Those defenders of intellectual property, Metallica, are suing a Canadian band for using the E and F chords. Metallica are suing Unfaith, a Canadian independent band, for trademark infringement.
"We sent a demand letter and haven't reached a resolution, so we had to sue," she said. "They continue to shamelessly feature the two chords on their website song samples and we just can't have that."
Ulrich states that he's not trying to prevent Unfaith from using the two chords, only that he feels Metallica should be credited for them whenever used, and is calling for 50% of all revenue generated from any song using them. "It's nothing personal against them," he added. "We intend to enforce our rights with any band intending to use Metallica-branded chords in the future."

And so the space of ideas is being partitioned and enclosed into proprietary domains. First came trademarks on colours and overly broad patents, then AOL Time Warner claimed magic-themed fantasy novels as derivatives of its Harry Potter property, and now Metallica are asserting that they own a combination of two chords. Eventually, we may well end up with a neo-Galambosian dystopia, in which every possible idea belongs to a rightsholder and must be licensed.

Posted by: dj | http:// | Fri Jul 18 04:50:18 2003

Hilarious! Power chords are next!

Posted by: paul | http:// | Fri Jul 18 05:58:55 2003

hoax.

Posted by: dj | http:// | Fri Jul 18 06:43:14 2003

gee, really!?!? shock me.

Posted by: XqsesXqses | http:// | Fri Jul 18 09:37:24 2003

wonderfull, and having just seen that latest flash song thingy ripping off skeet I cant help but think that metalica must be feeling like the scrotum of the internet right now, but it would have been better if they had worked out a way to put a fake web address in the nav bar....

Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Fri Jul 18 10:04:39 2003

I intend to patent the 440Hz sine tone.

Posted by: lisa | http:// | Fri Jul 18 18:28:10 2003

hahaha, unfaith's page re: the suit is funny.

http://www.unfaith.net

Posted by: ed | http://asseptic.org/blog/ | Sat Jul 19 18:13:14 2003

it seems to be a hoax. this time.

Posted by: Ben | http://leviathan.weblogs.com | Mon Jul 21 12:21:24 2003

I sort of assumed it was from The Onion or equivalent. But who can tell? A few years ago there was a lawsuit featured on the Media Watch program where one of the rural Murdoch papers was suing a rival over a similarity (supposedly) in the masthead, which apparently boiled down to them claiming to have exclusive rights over the colour blue and the word 'news'.

Posted by: Luke | http://www.captainfez.com/blog/ | Tue Jul 22 00:38:08 2003

"But it was on the internet! It *must* be true!"

Hmmm.

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