Back in the early days of P2P, the band gained notoriety among file-swappers when it sued the original Napster for copyright infringement. After iTunes launched, Metallica made headlines by withholding its music from the online music store, saying the music should be listened to in album form, not cut up and sold as individual songs.

But it appears the band has had a change of heart.

The band recently posted a somewhat tongue-in-cheek statement on its Web site declaring “At 12:01 a.m., on Tuesday, July 25th, we will begin offering our music on the iTunes Music Store, a Cupertino, CA, based upstart outfit, who we feel may very well have a bright future …”

The band also said it had seen its “ever-growing number” of fans using sites like iTunes and pointed out that it had been making complete CDs available for downloading through various sites and distributing live concert recordings at livemetallica.com .

“So on Happy Tuesday,” the band announced, “fire up your iTunes, your iPods and whatever else you’ve got, like we do, and enjoy iMetallica!”