Trent Reznor is on a roll. Sooner or later, big music labels might awaken to the fact that he may be onto something, too.
Today Nine Inch Nails released a new album online, for free. On the website, Reznor simply says "this one's on me", as a thank-you for fan support over the years. This comes on the heels of Nine Inch Nails releasing the instrumental material Ghosts (I-IV) for free via BitTorrent mere months ago.
With The Slip, Reznor is:
- Offering free MP3 downloads on the NIN site
- Offering high-resolution, uncompressed files via BitTorrent
- Releasing the album under a Creative Commons license, allowing fans to remix, share, include in podcasts, etc to their hearts' content
- Releasing retail CD and vinyl versions come in July. Any guesses on whether or not he makes millions of $$ even though the content was released for free months prior?
What is missing for little indie bands like Caffeine Sunday in all this, as always, is how to adopt this kind of distribution and make any kind of living doing it. It's not lost on me when some people point out that the reason why NIN and Radiohead can get away with doing this is because they have already developed enormous, loyal fan bases. People seek out a new NIN record the way people seeked out new New Order releases in the early '80s with no publicity and no photos of the band on the cover. For Caffeine Sunday or fill-in-name-of-your-local-band-here, it would be difficult to get a lot of buzz by releasing a new album this way. The Star Ingredient isn't there to create a base of demand. Yet ;-)
Regardless, this is totally awesome to watch unfold. Whether or not this is going to be THE way for everyone to release music in the near future, Reznor is experimenting with the new frontier, not circling the wagons. This will be yet another example of how those which adapt survive (Sorry Creationists...).
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