Who would have thought the band who famously fought Napster would be, eight years later, masters of the Internet? Its guitarist, for one, didn't.

Back when Metallica was butting heads with Napster and becoming the face of the anti-online music-piracy movement, Kirk Hammett wasn't sure what the years ahead held for his band.

"Is this what the future is going to entail?" he recalls. "Us battling all this different technology that's coming out of left field that doesn't have any boundaries?"

Metallica is battling no more. In fact, it's set its own boundaries, started its own handful of Web sites to sell music, concert tickets and live recordings, and it has used the Internet to mold the business model for which the the music industry has been searching.

Call it Metallica 2.0.

"It's great that the capabilities of the Internet are totally working for us now," says Hammett.

Working is an understatement. While many artists have made good use of ringtones, MySpace and blogs, Metallica has built itself a Web empire with plenty to sell (on its own terms, mind you) to its devoted fans.

The group launched MissionMetallica.com as an insider look at its recording process, its past and as a delivery service for "Death Magnetic," the band's ninth studio album, which was released in September.

It was delivered to subscribers promptly at 12:01 a.m. on the release date.

Along the way, Metallica.com was keen on debuting songs and videos, keeping up with tour rumors and basically pointing all the eyes on Metallica back to its own site.

Metallica's Web arsenal also includes MetClub.com, a fan club, MetOnTour.com, the hub for tour news and concert tickets and a mobile site for ringtones and such.

Then there's LiveMetallica.com, where fans can download audio from any of the band's concerts for $9.95-$12.95.

"I would say we have a very sensible approach," Hammett says. "The model that we're trying to build, I think, is really working for us these days. MetallicaLive.com is just one of the coolest things that we could possibly do.

"Back in the day, in the early '90s, pre-Internet, we used to let the fans come to the concerts and tape the shows so they could have their own little memento. Now the Internet allows us to do that quickly, efficiently and have it in pretty good quality."

While Radiohead perhaps made the biggest online splash of any band in recent memory with its pay-whatever-you-want model for "In Rainbows," Metallica has been much more business savvy.

For instance: When tickets for its tour were going on sale (the day after "Death Magnetic" was released), the band bundled packages that included concert tickets, copies of the album and a download of whatever concert they attended from LiveMetallica.com.

"Our approach to this is a lot different than Radiohead's approach, which is throw the music out there and leave it in the hands of the listeners," Hammett says. What we try to do is come up with creative packages that will appeal to our core fans."

Which brings us back to Napster. As Hammett point outs, the band was never "anti-Internet;" it just wanted to control its music. That's what Metallica 2.0 has done.

"We've always had an open mind toward the Internet and definitely noticed how much the Internet has changed the industry.

"We also saw the potential that using the Internet can bring to the band's cause and the band's mission."

This leaves Metallica in an interesting post-"Death Magnetic" predicament. The band's record contract is up, making Metallica, basically, a free agent.

Drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone recently, "We have that element of complete freedom with the next record, so we can do whatever we want. We could do an Internet thing. …"

The trend nowadays is big-name artists signing what are called 360 deals, specifically the concert giant Live Nation, that include albums and tours. Madonna, Jay-Z and Nickelback have done that.

Metallica, though, usually takes long breaks between albums. And with two years of "Death Magnetic" touring staring the band in the face, there's no telling what will happen or what the trend will be.

Especially considering the music industry's constant state of flux, who knows what's next for Metallica.

"Instead of a new album in three or four years," Hammett says, "we might be releasing a video game with 12 new songs."

(c) 2008, The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.).

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