It has been 13 years since Metallica took on Napster in a landmark moment for music, and the band's drummer, Lars Ulrich, says that while he still believes in his position in the dispute, he never expected the battle to blow up into a never-ending national story.
"We weren't quite prepared for the shit-storm that we became engulfed in," Ulrich recalled during an interview with HuffPost Live's Mike Sacks about the band's new 3D film, "Metallica: Through The Never."
Ulrich said the conflict began when "I Disappear," a song Metallica recorded for the "Mission: Impossible II" soundtrack, began making the rounds on radio stations before its release. The problem was that the version radio stations were playing was not the final mix, Ulrich said.
"I got a call from our office the next day: 'It traces back to something called Napster.' And we were like, 'Well, they fucked with us, we'll fuck with them,'" Ulrich said.
But once the band moved forward with a lawsuit for copyright infringement, Ulrich said Napster's team made a smart move by directing the cultural conversation to money and greed while Metallica was primarily interested in controlling the release of material on their own terms.
Ulrich said he doesn't regret the legal battle, but he's had to come to terms with the fact that it will follow him and his band forever.
"It'll be in the first five sentences of my obituary, and I sort of accept that for better or worse," he said.
Catch the full interview with Lars Ulrich at HuffPost Live HERE:
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