so you all know Lars Ulrich right? Some of you may know him simply as Metallica's drummer, and some of you might know him as the man who called you a thief when you downloaded a Metallica song from Napster, or both. Whether you like him or not, Lars has done something quite amazing for music by standing up for Beatallica in their dispute with Sony Music. AfterDawn reported that Sony accused Beatallica of violating copyright laws and demanded that the webbmaster pay an unspecified amount of damages.
Lars stepped into the whole mess voluntarily and because of him Beatallica may soon be back online. He asked Metallica's longtime attorney Peter Paterno to try and defuse the situation with Sony on behalf of the band. Sony is now indicating that it may agree to just drop the case, if they even had a proper case in the first place. Ulrich says he believes that cover bands, mash-ups, and the right to re-interpret art on the internet are things worth fighting for.
Lars getting involved is probably known by many of you already but I just found this news article and yes I was shocked. It was a good thing to do for music and perhaps it will show major record labels that their artists don't always agree with the way they handle music. The attack on Beatallica should have never happened in the first place and lets hope that friendly negotiations that are currently in place between Beatallica and Sony go well.
Source:
BoingBoing.net