Cosmo Lee of Invisible Oranges thinks so:
On one hand, this would surely make great coffee table reading. On the other hand, it is just as surely a copy-and-paste job from metal-archives.com. Essentially, the book is a print version of that website as of sometime last year. The fact that this book has an “author” (a Dan Nelson) is somewhat ludicrous. Does metal-archives.com have a potential intellectual property claim against Nelson/McSweeney’s for theft of its idea, process, and/or content? Regarding the latter, probably not; metal-archives.com doesn’t own the names of the bands it lists. However, it arguably owns the method of organization of these names, even if it’s simply alphabetical. No other site has as complete a list of metal bands, and something feels wrong about a major commercial entity profiting off the backs of an all-volunteer community. In any case, metal-archives.com most certainly lacks the resources to pursue any action against McSweeney’s.
Was the community maintained Encyclopaedia Metallum copy and pasted into an exquisite William Morris-inspired McSweeney’s book? I dunno. Of course, the metal archives has standards of accuracy to uphold and there is no way that they could have seen this coming, but perhaps they should plant a fictitious entry in the metal archives to thwart would-be plagiarists.
Sounds easy enough but with 19 bands named Armageddon, what would sound plausible but not already taken? Misspellings? Nope, there is a band named Armagedom, another called Armaggedon and a total of 6 bands named Armagedon! Finding a unique metal band may be more difficult than finding a decent domain name!
I suggest Mountweazel!
All Known Metal Bands
Encyclopaedia Metallum
(Mister Jalopy is a guest blogger!)