Stealing singles or albums isn’t a new concept for the music industry. Ever since the days of the cassette, anyone listening to the Top 40 could bootleg tracks off the radio in varying degrees of quality.

Unless you attempted to flog these DIY tapes down a car boot sale, you’d never be caught. For the more adventurous, HMV present a shop-lifting challenge for free physical content and a running contest against overweight security guards.

When the internet came along, the ability to get free music dramatically rocketed. Pioneering sites such as Napster and Soulseek allowed users around the world to share music files once a simple piece of software had been installed. Unlike recording songs via tape, a digital footprint could be traced back to users. This landed a few individuals in hot water and back in 2007 Joel Tenenbaum was one of 35,000 individuals sued by Recording Industry Association of America. And this case is dragging out… on and on and on…

By all accounts, 35,000 people does seem like quite a lot, but when you consider the size of America, the number is a fraction of those committing similar crimes across the country. The Recording Industry Association of America may as well of rounded up everyone living in Harlem and accused them all of pinching stuff which isn’t theirs.

We all know stealing is bad, but lines are blurred in cases like these as nothing has been physically removed from one place and taken to another. Instead, someone sitting on a computer has copied a file and placed it on to their own computer, like the nude Scarlett Johansson pictures.

But then we have to question whether someone downloading MP3s is giving themselves a free taster of an album before deciding to go out and buy the real thing? The music industry sometimes forgets with the world’s economy going belly up, buying a CD isn’t everyone’s main priority.

Still, despite some logical thinking certain, you’d assume that in the case of Joel Tenenbaum, he was excessively downloading content. But no, it was thirty tracks. Initially, he seemed to blame anyone, including burglars, a foster child and his sisters before finally confessing. Unless it was someone like Steve Jobs, than we can’t think of anyone who’d break into a home and download a load of files to someone else’s computer.

So how do you punish someone for stealing?

If you’re caught nicking something in the world, then depending on the size and value of the item, it’ll be a small charge, a light telling off or a stint in prison. But if you steal an MP3 in America, prepare to literally pay the price. $22,500 to be precise, per song. By our reckoning, The Recording Industry Association of America wants to charge him $675,000. We’ll also go out on a limb and guess that he doesn’t have the amount of money stored up in an offshore bank.

People have often criticised the cost of a CD album, so with this ridiculous charge against some random, it won’t do the music industry any good. Whilst we’re not condoning what’s been done, surely a more apt punishment would be to look at the base cost of the content and then charge a little bit more as an add on? Therefore the artist gets paid and a fat cat record executive can line their pockets.

Alternatively, we could force them Joel Tenenbaum to spend a day with hip hop tit Kanye West. Nobody would be able to stomach that.

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We all know that Lars Ulrich is an angry man. He’s so angry that drumkits literally weep when they know he is nearby.

But Lars Ulrich isn’t alone when it comes to being angry. Oh no, he is part of a band called Metallica with three other angry middle aged balding men. Maybe their belts are on too tight?

It isn’t clear if tomato ketchup, pandas or cacti add to his anger, but we know one thing that does – illegal downloading! Mention that to Lars and he’ll knock you into the future. But he appears to be having a change of heart. He’s just admitted to stealing music off the internet.

Now, it would have been more exciting to see Lars publicly saying to a group like The Saturdays “What up bitches? I’ve just downloaded your piece of shit ass album for free. What you gonna do about it?”

Unfortunately this isn’t going to happen. At least until he grows himself a bigger pair of balls anyway. You see, he didn’t illegally download an album of anyone like Leona Lewis, The Sugababes or Kelly Clarkson. Instead, he downloaded his own band’s recent album – we don’t see the point in doing that either.

Instead of sparking an internet feud with someone across the Atlantic, Lars decided to keep his downloading to a minimum. Probably so no-one gets the hump and tries to sue him. Unless he goes mental and tries to sue himself.

Does this make him a bi-downloader, since he hasn’t quite gone the full way and downloaded someone else’s work yet? Maybe not, but at least we hope that we’ve started a new buzzword for everyone to use.

Over the years, everyone has had a snigger at Metallica as Lars and his bunch of chums got all upset with Napster for letting users share their music. If anything, anyone who used up storage space on toss albums such as St Anger should be asking Lars for wasted life minutes back.

During a moment of typical angriness, Lars told VH1:

“I sat there myself and downloaded Death Magnetic from the internet just to try it,” “I was like, ‘Wow, this is how it works’. I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download Death Magnetic for free, it’s me.”

With downloading now accomplished to some extent, what’s next on the Metallica to do list? Knitting, croquet and baking won’t be involved that’s for sure – those activities don’t involve anger!

If anything, we want to see Lars Ulrich rip phonebooks apart with his bare hands, wrestle bears and drink sixteen cans of beer at once. Grr, that’s what real angry men do. Once that’s achieved, he’ll have our ultimate respect.

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