Did Metallica Ask MV Agusta to Remove “Enter Sandman” from Dragster Teaser Video?

Earlier this week, MV Agusta released a video teasing its upcoming Dragster 800 model that prominently featured the familiar introduction to Metallica‘s 1991 hit “Enter Sandman“. That original video is no longer available on YouTube, replaced by a new version with a more generic heavy metal soundtrack.

It looks like MV Agusta did not secure the license to use “Enter Sandman” in the video, forcing the company to replace the original video with new,  and likely license-free, music. The question then, is did Lars Ulrich call up MV Agusta, asking it to stop using Metallica music in the video? The band does have a notorious history with copyright law with its infamous lawsuit against file-sharing service Napster.

Trying to access the original video on YouTube results in a message saying “This video has been removed by the user”, indicating MV Agusta voluntarily removed the video as opposed to YouTube removing the video because of a copyright claim. When the first video went live, several outlets, including us, mentioned Metallica in reporting the video, and someone at MV Agusta likely realized there may be a licensing issue and made the smart decision to take it down.

Here then is the new video with the revised soundtrack:

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If you prefer the original Metallica version, you could always put that video on “mute” and play the official “Enter Sandman” music video in a separate browser window.

By Dennis Chung