Update – April 08th 11:38am:
Opprobrium have now spoken out against the cease and desist, read their statement here.
Original Story:
Brutal Records‘ Michael Howard has sent a cease and desist letter to Metallica for perceived similarities between Opprobrium‘s (formerly known as Incubus) 1988 track “Hunger For Power” and Metallica‘s “Moth Into Flame“, off their 2016 release, “Hardwired…To Self-Destruct“. Exclaim! got their hands on the documents and shared some excerpts. In part, the following was apparently sent to Metallica‘s camp:
“It has been brought to my attention, that you have made unauthorized use of my copyrighted work which is titled Hunger for Power. Your work titled Moth into Flame is fundamentally a close duplication of my work filed under the copyright of SR-130-298.”
A separate email sent to Exclaim! also accuses Metallica of allegedly ripping off “Hunger For Power” on their track “Spit Out The Bone“. This accusation was not included in the actual cease and desist however. More from cease and desist can be found at Exclaim!. Brutal Records handled the original release of Opprobrium‘s (then known as Incubus) 1988 album “Serpent Temptation” which featured the song in question. Howard also executive produced the effort. The two songs in question can be found below:
