On Feb. 17th, 2005 a cease-and-desist letter was issued to the host of betallica.com, by Sony/ATV claiming “substantial and irreparable injury”. Beatallica are Beatles cover/parody band, playing all your favourite Beatles songs in the style of Metallica.
However, Songs like “Leper Madonna” & “Everybody’s Got A Ticket To Ride Except For Me And My Lightning”, will no longer be avalible to download from the bands website thanks to sony’s intervetion. The band aren’t trying to profit from these cover songs (at least not from CD sales) due to the copyright laws.
Sony have still claimed as the owners of the Beatles works that the music being avalible for free is somehow costing them money.
As usual the record company has the law behind them and therefore they will do all they to stop people using their material. The forum is still up and there is an online petition to rop the C&D. The Band says in the forum: “Metallica’s actually in our corner. Lars Ulrich called Jaymz last Saturday personally to offer his support.
It’s Sony (representing the Beatles) that’s playing the bad guys. So we’re in limbo for the next 10 business days… at least as far as beatallica.org goes. But the tracks are already out there, they’re being shared on numerous personal websites and p2p networks. We’re still here! And THANK YOU for being there for us!”
The music is now only avalible on P2P networks.
Read about it @ Beatallica
