Same Kind Of Greed

Before I launch into this diatribe on greed in the music industry let me make one thing abundantly clear – I believe that downloading or otherwise copying music without paying for it is stealing. I’m no angel, I have been known to borrow a mate’s album and make myself a copy, but I have never thought of this as being in anyway legal or somehow morally justified. The excuses brought forward for file-sharing; music should be free, the record companies make too much money, freedom of speech etc, are simply ludicrous – crass hypocrisy at its worst.

So what has me riled? iTunes/Metallica decision to stick a price of £10.99 on Death Magnetic that’s what. The standard iTunes album download price is an already inflated £7.99 – so is there any justification for this hefty increase? I can’t think of one but I do strongly suspect that the reason behind this is simple – pure greed.

Metallica, if you remember, were at the forefront of the attack on file-sharing site Napster. We were told that they were championing the music industry in the battle against those who allegedly threatened the future of recorded music - you may have had your own views on their motives…… Now though Metallica can seemingly charge whatever they like safe in the knowledge that their legions of fans (who would most likely have avoided Napster et al and paid for the music anyway) have no option but to fork out. Given that there was a certain amount of career re-building required following the lacklustre St. Anger and the embarrassing Some Kind Of Monster documentary I would have thought a more enticing price would have been appropriate. Perhaps though I was underestimating the rampant arrogance displayed to such effect in Some Kind Of Monster.

But then what do I know? Death Magnetic has roared straight into no.1 in the UK album chart – there are obviously much more people prepared to be ripped off than I thought. Or perhaps many were caught in the same trap I was. Having downloaded a track a week for the last four weeks with the promise of buying the remaining tracks using the Complete My Album function I suddenly found that the remaining 6 tracks were still going to cost me almost nine quid - with a nice little additional catch that prevents me from buying Suicide & Redemption without forking out for the whole album.

So, I think I’ll wait until a used copy of Death Magnetic becomes available at a reasonable price on eBay – content in the knowledge that no more of my hard earned cash will feed the all consuming greed of Metallica.

UPDATE.... well, well, well.... iTunes have dropped the price to £7.99! Whilst I'd love to say that my little rant had something to do with it that wouldn't be true. Not much use either for the die-hard fans who wanted to hear the album as soon as it was released and have already been stroked for nearly 11 quid. A nice little thank you for the fans - eh Metallica?