Trent Reznor Says "Steal My Music"

THX-1138 writes "A few months ago, Trent Reznor (frontman of the band Nine Inch Nails), was in Australia doing an interview when he commented on the outrageous prices of CDs there. Apparently now his label, Universal Media Group is angry at him for having said that. During a concert last night, he told fans, '...Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means — STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another these mother****ers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that's not right.'"

Comments

Re:Has he put his money where his mouth is?

[king-manic]

I just wonder one thing: has he stopped accepting royalties from the CD sales, or canceled his distribution contracts? Without that step, this is a fairly empty gesture from a very rich man. He makes available high quality raw audio track for people to sample with. He vocally questioned the high prices in Australia. He encouraged his fans to steal his music. I don't think he needs to impoverish himself to have an opinion.

Promoter vs Artist

[BoRegardless]

Back to the same old B.S. that has caused turmoil in Hollywood since I can remember.

Artist makes contract with "BigCo", and "BigCo" agrees to a % of the "sales" as they define them, and then "BigCo" sets the price of the movie, book, or music where they want to get their profits they want. That was the way of the 20th Century.

In the 19th Century, artists of all types made money on direct sales, direct live acts and there was little other than a shop that might sell works for a % of the sale.

Now I wonder if the 21st Century Artist is not moving back to the 19th Century methods, where the artist controls things more, since it is the Artist inspiring the viewers, listeners, readers of his work that counts for quality artistic expression. If Artists have something hot, that your subset of the human race likes, the Internet allows those mutual groups to find each other in lots of ways.

I think the Internet is leveling the playing field, and artists are likely to see a resurgence of interest...provided they have quality work.

Re:Concert, not interview!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Would he recommend people break into the stadium?

You're conflating violent crimes with civil infractions again.

Re:One out of one Trent Reznor agrees:

[fishbowl]

Can you please cite the judicial order or legislative ruling that establishes copyright infringement as equivalent to theft?

And, on topic, what about the big fuzzy gray area where the creator of a work still has free expression to say things like "steal this book" or "my agent is a dick nose and I want out of my contract?"

Re:Especially since

[king-manic]

Rather, he seems to be encouraging his fans to not buy his music, which deprives him of royalties, but also deprives the label of money. Exactly, already it's like 98:2 label:talent money split for new bands. For NIN I'd imagine it's 85:15. His label loses more if his music is stolen then he does. If you look for some of his older records they are premium priced. $24-$45 CAD for pretty hate machine or the downward spiral. Ludicrous for something that is individually less then $0.10 to produce.

Re:Concert, not interview!

[xouumalperxe]

You're comparing apples to oranges.

On one side, you have a CD: It has a more or less fixed (for any given project) initial production cost, and costs a tiny amount per copy to make virtually limitless amounts of copies of it. On the other side, you have a concert, each night an individual piece of work, with hard-capped supplies for tickets. Of course the prices for one and the prices for the other shouldn't be held to the same standard. It's sort of like expecting oil paintings to be held to the same pricing standards as mass-produced posters.