Metallica vs. Napster: The Piracy Battle That Changed Music
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich filed suit against Napster on April 13, 2000, after discovering that a demo of the song "I Disappear" was circulating on the peer-to-peer file-sharing service before its official release. The band identified 335,435 Napster users who had shared Metallica songs and demanded their accounts be terminated. Ulrich personally delivered 60,000 pages of user names to Napster's headquarters. The lawsuit became a cultural flashpoint: music fans saw Metallica as greedy millionaires attacking their audience, while artists saw Napster as organized theft. The case, combined with a separate suit from Dr. Dre, led to Napster's shutdown in 2001. The music industry's revenue had dropped 40% by 2010, forcing the shift to streaming that now defines the business.
April 14, 2000
26 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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