digital music
Trent Reznor is busy demonstrating how
a bankable artist can go independent, give away music for free, and still make a mint. Though he initially expressed concern over an album he produced for hip-hopper Saul Williams that was released as a "pay what you will" download, he's changed his mind and now considers it a success — mostly because Williams made more money even with only twenty percent of fans paying for the album than he ever did at a label. And maybe more importantly, far more people heard the music. As for Reznor? His own giveaway of his latest album did pretty well in the marketplace as well, with a limited-edition box set garnering $750,000 and half a million CDs sold. So what, exactly, is the problem with the music business? As usual, greedy labels.
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digital music
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has made the first section of a four-part album
available as a BitTorrent download. The rest of the 36-track album is available on the band's
website or on Amazon.com, without copying restrictions, for $5. Reznor has been a constant critic of record labels and the music industry for years. Last year he admitted that he frequently pirated music himself. He included this statement in the upload notes for the album,
Ghosts I:
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oink
Trent Reznor, the Nine Inch Nails frontman who encouraged his fans to
steal music, had a
favorite site to steal from. It was Oink, the music-sharing site that got shut down
last week, as he
told New York:
I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted... it existed because it filled a void of what people want.
Reznor also feels "hustled" when he visits iTunes. Maybe he'll donate to help The Pirate Bay build their BitTorrent
replacement. (
Photo by AP/Louis Lanzano)
digital music
All the record-label kevetching that the Internet is killing their livelihood
may actually be true. But it's not college kids sharing files in broadband-equipped dorms that they need to worry about. Radiohead is releasing its new album sans label. Novel, but the interesting bit is that the band is giving a choice to consumers: Pay $82 for a super-fancy, boxed edition of
In Rainbows, or download the album — for whatever you think it's worth. This follows a similar campaign by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails who says once his band's label obligations are completed, it will
release digital albums for about $4. Of course it's not just the music industry that should be concerned.
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Valleywag
