Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe has been speaking his mind on SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) (see Wikipedia.org or Americancensorship.org). Engaging in some heated conversation with users through his Twitter, he initially touched on the subject with the following missive:
“Ok, lemme ask y’all this- who are the two major players in this SOPA debate & why? (hint- it ain’t really the government)”
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He later continued:
“The reason I ask you this stuff is to make you think about what is REALLY happening here. I hear a lot of knee jerk reactions from ill-informed people saying “this is just a way for the govt to restrict free speech”- BULLSHIT. This is a corporate battle being fought at a judicial level by PAID LOBBYISTS- neither corporate side REALLY CARES for A) artists/creators rights or B) free speech rights.
Get the fuck outta here. The RIAA hasn’t done much for me lately. People worry about YouTube getting shutdown, as if it is an altruistic creative expression outlet. WHO OWNS YOUTUBE? And WHY does YouTube exist? It ain’t for you to develop your creative side.”
“I don’t think SOPA should be allowed to pass as written. Terms are too broad & open. But there is a corporate race occurring right now that you have little control over. This is all about funding, people. Do a little research & you’ll see where the dollars are coming from that fund some of these supposed “free speech advocacy” groups. It ain’t from idealist libertarians. It’s ALL CORPORATE. ALL OF IT.
Let’s see who has the juice and cash flow- the FEW PEOPLE making real money off of providing Internet & computer hardware, or the big wigs at the media conglomerates. Y’all’s pissant voices (that includes mine too) will have VERY LITTLE to do with the outcome of the SOPA debate. BE AWARE!”
The topic later shifted to Metalllica drummer Lars Ulrich‘s role in the Napster controversy back in 2000. In case you don’t recall, Metallica (and other artists) filed suit against the then nascent file sharing service after finding their material circulating on it.
Here’s what Blythe had to say on the matter to Twitter user Srhdgaf586:
“Lars Ulrich was the face that took a beating. Lars was RIGHT. The whole Napster thing was a FACADE. Napster was NOT an idealistic kid trying to ensure “free music”- IT WAS A CORPORATION. And the heads at Napster up until the 11th hour were in negotiations with the heads of who?- the five major music media conglomerates to SELL Napster for 2 billion so it could become A PAY SERVICE.
The media conglomerates fucked up by choosing Lars as the face of their battle, even though he was RIGHT and was upset about a track leaking THAT WASN’T RELEASED YET- Metallica let people record shows and trade FOR YEARS when most other bands WOULD NOT. He is demonized for doing what is RIGHT- trying to control WHEN AND WHERE HIS FUCKING MUSIC IS RELEASED.
If the folks at Sony & Warner & EMI had chosen a struggling artist to be their face, this whole thing would have been framed in an entirely different way. It’s all BULLSHIT. WAKE UP. Napster didn’t care about fans, the major media outlets don’t care about fans- IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY. CORPERATE DOLLARS. That’s the ONLY thing SOPA is about. Don’t be fooled. Approximately 1/4 of all Internet traffic is the exchange of pirated material.
Tell me who loses and who gains from that material being exchanged and then you’ll have a VERY SIMPLE answer to what this whole SOPA thing is about. #fuckingtruthinyourface”
A further conversation, once again with Twitter user Srhdgaf586 then followed and can be read below:
“I just FUCKING HATE IT when people refer to the stand Lars Ulrich took as greedy rockstar shit, cuz that WASN’T what it was all about. If someone had an unmixed, not completed version of “Resolution” and they threw that up on the Internet right now, I would sue the fuckers for EVERYTHING GODDAMNED PENNY they had and then some.
What I would say would make Lars Ulrich look like Mother-fucking-Theresa. People have NO RIGHT to take an unfinished I create & distribute it IN ANY WAY without my knowledge.
If someone does that, they are not only A) STEALING FROM ME, they are B) FUCKING WITH MY CREATIVE PROCESS. I will fucking fight tooth & nail to PROTECT WHAT I DO. ITS MINE. If I never want to release a track- I won’t. Some asshole shouldn’t be allowed to make DECISIONS FOR ME. Someone made a decision FOR Metallica without their consent. Why is Lars demonizes for being PISSED over that?
It’s like taking someone’s raw journal entry they were going to turn into a newspaper story & publishing it. It’s WRONG. If I was going to sue people whole stole my music, I would be DROWNING in litigation right now. It would be impossible.
But I SURE AS FUCK would sue ANYONE that released an UNFINISHED lamb of god product, one that I was NOT ready for the world to hear. I might go break their fucking knee caps too. Fuck ANYONE that can’t grasp that concept. DONT fuck with MY MUSIC.”
Being that the aforementioned discussions took place on Blythe‘s Twitter, some more context to his opinions and the like can be found at the above-mentioned link.
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