Art & Creativity Quote by Lars Ulrich

Napster didn’t just threaten Metallica’s revenue stream; it punctured the late-90s myth that the internet was a frictionless utopia where “information wants to be free” conveniently meant “artists should eat the cost.” Ulrich’s phrasing is lawyerly on purpose. “Hijacked” paints piracy as violence, not fandom. “Without asking” and “never sought our permission” frames the fight as consent, not cash - a moral argument meant to survive the eye-rolls aimed at rich rock stars complaining about money.

The subtext is a demand to be seen as workers, not just icons. By calling it “our catalog,” Ulrich emphasizes ownership and labor: songs as assets accumulated through time, craft, studio bills, and a whole ecosystem of engineers and crew. He’s also trying to reclaim authorship in a moment when fans were starting to treat music like tap water - something you turn on, not something someone made.

Context matters: Napster arrived when CDs were overpriced, labels were widely hated, and file-sharing felt like consumer revolt. That made Ulrich an easy villain: the guy defending the old order. But his complaint quietly anticipates the next two decades of tech platforms building massive value on “user behavior” while creators negotiate for scraps and credit. The line lands because it’s less about nostalgia for CDs than about a boundary: access isn’t the same as entitlement, and “available” isn’t the same as “granted.”