My, how times have changed. It wasn't all that long ago that the heavy-metal band Metallica was known for its strident opposition to online music services such as Napster, since the group claimed that they were nothing more than a front for piracy. Now, the band is not only streaming its own unreleased songs through its website -- Mission Metallica -- and offering fans the ability to download high-quality tracks before the CD is actually released, but the boys don't even seem to mind that the entire album has leaked online already, apparently as a result of a French record store selling copies before the September 12 official release.

In an interview with a radio station in San Francisco on Tuesday, drummer Lars Ulrich -- who was the front-man for the group during its fight with Napster -- seemed to be taking the whole event in stride. "Listen, we're 10 days from release," he said. "I mean, from here, we're golden. If this thing leaks all over the world today or tomorrow, happy days. Happy days. Trust me -- 10 days out and it hasn't quote unquote fallen off the truck yet? Everybody's happy. It's 2008 and it's part of how it is these days, so it's fine. We're happy."

Lars is right about one thing: leaks have become part of the record business in the digital age, whether bands and record labels like it or not. Artists such as Britney Spears and Gnarls Barkley have reportedly moved up the dates of their album releases due to early leaks, and some artists (such as rapper The Game) have even leaked their own albums online, under the assumption that someone else is going to do it anyway. At least that way they get to control the quality of the music: In the case of the recently leaked tracks from Chinese Democracy -- the long-awaited album from Guns and Roses -- both the band and its label were reportedly upset because the songs weren't finished yet.

A glimpse of the old Metallica seemed to rear its head earlier this year, when the band held "listening parties" for some music bloggers to introduce them to the new album, and then apparently got upset when those blogs wrote about their impressions of the disc. But after the incident got some attention in the blogosphere, the band released a statement saying that it was unaware of the legal letters that had gone out to the bloggers (which it said came from someone at its management company) and that it didn't mind having the reviews online at all. Now, it's even embracing unofficial leaks of entire albums. What's the world coming to?