Metallica - O Catálogo Está De Volta ao NAPSTER

Metallica's Music Catalog Back On Napster, 10th Album 'Hardwired...To Self-Destruct' 

First of all thanks to Dana Feldman  for this article.

Metallica is inarguably the best-selling heavy metal band in the world, selling over 56 million albums domestically and over 110 million worldwide, a feat surpassed by only The Beatles and Garth Brooks. Suffice it to say, Napster just re-landed a huge win with the band’s entire music catalog, which is once again available on the newly revamped music streaming site. And, the timing couldn’t be better with the release tomorrow of Metallica’s tenth studio album entitled Hardwired…To Self-Destruct. 

As was widely reported 17 years ago, the heavy metal giants filed a lawsuit against the then-controversial Napster, which was originally launched as a free site to share music. The band has said that the motive for the lawsuit was never financial and was about control of their music. The source of contention was the song “I Disappear” that was recorded for the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack. The song leaked and was played on the radio prior to the completion of the final mix. They then realized their entire catalog was up on the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In 2012, Metallica formed their Blackened Recordings label and took full ownership of all albums and videos.

The music industry was forever changed by this new way of accessing music online. Napster had morphed into a hub for pirated music, leading the former P2P file-sharing internet service into legal difficulties over copyright infringement. It ceased operations after being hit with a federal lawsuit in 2001 that prohibited it from having copyrighted music on the site, thus shutting it down.

Napster filed for bankruptcy in 2002 but this wouldn’t be the end of the story for the defunct site. Roxio would swoop in and acquire it, morphing it into an online music store. Rhapsody, one of the first subscription music streaming services, then purchased it from Best Buy in 2011 and it has finally made its comeback as a legitimate fully-licensed streaming service with 3.5 million paying subscribers spanning 34 countries.

Napster also has a newly-formed partnership with telecom giant Sprint, gaining direct access to its 60 million customers. It still faces stiff competition with Spotify and Pandora, in addition to streaming services from Apple, Amazon and Google.

Unlike sharing files, music streaming has become a viable business model with increasing revenues that hit the $1.6 billion mark in the first half of this year, per RIAA. 

Fans are ecstatic about this new album as the band continues to top records. Their eponymous 1991 album, known as The Black Album, recently hit a new milestone, selling over 16 million copies domestically, making it the best-selling album of the SoundScan era.

“The release of Metallica’s new album comes at an incredible time for streaming music with streaming subscriptions accounting for almost half of industry sales in the first half of 2016,” Napster said in a statement. “Today, Napster is a legal, paid subscription service with a catalog of over 40 million tracks. We are thrilled to bring Metallica’s full catalog, including their latest new album, to Napster subscribers around the world.”