A passel of reporters showed up to record the Wednesday appearance of Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich on Napster's doorstep in the soap opera's latest installment.
One reporter might have been enough, given that they all learned the same things: Ulrich and Metallica's attorney dropped off 13 boxes filled with 60,000 pages that displayed the names of more than 333,000 people who have used Napster to offer Metallica songs for download. Napster's lawyer, Laurence Pulgram, accepted the packages and said the company would banish those users if Metallica's claims proved to be true. And he supplied an amusing quote: "If the band would provide the names in computerized form, rather than in tens of thousands of pages of paper intended to create a photo op, that would expedite the process."
Reporting on fan reaction has been one reliable way to spice up this story. But even that's getting thin, because the reaction tends to fall into only two camps. One is that of the hard-core fans, who pepper bulletin boards with outraged messages like the one Reuters found: "I am purposely going to download their entire next album from Napster for spite." Then there are the fans who simply can't stand to watch rock stars kvetching about money or fraternizing with lawyers. "I can't believe they'd do something so overtly unhip," was the quote ZDNet got from one Metallica and Napster fan.
Of course, some fans do agree with the stance taken by Ulrich and his bandmates. USA Today may have found the most interesting expression of that support. "We're seeing a revolution in the way music is distributed, and Metallica happens to have the testicular fortitude to stand up for artists who can't afford this sort of litigation," said Rob Jones, founder of KNAC.com, a heavy-metal Web site.
Ulrich's visit also prompted some media mention of Napster's 19-year-old founder, Shawn Fanning, who has all but disappeared since this controversy began. ZD Net, Reuters and the BBC all quoted him: "I'm a huge Metallica fan and I am really sorry that they're going in this direction. If we got the opportunity to explain to the band why Napster exists and why fans enjoy Napster, perhaps we could bring all of this to a peaceful conclusion." But alas, those words were taken from an e-mail, not the boy wonder himself; they sounded suspiciously stilted. - Peg Wallace
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