“ Sad But True ”: Why Metallica ’ s Fans Continue to Fail Them ( and Not Vice Versa ) Twenty Years After the Napster Lawsuit
The impassioned sentiments expressed by Ulrich and other Metallica members with respect to their desire to own and control the musical works they create are , in fact , deep-seated in notions of personality , identity , and property ownership that far predate even the earliest copyright laws on the books in the United States and in other industrial countries .
Indeed , as I have argued in a previous article , the “ romantic ” notion of copyright authorship that is under fire today embraces an age-old philosophy that creative works are not only expressions of artists ’ talents , but also an extension of their personality . Furthering this assumption , just as property law protects the personal belongings of individuals , copyright law aims to protect the private interests of authors , allowing them to exercise exclusive control of their intellectual products in order that they can ensure the integrity of their self-expression ( Reilly , “ Synergistic Society ” 585 ). Nonetheless , despite the fact that copyright has served to protect these important individual instincts , legal scholars and other academics writing about music continue to lambast musicians for raising them in the context of a copyright infringement lawsuit . Instead , they are attempting , on a global , universal scale , to eviscerate the principles of originality , autonomy , and individualism grounded in the Age of Reason that contributed directly to the conception of modern copyright protection ( Sechin 102 ).
By contrast , when professors teach copyright law rationally and within its proper historical context , it is not difficult to determine why the members of Metallica were so adamant about vigilantly protecting their songs from unauthorized digital downloading , nor is it likely to cause societal outrage . The research topic , therefore , that is missing from the literature published by metal music scholars is an attempt to
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