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Metallica law suit update |
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 Howdy folks! After I found out about the Metallica law suit, I moseyed on over to www.unfaith.net and signed up for their newsletter, because they promised to have a statment on the suit. Now, this has since been proved to be a hoax, but I got the newsletter today, and I thought everyone might enjoy reading it. So here it is in it's entirety:
From: Unfaith
To:
Date: Fri Jul 18, 2003 10:34:49 AM PDT
Subject: Unfaith Releases Official Statement On Metallica E-F Controversy
*******************************
THE OFFICIAL UNFAITH NEWSLETTER
Friday, July 18, 2003
Montreal, QC | www.unfaith.net
*******************************
UNFAITH'S OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON THE METALLICA E-F CHORD CONTROVERSY
by Erik Ashley
You might have heard about this on CNN, MSNBC, Ananova, or on one of the thousands of radio stations across America since Wednesday.
International rock superstars Metallica is suing an independant Canadian band over unsanctioned usage of the E and F chords ; that band being Unfaith ; us.
Let's make this clear : This story is SATIRE.
But as with most parodies, it is also a statement in sheep's clothing ; one that inadvertantly ended up making a point FOR the band, as much as anything else.
We all know about the Napster issue, the perfume company, the lipstick company, the tire makers... Metallica has sued them all. Rightly or wrongly, no one is judging that. However, the idea behind this parody was to gauge, after all that litigation, just how willing America was to buy a story as extraordinay -- as outlandish -- as them claiming ownership of a 2-chord progression.
If this week was any indication, America is all too willing to believe it.
It all started here : http://www.411mania.com/music/news/article.php?news_id=3586 The story was originally planted on 411mania.com, who were in on it. Within minutes, literally hundreds of message boards lit up, including those of legitimate music news sources. Then, Fark.com jumped on board and promoted the 411 link. With the help of these two websites, the story got rebroadcasted from one news source to the next.
Jimmy Kimmel treated the story as fact on his ABC talk show, his researchers never bothering to contact any of the parties involved.
MSNBC's Jeannette Walls printed the story as fact in yesterday morning's "The Scoop" column... and retracted it minutes later with no explanation.
Dotmusic.com did the same, as did Ananova.com in the UK.
Radio stations across America have been broadcasting the news as fact for days, going so far as organizing boycott petitions against Metallica on the stations they work for... and even playing our MP3 samples on the air simply to spite them.
What is wrong with this picture? If you want to play us because you enjoy our music, that's one thing. But playing us just to spite another band..?
Rolling Stone was the first publication to contact the parties involved. Then came Court TV / CNN, and MuchMusic. They took the time, and got the real story.
As for the hoax itself, it generated over 200,000 hits in just two days, and crashed our servers repeatedly. Beyond the numbers, however, I think it was TANSTAAFL ? one of the thousands of internet message board posters discussing this story this week ? who said it best : "I'm not sure what's worse, that the story is a fake, or that it was actually conceivable that Metallica would do that."
In truth, none of us ever expected the parody to reach as far and wide as it did. What originally began as something of a psychology study on Metallica's reputation instead turned into an expos? on how dangerous the internet ? and its media ? can be.
"Because if it's on the net, it's got to be true" ?
Both the supposed "MTV.com" and "Metallica.com" pages were painstakingly recreated for the parody to be effective ? just as Saturday Night Live goes through great lengths to recreate a celebrity's facial features and voice ? but both pages have a clear "ScoopThis.com" notice at the bottom. And although ScoopThis.com had been technically offline since 2000, its documents still very clearly state that anything found on its domain is fake.
So who should Metallica be St.Angry with over this? Us, for what we thought was an obvious parody (we didn't even bother masking the url fields)... or every single so-called legitimate news outlet for spreading it as truth? It's hard to ignore the fact that the runaway hoax ended up exposing the internet for what it is, with legitimate news sites spreading one of the most incredible fictional stories we could come up with without pause, much less research.
You would think it was 1938, and this was War of Worlds.
I can't help walking away from this whole bit actually sympathizing with the band. Because even as the hoax was exposed, diehard Metalli-bashers maintained their positions on the grounds that this was something Metallica COULD have done. Overlooking one very important fact : They didn't.
In the end, I am left wondering... is this the kind of unbiased journalism I can expect if I become a public figure?
Reactions now that people are slowly catching on to the hoax have ranged across the board from people thinking it was a brilliant and well-executed prank, to people being upset by what they feel is a cheap publicity stunt... to those people, I can only offer the reminder that we have nothing to sell. No CD's were printed in preparation for this, and we haven't responded to a single donation offer made to us towards our fictional upcoming legal battle.
Unfaith may have received some short-term exposure out of this, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't think this was great. Wouldn't you? Sure, some people will stick around with us when this is over, but most won't. As James Hetfield once put it, however, the Memory Remains.
As for the fallout, Jimmy Kimmel has already apologized for spreading an astonishing story as truth. MSNBC, Ananova and others, however, haven't ? content in simply laying low after eliminating the evidence. To each their own.
As for me? I'll quote from an interview I did with UGO.com last year, which you could easily Google-up. On the subject of my influences, I answered, among other names, "the 'commercial era' Metallica. Everything since the black album. Yep, that includes Load and Reload."
I didn't mind saying it then, and I don't mind repeating it today.
This hoax was merely a joke that America wished so hard to be true, that it slowly stopped mattering if it was or not.
In the end, this leaves us with two ultimate ironies :
First, none of our songs were ever based on an E-F progression (I can't sing that high).
And second, MTV.com remains the only entertainment news website never to have touched this story.
Erik Ashley
Singer/Songwriter
Unfaith | www.unfaith.net
Montreal, Canada |
|
July 18 2003, 2:42 PM EDT, by
 |
Comments:
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| rlhamon |
7/21/03, 4:12 PM EDT |
bummer i hate Metallica, and Canada
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| Jonahan |
7/21/03, 5:21 PM EDT |
LOL...and Canada? Hehehehee....those Canadians and their floppy heads and beady eyes....let's fight 'em! ;)
J/K, I love Canada and their 2 main exports: beer and hockey!
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| Zack |
7/21/03, 7:16 PM EDT |
The Canadians export their hockey? Wow.
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This article is archived, so you may not comment on it.
(The good news is there's always the shoutbox, the forums or the contact form if you're socially-inclined at the moment!)
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As the snow started to fall, he tugged his coat tighter around himself. Too tight, as it turned out. "This is the fourth coat crushing this year", said the sergeant as he outlined the body with a special pencil that writes on snow.
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