They are working on a new album. My guess is that any Metallica pin would coincide with that release (2014 sometime).

I grew up in the bay area and saw them a few times live in their early days where they would scream for everyone to bootleg their concerts. It was a great way to get the exposure. But its left a really bad taste that they would take such an opposing stance once they've made it. No telling how fervently they will chase violators now that they bought the rights to their catalog. I would hate to be the poor licensing manger at Stern and have to work with these guys.

There's no way they would go thru this much trouble. The machine will simply require the player to use another credit (a buy-in) in order to continue play after each snippet of a song was played, and the op would have to pay the royalty (10% for the op, 10% for the site, 80% for the royalties). Talk about stop and go play. Much more suited for an Oursler design than a Ritchie.

Home owners of the pin would likely get a Blackened Records branded jackboot print on their front door when they come to collect the royalties the owner wasn't paying.

This was a problem the industry needed to sort out - and was trying to sort out. Metallica and Dr Dre decided to go it alone against Napster (and beyond) - which is well within their rights. But, in retrospect, this action was similar to a 1900s carriage maker suing because someone attached a motor to one of their carriages and started selling them. For those who embraced the new technology, it worked well despite the risks.

Its speculated that Metallica's label requested they tone it down (stop alienating fans) and leave it to the RIAA to enforce while the labels looked into this new fangled distribution channel (which they actually resisted doing for a long time). Many newer artists embraced the technology rather than fought it, and benefited greatly.

For me, its not that they enforced their rights that was distasteful, its the way they went about it that was.