Downloaded Page #8

---

a lot of the technology

Of the internet is

actually based on

Peer to peer functionality.

It had never been

used in this way.

This was something

entirely different.

This was all the

content in one place.

It was an amazing experience

and everything was up there.

Everything.

But things change.

And you gotta change with it.

And to stick your feet

in the mud when the world

Is tearing by you

like a bullet train,

Is just laughable.

And you get real old, real fast.

And you got into the,

kind of the, the bin

In about one, one year,

You're like yesterday's news

'Cause you didn't keep up.

Some of those labels

got caught out there.

Some of the artists got

caught out there.

'Cause they have an

older school look

At the music industry.

From the moment that

hank came in,

He was looking at making

deals and he did

Everything but turn

cartwheels on

Hollywood boulevard in

order to get them.

I think it was, you know,

We will not negotiate

with terrorists.

You know and i think, you know,

that's literally

How they perceived napster

And i think you know,

in most things,

Um, you know, you need a hero

And before you can find you

know, that hero,

You need to clearly

identify the villain.

And we were that.

All of a sudden, one day

I got a call from cliff

bernstein saying,

They're playing i disappear

On 30 radio stations.

I go, how can that be possible?

We haven't even finished it yet?

And then we sort of, you know,

looked into it

And traced it back to some

company called napster.

And we were like, huh?

It went straight downhill from

there, boys and girls.

[Laughing]

The moment, the

quintessential moment

Where i knew it was

out of control

Was uh, when metallica

delivered napster

User names for us to block.

The heavy metal band, metallica

Has been most vocal in its

opposition to napster.

And drummer, lars ulrich

Even plans on delivering a

truckload of paper

To the company, listing people

Who use its software to share

unauthorized mp3s.

Thus, kicking off

metallica's much-Hyped,

Monsters of miniae filled

legal battles tour.

We could, we couldn't

believe how, you know,

What, what, how,

how crazy this was.

You know, metallica was

coming to our office

To deliver boxes full of,

I think it was like 260,000

names of infringing users.

Who were violating

metallica's copyright.

Uh, they could have put it,

On, on a old three and a half

inch floppy disc.

But no, nope.

They printed them all out

on paper and not,

What metallica has done is harvest

user names from the internet.

And from the napster site. Now

anybody can get that

It doesn't necessary uh,

correlate to uh,

To actual legal names of

napster users.

They simply downloaded anyone

Who has a metallica

song available

On the napster site.

There you go.

Now, once again,

We're not going after these

people specifically.

What we're merely doing,

is giving napster

The information that

they thought

That we couldn't gather.

Which is basically, real people

Downloading metallica

master songs.

Not bootleg live recordings.

What will they do?

I think maybe if we could get

the napster people out there,

They could take that question.

Do not go anywhere near the

front of the office.

Because it's gonna be, you know,

And uh, we were like

opening the windows,

Trying to look out to see

what was going on.

Finally, shawn and sean are

like, this is done.

And fanning and i

decided at one point,

Just prior to lars arriving,

That we would sneak out the back

door of the office

And run across the

street and watch.

Just watch this whole spectacle.

And we were like just laughing,

hysterically.

There's a podium set up

on the sidewalk.

I mean 25 mikes from

news organizations

To get the pearls of wisdom

And views of lars ulrich,

Who then takes a few questions,

but you know,

He's got to actually deliver

the names and so,

There we are, uh, bonnie and

clyde, in the elevator,

Uh, where if you had a shot of

it, the doors closed

And it's howard king

and lars ulrich

And a couple other thugs.

And the doors closed and lars

turns to us and says,

'Hey guys, nothing personal'.

At which point, the door was

open to be like,

Well why didn't we talk to

each other about this?

I'm sure it's not the

end of the story,

Well i think he probably assumed

That he'd walk into a dark,

expansive room

And you'd be, you know, sitting

in a chair with like

A, a cat. Do you know

what i mean?

With like tv

monitors in the back

And i mean the reality

was you know,

That this was a really low rent,

shitty office building

With a bunch of kids

running around in it.

And i'm sure he was blown away.

But i will tell you that a

few minutes ago,

When i dropped off all the names

that they asked for

Uh, i met two really nice

guys up there uh,

I put a human face to this

whole thing napster

And we had a very civil, very

cordial conversation

For ten, 15 minutes. They

said their side,

I said my side.

And its sort of like the

ultimate thing

In just american society, agree,

disagree.

Coming from two different

points of view.

But you know, what, to me,

napster keep trying to do,

Is try to sort of you know,

drag it out

And make it about

metallica and their fans

Or make it you know, why didn't

lars call us personally?

Come on, you know, like let's

stop bullshitting

Each other here.

I think it's about the

most unhip thing

That i've seen a big

rock star do.

I would imagine a celine

dion or something

Might be the first one out

there, but uh, but nobody,

Uh, nobody that uses napster,

I don't think there's

probably any

Celine dion songs being shared.

So that's probably uh,

That's probably where it's at.

There's one picture of this guy,

uh,

With a metallica t-Shirt and,

And standing right next to a guy

With an aftra t-Shirt.

It's like this is,

This is oh my god, this is

out of control.

This is the vortex of this

Crazy tornado

hurricane that we're,

We're in the center of.

The center of the debate.

Do you agree with these guys?

Uh, depends on which guys

you're talking about,

I agree with metallica.

That's cool.

And you know, it's true, for

some reason metallica

Had decided that they

were going to be

The lightening rod for all

these other artists,

Who were like, you know,

not quite sure

What they thought of the thing.

Um, and, but they were

You know, they were angry.

Like metal was supposed to

be about like being

Renegade and being like,

anti-Establishment

And-And-And, you know,

sticking it to the man.

So it was kind of ironic

that this metal band

Was suing us.

It was like metal and

like gangsta rap.

Like the two least likely

people to go after us

Were the ones who were suing us.

Napster is stealing from us.

Straight up.

And i'm gonna fight 'em

to the death.

[Loud boom]

Any time things go to

capital hill,

You know that the, the sh*t's

really hit the fan.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes