Music Industry: FREE?! NOOOOOO. We're DOOMED. OTher artist will follow....NOOOOOO....

Play Once Sell Many is dead... or at least dying. Maybe we'll start getting more musicians who make music for love and play concerts for money, not to drive album sales.

Down with RIAA.

Finally, some people who realise that 44khz/16bit still throws away a lot.

Especially seeing as we're all recording at 192khz nowadays.

I Say What what, in the butt RIAA.

NIN pwns.

It's a really strange thing, to consider that in the end, it might be the artists the RIAA swears it is trying to protect that will save consumers from the RIAA itself. Reznor should be the most appreciated man in music for realising what the RIAA cannot: you don't spend years fucking over the fans, only conceding to the fans the ground they've irretrieveably lost, holding on to all the DRM and usage standards they can horde. Reznor understands that if you keep treating the fans like criminals, you're just isolating yourself.

I personally pay for all my NIN because Trent is the supreme master. But if he wants to give it away like Niggy Tardust then I'll take it.

This is a genuine question: Are we reaching the point where we (the consumer) expect musicians to make no money off the sale of CDs/digital music/etc? Will music be considered a freebie that helps drive concert sales and merchandise?

@Jesus:
"better-than-CD-quality 24bit 96kHz audio"
should be
"better-than-CD-quality 16 bit 44.1 kHz audio"

@Dirk: I don't know if we expect that, yet-- well, I am sure some callous pricks feel that way, the ones with three hundred gigs of stolen music they've maybe listened to once. I totally support artists being paid for their music, but I don't support paying ten dollars for an album when maybe two dollars of that goes to the artist. I think production personnel should be paid up front during the making of the music, and the artist should get the money from the sales. They'd make more money, and the albums would cost less.

I'm not a big NIN fan, but just for being extremely cool and realizing all your money is going to come from touring and merchandise, Trent Reznor, I'm going to download your album.

@Dirk: No, we're just reaching the point that consumers are willing to just download a pirated copy instead of rightfully pay for it.

@Dirk: The other thing to consider is that if you escape some of the things that made the 90's music model what it was, the overhead becomes greatly reduced. We have the technology to increase communication between the fans and the artists, so marketing costs are lower. There is no physical manufacturing, no shipping of discs to retail... the RIAA need to look at the Internet as an opportunity, rather than something dangerous they need to control. There's money to be made off more than touring, but the labels need to embrace these chances now, before they lose them forever.

the 1.2gb for the wave files is a little over kill, who's gonna download an album that is 1.2gb and has like 18 songs. Thats just a waste of space I could see if it was lowered a bit for the album to like 800mb but 1.2 gb thats over kill

I get the point of lossless and stuff but for real 1.2 gb imagine if everybody ripped music at 24bit 96khz audio we'd all need petabyte hard drives.

How many people honest have music thats 24bit 96khz audio

Yay NiN for actually playing music because they enjoy it, and just want it heard.

I have a new found respect for them AND Radiohead.

@Dirk: No, it's not that at all. We want the artists to make the money, not the damn RIAA. We support the artists, just not the RIAA who takes it upon themselves to "protect" the artists interests. Even if the artist doesn't want them to do so.

@Atsumi: yay to nin for being rich bastards who can afford to do so?

most musicians cannot, alas, afford to make music "just because they enjoy it" - in fact as far as i'm concerned only the shitty ones who've sold out can.

so thanks nin for making yet another crappy album and securing praise not for the quality of the music but for the gimmicky free distribution of it.

i'm with viperborg.

NiN rocks for doing stuff like this and their last thing with them selling the albums their sell and telling the studio to suck nuts.

the RIAA are f*cking idiots

NiN is the example of what music should be, no instead we get britney and her antics, and a bunch of wanna-be artists that sell 20$ cd's because 1 song on the cd happens to be decent.

NiN 4ocks!

I definitely want the "whooping" version.

More NIN... more pertussis.

@utube2007: There's more than just the 24/96 version. There's MP3 at 192kbps, FLAC 16/44 and Loseless AAC 16/44.

I also enjoy how you've read this as only 24/96... "You can also choose from high-quality MP3s, FLAC lossless and M4A lossless."

