Cover me And finally Metallica, notoriously grumpy rock gods. Having made a name for themselves for aggressively protecting their intellectual property, they took things a little further and served their own cover band at one of their shows with a 41-page cease and desist letter. The Canadian group, Sandman, was a little surprised and disheartened to find out that their heroes were threatening to sue them for playing their music. And to discover that Metallica's lawyers routinely scour YouTube and the broader internet looking for people covering their songs so they can threaten them. There was something about serving a cover band at their own gig that did not sit well with fans, however, and following a pretty loud 24 hours of social media yelling, the band stepped up and claimed that it was not them but an "overzealous attorney" who was responsible for the legal threat. They even put out a message of support: "Sandman should file the letter in the trash. Keep doing what you're doing ... we totally support you! And in the meantime, our attorney can be found at SFO catching a flight to go permanently ice fishing in Alaska." See, you don't always have to use your lawyers to threaten people and companies. Sometimes you can threaten your own lawyers.
