Lars Ulrich Says It Was a Mistake to Go After Napster Users

Lars Ulrich says Metallica's legendary crusade against Napster in the early days of music sharing on the Internet was founded upon a number of miscalculations by the band and himself.

One of Ulrich's biggest mistakes, he says, was delivering a truckload of documents listing hundreds of thousand of people who allegedly used the company's software to share MP3s of Metallica songs.

"That was a dare," Ulrich said during a career-spanning interview Sunday at 92Y in which he complimented Napster co-founder Sean Parker, now a personal friend. 

"They said, 'We don't know who these people are that are downloading your songs.' And we went, 'We don't believe that. And we believe that we can find those names.' And they go, 'Okay. Who are they?'

But in retrospect, he understands that he played right into Napster's hands in terms of completely losing the public relations battle.

"And so that was… maybe not the smartest PR move of all time, but at least we won the argument," he added. "...[It] seemed like a really good idea at the time."

Ulrich also reiterated that his outrage at Napster had nothing to do with money. He recalls the band being enraged at the news that their song, "I Disappear," written for Mission Impossible II, had leaked.

"'Cause you've gotta remember, this started out as a street fight," he said. "This wasn't about the future of music, this wasn't about the music business, this had absolutely nothing to do with money. This was a back-alley street fight."

He says the media attention snowballed and before he knew it, he was the recipient of more blowback than he anticipated. 

"We were caught in these lights and we're standing out in the middle going, 'Oops.' I guess Napster means a lot to a lot of people, and so we were caught a little bit off guard with that, and then we sort of had to figure out how we were gonna play it."



Photo: Getty Images


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