June 4, 2003, 1:34AM
Metallica to release album early to thwart pirates
By GEOFF BOUCHER
Los Angeles Times
Metallica's new album St. Anger will be released Thursday, five days earlier than previously scheduled, in a maneuver meant to defuse the effects of piracy.
The highly anticipated album from the metal music veterans is already circulating on the Internet, prompting the band and its label, Elektra Records, to abruptly move up the timetable. The tactic is not unprecedented -- album releases by Eminem and 50 Cent have been hurried to stores for the same reason -- but Metallica is an especially tempting target for online music mavens because of the band's public clashes with Napster and the file-sharing communities.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich became the most famous face in the anti-Napster campaigns that came to define the music-for-free controversy. As a result, Metallica and its camp have zealously guarded the St. Anger music, the band's first studio album in six years. At the band's San Rafael, Calif., headquarters, all session discs were even labeled with the fictitious band name Green Cup to mask their contents in case they were lost.
Guess you could say this is coming back to bite them in the ass... Hahahaha
Metallica to release album early to thwart pirates
By GEOFF BOUCHER
Los Angeles Times
Metallica's new album St. Anger will be released Thursday, five days earlier than previously scheduled, in a maneuver meant to defuse the effects of piracy.
The highly anticipated album from the metal music veterans is already circulating on the Internet, prompting the band and its label, Elektra Records, to abruptly move up the timetable. The tactic is not unprecedented -- album releases by Eminem and 50 Cent have been hurried to stores for the same reason -- but Metallica is an especially tempting target for online music mavens because of the band's public clashes with Napster and the file-sharing communities.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich became the most famous face in the anti-Napster campaigns that came to define the music-for-free controversy. As a result, Metallica and its camp have zealously guarded the St. Anger music, the band's first studio album in six years. At the band's San Rafael, Calif., headquarters, all session discs were even labeled with the fictitious band name Green Cup to mask their contents in case they were lost.
Guess you could say this is coming back to bite them in the ass... Hahahaha
