Rock Nazis Must Die! [Napster Series, Part 1]
posted in `Roids |I wanna MP3 all night & Napster every day!
by Lloyd Kaufman with Adam Jahnke
Anyone for the free exchange of ideas and art? Anyone care to watch a movie or listen to your favorite hard rock quartet without choking to death on advertising and the big corporate cock?
Our Lesbians mock you, Metallica!
The recent lawsuits brought by Metallica and Dr. Dre against the MP3-swapping company Napster has already insured that students at the University of Southern California, Indiana University, and Yale (Michael Herz’s and my alma mater) will be struck deaf to the ideals of free speech. These same universities that bravely fought to end the Vietnam War long before it was the fashion statement it eventually became, have decided to fold their tents and withdraw access to Napster to their students instead of face a corporate lawsuit about rock music and the First Amendment. Students at Yale pay $40,000 a year, and some of them have to suck dick to get it, only to have access to art and information taken away from them. So despite the bruised knees and lockjaw, if you’re at Yale, you can’t download a five-minute Metallica song, but you can sure as shit head over to the college bookstore and shell out close to twenty bucks for the fucking Backstreet Boys CD.
Hey Dr. Dre, our lesbians laugh at your chronic!
It’s downright sickening that one of these lawsuits is spearheaded by Metallica. Once upon a time, this band fully subscribed to the ideals of free speech and access to art. At their early concerts, the band threw out copies of their album to the crowd. But now that they’ve achieved global domination with Elektra (owned by Big Brother himself, Time/Warner), they have learned to suck and swallow with the best of them. For a garage band just starting out, like Metallica once was, Napster can be the best thing that ever happened to them. They’re tossing out free albums to their fans on a global scale.
But all is not lost in the music world. Limp Bizkit has teamed with Napster for a free summer tour, giving art back to the people in much the same fashion as Troma did with the TromaDance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, this past January . And Public Enemy’s Chuck D is turning the whole fiasco into an opportunity for fans to make some art of their own. By heading over to Napster.com and downloading the instrumental track to “Power To The People And The Beats”, fans can then write their own Napster-inspired lyrics to it and upload it right back onto the site. And those of you who are having access to the Napster taken away may be able to take some solace in a program called Gnutella. Reports to the Troma Team indicate that it’s easy to use, can’t be traced, and can’t be shut down. Gnutella provides the free exchange of information and ideas that the First Amendment promises citizens of Tromaville and the rest of the country.
You’re out of the gang Metallica!
Napster no more infringes on an artist’s copyright than the radio does. The whole point of communications, whether it be via radio waves, television, computer, or cornholing in public restrooms, is the free exchange of information and ideas which is exactly what I always thought democracy was all about. Of course, guess who loses when you, the poor sap that pays for these bastards’ swimming pools and cocaine habits, decide what music to listen to? The Great Corporate Cock that wants to fill the airwaves with the commercials they’ve spent millions on and the butt-boy bands that fill the spaces between the ads. If bands are that worried they’re losing money to piracy, maybe they should check out their own record labels instead of accusing their fans of stealing their music, as Metallica seems to be doing. TLC was winning Grammys at the exact same time they were going broke thanks to the very assholes they thought were on their team.
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