Doy.

@pferde_schwanz: theirs ways to make cash without falling into the RIAA. hel their last album sold out even the high dollar exclusive version and they did that themselves on the web!

in the day of the internet, the RIAA and the established music consortium as it is is just stupid. people want choice and freedom, not crap shoved down their throats at a cost.

@Dirk: Whether we want to admit it or not, there is a large number of human beings (insert your guess of the percentage) that will take the 'free' option and justify it to themselves by saying they do not want to support X company. The fact is, if you do not like the tactics of the RIAA -- then do not consume music. That will have a more profound impact than breaking copyrights. But, many people are not willing to give anything up -- and they have a great justification for their deeds.

All that said -- kudos to NIN for allowing us to get their music and bucking the RIAA. It is nice when we can have our cake and ravenously consume it.

@pferde_schwanz: You're a twat... the point is because they can, he's very aware of the drawbacks to his distribution "model" if applied to an artist without the luxury of his profile.

Look at Does it Offend You, Yeah. for a similar model, just applied to their profile. All they need is a slightly better programmer, and designer and they have a method that might work better.

$5 download for a full length, with an embedded sample player would be more practicle for younger bands, and touring under bands with a larger audience.

While what NIN is doing may be idealism in your perspective. It's practical for NIN, and that's what matters to them.

Label's should die. Physical distribution only... however, Artist Management (CAA, William Morris, Rebel Waltz) could become the next form of Record label. Or "industry".

Agreed that the money should go directly to the artists (and definitely not the RIAA). Obviously digital distribution helps that, and hopefully ensures more money does directly to the people who created the music.

But what I see a lot online is the attitude that music (or TV shows or software or movies) should be completely free, and available for download without compensation to the creators. Sure, artists do what they do for the love of music (or art or coding or whatever), but at the same time they should be able to make a living and pay bills.

@pferde_schwanz: Selling out is making an album that a studio wants you to make, in a style they want it created in. Not just signing to a record label.

It doesn't mean there aren't a lot of trendy bands without much talent, they just aren't necessarily sell outs.

@pferde_schwanz: Seems that the peanut gallery lives in a perpetual Catch 22.

@pferde_schwanz: There's loads of options to not go the RIAA route. For instance check this out from Wired [www.wired.com]

There was another article a few years back in wired about 5 online bands that actually made a ridiculous amount of money selling just online. Can't find the article online though. Must be a back issue.

@pomophobe:

I know that there are more version than just the wave files, i'm download the flac version now. I was just stating who would really download the wave files when there 1.2gb unless your in south korea or japan

they could have had the wave files anywhere between the

M4A apple lossless (263 mb)
and
high definition WAVE 24/96 (1.2 gb)

that is a huge jump in file size when they could have had the files with a little less quality and could have been under 1 gb

Fawk Yeah for NIN, I really think Trent is committed and not just trying to be a mindless trendsetter. Downloading once I get home from class (stupid bandwidth monitoring :P)

Fawk yeah for NIN. I truly believe that Trent Reznor is committed to his new release plans rather than just trying to be a flashy trendsetter.

Downloading when I get home from class (damned bandwidth monitoring)

@utube2007: No! I need 24bit 96khz audio to take full advantage of the "dancablility" of my Pear cables.

Not that NIN are often described as "dancable", but that's the miracle of the Pear cables.

Seriously Giz? High Definition audio? Of all people to say that.

Definition - Visual Quality
Fidelity - Audible Quality

Dammit.

@TheCyberBob: Trent Reznor has been frustrated in the past when offering Niggy Tardust with 2 options: free or for a modest fee, with sales going directly to support the artist, and almost everyone chose free. I'm not sure what the answer is, but if all future albums were free, how would musicians be able to afford to produce them?

No question the traditional record label model is a dinosaur in death throes after the internet meteor obliterated its comfortable little ecosystem, but there has to be a way for musicians to be able to profit from their work to support what they do and encourage innovation, same as any other field. And selling t-shirts doesn't count, any more than you would expect Apple to give away its computers and profit from selling T-shirts with an Apple logo on them and charging admission for keynotes. Although.... maybe that would work...

