Vice: Ten years ago you and your brother Michael nested cuckoo eggs—Trojan-style downloads—into Napster. These were nonsense tracks that had the same titles as popular songs, and people would unwittingly download them. You gained notoriety and were featured on CNN and in the New York Times, but neither of you was an artist or working in the music industry. Why did you take it upon yourselves to sabotage Napster?
Annons
John Fix:Did you share the same sentiments as your brother and his wife? That Napster wasn’t just peer-to-peer sharing of music but worldwide piracy?But on your website you called what you were doing “hactivism.” Was there an aspect of doing this purely based on the appeal of hacking a popular program?So what were you trying to accomplish?New York TimesYour website is like something out of The Matrix…Were you getting any hate mail?Your website also clearly points out that you weren’t trying to help the music industry.So in making the cuckoo eggs, you inevitably aided in the record companies’ success. Pretty ironic.In retrospect, how do you feel about it?ViceVice: Around 2000 your band released a series of Trojan-style downloads. Instead of users getting what they thought would be your latest single, they were actually downloading an advertisement for your upcoming album Maroon. Why?Tyler Stewart:Really?And many artists did as well. Of course Lars Ulrich from Metallica was the most memorable for his ongoing hissy fit and court battle with Napster. Dr. Dre and others soon followed. But you guys weren’t necessarily trying to aid in the utter annihilation of Napster?iTunes is a good example of how they’re starting to get a handle on that. So when Reprise approached you with the idea for the Trojan downloads, did they give you the chance to make it your own?But were you afraid of pissing off your fans? Or was that why your band approached it with such lighthearted banter?Looking back, would you have approached the situation differently?They were just too scared to accept it.So Napster was this generation’s “Fuck you” to the record business.