Metallica’s ‘Death Magnetic’ - A Highly Anticipated Torrent

August 26, 2008 by sharky

Metallica has long been recognized as the poster band against P2P filesharing. Not many will argue that it was in their decision to sue Napster some 8+ years ago is what brought it all to a crashing halt. (It would have happened anyways, due to the centralized architecture of the Napster network). But what remains clear is that Lars Ulrich and company have actively pressed on to keep their music out of P2P, albeit in a futile - almost comical - effort. Enter the new album: Death Magnetic.

We tip our hats to Metallica for keeping the wraps on any pre-release "leaks" that we’re all accustomed to seeing appear on ‘the scene’ weeks, even months before an official retail date. Music pirates have spies everywhere acting as affiliates, including in the studio pre-production right up to the manufacturing plant - yet with less than 3 weeks until the official release and still no sign of an album torrent. For Metallica to keep a veiled shroud of secrecy on most of the material must have been arduous to say the least. Aside from a few public YouTube releases and the commercial hit single, there aren’t many that have been privy to sampling the entire album.

Let’s not kid ourselves; as soon as Death Magnetic hits store shelves it’s going to be instantly churned into a torrent file, and become one of the biggest music torrents in history. Requests for it loom large at specialty music trackers such as What.cd & Waffles.fm. At Waffles it’s ranked #9 in requested albums (to be filled); at What.cd it’s poised at #11 with a 2.1 GB ‘bounty’ awarded to the first uploader who fulfills it.

Metallica - Missing the Big Picture…Again

A lot has changed in a short 8 years. BitTorrent is now king of P2P, and many artists are embracing it as a bonafide medium for exposure. Bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead have used a "pay if you want to" model for downloading - and if reports are correct, 38% of all downloaders paid for Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ album (when they didn’t have to), putting an estimated $6-10 million into their pockets just from online sales (aka…donations) alone.

Originally Metallica had toyed with the idea of doing an about-face by embracing this new, mostly untapped market. And they did…sort of. Fans who can’t wait until stores open on September 12th can download the digital album at 12:01 AM from their mymusic site with prices starting at $12.

You can bet your last dollar on this: We’ll be seeding the What & Waffles’ Death Magnetic torrents for months to come, beginning September 12th or earlier - regardless of whether or not this album lives up to all the hype.

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