Being a musician in medieval times meant wondering the countryside and performing as a juggling clown along with singing your songs. It's one thing to get rid of DRM, the RIAA, and conventional record labels. It's another to turn recording artists back into medieval jongleurs.

This is the coolest "Fuck You" to the RIAA that I have ever seen.

Mr. Reznor is my new hero.

@frigg: True. I think the better model would be a sort of open format online store that other applications (such as iTunes and WMP) could hook into easily and simply forward the payments to the site which would take a slice for it's bandwidth then lob the rest to the artist itself. So ya. I think online stores are the way to go but I think the artists need to get some nerds together to make a sort of global interface into all artists instead of having it all over the damned place. As "location location location" used to be the mantra "convenience" is the new one for stores.

@frigg: better-than-CD-quality is an adjective (use of hyphens) for 24bit 96kHz audio, indicating that the spec is better than CD (if I had said "better than 24bit 96kHz audio CD quality", then you would be right).

@csjk789:

[en.wikipedia.org]

@6d617474:

no we are not. no one records at 192. thats lame and waaaay to CPU intensive with plugins. 24/96 is standard and a lot of people record at 24/48 and 24/44.1.

bravo. if its about the music the tunes should be free and money made on the road. if its about the money, your in the wrong business.

@Jesus Diaz: Understood! I read it as "better than CD-quality" rather than "better-than-CD-quality." I should have trusted that all the hyphens were doing their adjective making jobs!

@utube2007: These files are definitely not overkill for me, as once they finish downloading, I'll be running them through this:

[home.comcast.net]

DVD-Audio FTW :)

criticize nine inch nails on a nerd website at your peril, i suppose.

my rant is directed at nine inch nails not necessarily because they sold out - they (he) actually just put out a bunch of mediocre records. the point is that people hailing this as some sort of watershed event are retards. what radiohead did with a legitimately great album was new, and almost reasonable - but they screwed it up by turning it into a gimmick, just as nin is doing now, instead of just putting out a record at a price normal people would find refreshingly acceptable for a good album.

just charge a reasonable amount for the music. bypass the record label if you will, all the better (although not all record labels are shit). but just because some artists can afford to put out a free album (as a business decision, this very likely makes sense for mr reznor) doesn't mean this is a good thing. a lot of great music doesn't get made because artists are too busy working to earn a living. a lot of great music does get made because small record labels will give these artists a means to free up enough time to put something together. and there's a risk involved for the record label, as well, by the way.

Go Trent! I just got my ghosts deluxe in the mail over the weekend (its kick ass). Trent is the ultimate type A personality.... he left his label and music arrives every other week it seems.

@utube2007: You are actually complaining about being given more options? For Free? No compromises? I like to complain about perceived injustices as much as the next guy but there might be limits to that!

@pferde_schwanz: the new tunes are anything but mediocre. also just because something shows up on some shitty indie label pre-approved by Pitchfork, doesn't really make it more relevant. Lots of great music has been made since time memorial, many of the old blues artists got raped by the record labels. Much of your rant reeks of the tired "poor music industry" groupthink.

@utube2007:
The jump to 1.2gb REALLY is the next step up in quality; there's nothing in between those two rates.

The FLAC is just your 16/44 wave files. You can take those and get the maximum quality possible from a standard CD. If you need higher quality, go with the 1.2gb 24/96, but the jump to 1.2gb really isn't that ridiculous.

@pferde_schwanz: Sell out? Do some research my friend. Enough with the Radiohead vs. NIN comparison as well. Two totally different bands. Thanks for the senseless rant b.t.w.

Tour dates are already posted. My guess is he'll make it up on the road with concert dates and merch sales. TR is a millionaire many times over so money probably isn't the end-game for him. Plus, as @pferde_schwanz mentioned, the $300 copies of 'Ghosts' sold out to a tune of $750k gross just for that version. Add the 1000's of the 'deluxe' versions at $75 (hope mine gets here soon - I wanna remix!) and his income stream is guaranteed.

I haven't heard the rest of the tracks, but the first one I sampled wasn't all that great... More of the same. I liked the Ghosts for the most part as they were not all the same NIN as other recordings.

So maybe 'Free' is the right price for this collection. Hmm.