15 YEARS AFTER METALLICA VS. NAPSTER: A TRIBAL TALE

“Napster was a missed opportunity,” says Hank Barry (pictured at right) 15 years to the week after Metallica filed its copyright infringement suit against the company he was running. “Mistakes were made on both sides; we did what we could to bridge the gap.”

I was covering the story for what was then known as HITS’ “Net News” column, and interviewed Barry, among other players, about the struggle between copyright and copy ubiquity.

And since we’re in the midst of a new set of struggles over the dissemination of music online, it seemed apt to review some of this stuff with Barry, an attorney who’s still working in the tech field in Silicon Valley.

He admits that he didn’t focus too much on the Metallica suit at the time—“it was one among 35 or so lawsuits,” he says—but remembers thinking that drummer/spokesman Lars Ulrich’s Senate testimony was impressive.

Still, Barry observes, in the intervening years there’s been surprisingly little change in the cultural gap between entertainment and tech. “I work in both communities,” he says, “and I’m often stunned at the gulf, in terms of vocabulary, customs and practices. People tend, often unwittingly, to talk past each other. These are different tribes.”

It boils down to a clash between a culture dedicated to “finding technical solutions no matter what” and one devoted to “exclusive rights,” Barry adds. “The tension between enforcing exclusive rights and getting the many benefits of the internet—that basic challenge is still with us.”

Now, with streaming, the biz once again finds itself trying to navigate a popular digital distribution platform—a non-music business built on music. And while a lot of those cultural differences remain, it seems the biz has learned a thing or two about embracing new technology rather than fighting it.

“These are very smart people,” Barry notes of the top label and publishing execs—several of whom he tussled with back in the day. “They’ll continue to figure it out.”