Court TV: METALLICA Lawsuit Hoax Floods Web

July 17, 2003

Matt Bean of Court TV is reporting that "radio stations and web sites were flooded yesterday with news that the seminal heavy metal band, METALLICA, had launched yet another lawsuit to protect its music from theft. This time, the rock pioneers were purportedly suing a Canadian band called UNFAITH for trademark infringement over the use of 'METALLICA-branded' chords E and F.

'The only problem: The story was a ruse.

" 'That's a hoax,' METALLICA's Los Angeles-based lawyer, Jill Pietrini, told Courttv.com.

"Freelance commercial designer and aspiring musician, Erik Ashley, 29, cleverly concocted the scam which sent users to an MTV.com story about the suit, which included a link to a fictional response from the band.

" 'We're not saying we own those two chords, individually,' said drummer Lars Ulrich in Ashley's spoof.

" 'That would be ridiculous,' the faux quote continued. 'We're just saying that in that specific order, people have grown to associate E, F with our music.'

"Ashley even tossed in a barb from METALLICA's lawyer, Pietrini, for added realism.

" 'They continue to shamelessly feature the two chords on their web site song samples and we just can't have that,' he wrote.

"Exhausted after a day of fielding calls from dozens of newspapers and radio stations (including National Public Radio) as well as The Onion and Rolling Stone magazine, the Montreal, Canada resident told Courttv.com that he never expected the ruse to catch on.

" 'It has taken on a life of its own,' said Ashley, who ran a spoof web site, SpoofThis.com, from 1997 to 2000. 'Our server crashed 3 times today ... The hits are already well over 100,000 visits.' " Read more.

Find more on
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).