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Hi. I copied a few tracks by Pendulum from a friend's laptop(most notably Slam). Based on what I heard, I bought Hold Your Colour the next time I was in a record store, as well as tickets to their next concert in Sydney. It's some of the best drum and bass I've ever heard, the album artwork is stunning, I like having it sitting on my shelf, and the price was reasonable thanks to the record store in question having a sale at the time.

I also paid for Saul William's latest album after downloading his earlier works. I'll happily buy those too if I find a local store stocking them, but given his attitude to the industry I doubt he minds all that much either way. I'll definitely be purchasing tickets to any live show of his that I can attend.

Then there's one of my new favourite psytrance outfits, ITP, who've just released their latest album as a free download on its first birthday. I'll be buying the next one, sight unseen, I know it's going to be amazing. If you're into the genre, then check them out.

So yeah, I download music. I download movies. I buy CDs. I buy DVDs. More and more often, one of those actions will arise from another, and whilst the former two result largely from curiosity, the latter two now result only from quality.

That's my take, anyhow. I doubt I'm the only one.

Reznor's combined his clout and this business model in a way similar to what you've described once already; He produced Saul Williams's Niggy Tardust and it's available as a lossless download for cheap.

There are a couple of artists that have made them selves some reasonable money without the backing of a record company, I suggest you try Saul Williams (co-produced by Trent Reznor himself) which is available for US$5 from http://niggytardust.com/

Apparently he has raised $175,000 from sales of this one album alone.

The job of promoting music can be done from band to band without having the recording industry involved at all.

When I say Niggy, you say nothing.
Niggy.
Niggy.

But this isn't even the first time Trent Reznor did this; he worked with Saul Williams on the Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, and they gave it away for free in 192 kbps format with a $5 download for 320 or FLAC. It's a great record too, download it yourself and see! They sold over 150,000 downloads at $5 a pop and then Trent took down the freebie link and posted to his blog whining that it wasn't enough, but they recently put it back up. The Ghosts announcement is good news alongside this fact, because it means that he still believes in alternative distribution channels (and free music) despite his earlier whining.

He has also been influencing other bands (or at least one other artist that I know) to adopt this method. Saul Williams [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_williams] collaborated with Trent on his newest album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust [http://niggytardust.com/saulwilliams/moreinfo], which was given away for free online, with the option to donate, of course.

Looks like Trent might have been testing the waters before he launched himself (so to speak), which might also be a testament to the viability of this method. If it didn't work at all for lesser known artist like Saul Williams, then I doubt Trent would be declaring this method 'the future.'

- John

Trent Reznor already has some experience with this sort of delivery method. Saul Williams's The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! was a semi-collaboration with Reznor.

If you like hip-hop you might like the album is available from http://niggytardust.com/
It was mentioned on Slashdot yesterday, and I bought it, but really should have listened to it first!

It's $5 (£2.52 for me) for 427MB of FLAC -- that's an excellent price! Equivalent to a couple of beers somewhere cheap, or single double-spirit+mixer somewhere cheap in London.

Thanks for that, I hadn't heard about it. The album is available from http://niggytardust.com/ -- and I just bought it. I have no idea what the music is (I haven't heard of Saul Williams) but Nine Inch Nails were the best major band at the Reading Festival this year, so hopefully it'll be something I like :-)

$5 (£2.52 for me) for 427MB of FLAC -- that's an excellent price!

What does $5 get you as a student in, say, New York? In London, £2.50 would buy one of:
- four cans of coke from a vending machine at university
- a couple of beers somewhere cheap, or single double-spirit+mixer somewhere cheap
- one drink somewhere in central London
- half a person into a nightclub
- a cheap lunch
- two loaves of bread
Seems a very good price for an album anyway!

And the download has now finished... erm... if you like Nine Inch Nails you probably won't like it, it's hip hop. I should have read the Last.fm page: "he received notable recognition while supporting Nine Inch Nails for parts of their 2005-2006 tour, despite the questionable appeal of his music for that demographic." Oh well.

Personally, I'd like to see the Radiohead model become widespread as more and more bands opt out of the current RIAA company business model.

I just wanted to mention that Niggytardust, the new album by Saul Williams (produced by Trent Reznor) is available online. There are two options:

1) Pay nothing. (192kbps mp3)
2) Pay $5. (192kbps mp3, 320kbps mp3 or FLAC)

http://niggytardust.com/

I got the FLAC, haven't listened to it yet.

Another album with a similar selling model is the new Saul Williams album. You can download it for free, or choose to pay $5. I downloaded it for free because there was no sample. I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to buy it. I'm not a big fan of hip hop, but I do like the music, and will probably end up sending the $5. Anyway, the album was produced by Trent Reznor. So not only is he doing great things with changing the business model for his own music, he's helping other artists do the same.

Maybe the government is realizing that copyright law is outdated? (...) How about a new model that doesn't require any enforcement, where people fully pay for the labor used to create the product, then it becomes freely available?

I agree with the sentiment and there are new models emerging that integrate freeloaders into the equation, i.e. Radiohead's stunt or Saul Williams' (yes I bought the album, that's why I keep pushing it =D ) but only time will tell if they work or not. It's hard to make sweeping generalizations about people, as cultural differences account for a lot of our behaviors. I've lived in places where $10 USD was an outrageous price for a CD, and others where it would be the perfect price point but they sell them for $22 USD. Also in some of those places people would grab for free anything they could get away with and on some others they would feel compelled to offer some kind of compensation.

I guess some "content providers" (artists, software engineers, book authors) will have to try different models and maybe even use two or three of them depending on their target audience. It might be different selling to those hippie Canadian commies than to people on the US or Brazil for instance.

I just downloaded it. I paid nothing. I want to listen to the album first, and then see how much it is worth to me (hey, I listen to albums for free in the record store before I buy, I listen to all music before I buy). But even if I really like the album, I still will not pay much for it. Why? Quality. Where is the high quality FLAC? What about even a high quality mp3? The disc box is really nice with CD and quality vinyl(see the details http://www.inrainbows.com/Store/MoreInfo2.htm), but I am not going to pay ~$84 for it. Won't do it.

Contrast this to Saul Williams new album, which I am starting to really like. Great simple UI for the download http://niggytardust.com/saulwilliams/download

• 192kbps mp3 for free.
• $5 for 320kbps mp3 -OR- FLAC

160kbps? Seriously? That sucks. It especially sucks if you are mixing mp3s. Phish sells FLAC albums. Primus sells FLAC albums. It doesn't take a much more effort to provide a few more options for consumers that understand and want to purchase quality formats of albums.

I love that artists are starting to see the reality of the interweb music market. But I like the approach of Saul Williams better than Radiohead.

We'll only really know the full impact of this if/when other acts start doing it.

Well, at least one other has done it, and Trent Reznor--being contract-free now--will probably follow suit shortly.

Not true. There's Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails (well, sort of), and certainly more to follow.