Alex Winter is best known to metal fans as the guy from the Bill & Ted movies who isn’t Keanu Reeves, but for the past twenty years, he’s actually been maintaing a successful career as a director; he’s helmed some not-very-well-known indie movies, like the cult comedy Freaked and the psychological thriller Fever, but also lots of television, including episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and two of the Ben 10 T.V. movies (which, if you have kids, you may be familiar with). And in 2002, he acquired the life rights to Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning, and announced plans to write and direct a feature film about Napster. Unfortunately, The Social Network kinda-sorta beat him to the punch last year — even though that film wasn’t really about Napster, it now seems clear that Justin Timerberlake’s portrayal of a Napster’s other co-founder, Sean Parker, is going to stick in audiences’ minds for some time to come.

But Winter isn’t giving up on the story just yet! He’s gotten VH1 to finance a documentary on the topic. And before you think “Oh, well, so it will be some shitty, low-budget Behind the Music affair,” remember that VH1 also backed a little documentary called Anvil: The Story of Anvil.

Winter tells Deadline why he finds this whole Napster debacle so fascinating:

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In case you live in an Internet-less black hole, there’s some big news going around today about Minnesota woman Jammie Thomas being found guilty of copyright infringement for sharing music via Kazaa; Thomas now has to pay $220,000 in damages to the record labels that sued her. Companies suing their customers… that strikes me as a GREAT way to drum up business in a failing industry. Great job, guys, this will surely help your public image.

Now, before I go on a rant, I would like to say this: I am not a record label hater. I fully understand the need for marketing dollars to help a band gain exposure, pay publicists, tour support, advances, yadda yadda yadda. I get it, and I am not of the “all record labels are evil” ilk.

However, those in the record industry (please note the distinction between record industry and music industry), and in particular the major labels, need to take a collective step back and realize the following:

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