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

Going indie

[Goose42]

IIRC, his contract is going to be up soon anyways, and if this is how he feels his company is treating him I doubt he'll sign a new one. With the innovative storytelling he's done with Year Zero, and essentially making open-source music by releasing the original recording data so that anyone can remix it, it'll be interesting to see how he goes about releasing new music without a large distribution network that the major label gives him.

Re:Going indie

[Rimbo]

I just wanted to say something about CD Baby.

I love, love, love CD Baby. I really, really do. They are what a label in the 21st century ought to be. The cut they take is perfectly fair, they give you all kinds of tips to help you sell your stuff, and really they just provide the store-front and a way to get your stuff into as many net-storefronts as possible, and they just keep doing more and more about this. I get 62.5 cents per iTunes purchase, several times more than any big-label band would get, regardless of how many I sell. I mean, working with them is SO SWEET. You can download your sales as a spreadsheet, something I do to make sure I'm paid up on my cover songs' licensing deals.

CD Baby is fuckin' rad, man. They should be the only label any musician should even consider.

It's hard enough to make money with music without some fucking label assraping you for every dime you "cost" them.

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

[dctoastman]

Actually, if he stopped accepting royalties, then the record companies will make an even larger profit and they wouldn't care. That would make it an empty gesture.

Re:Concert, not interview!

[LiquidCoooled]

Thats the exact quote referenced and includes the full reaction from the crowd.
My only question is did the concert tickets also get cheaper since his last visit?
Would he recommend people break into the stadium?

Trent quite isn't a conformist type

[the_olo]

And is not afraid to go against the labels' will, e.g. see the history behind an eastern egg on the "Broken" album:

They(tvt)wanted a more commercial album and insisted on producers doing his next album. When Trent refused, they told him his album would never get made nor released and denied studio time. The entire Broken album in turn was recorded and written almost entirely while on tour for Pretty Hate Machine. Trent even talks about how they would mix it in hotel rooms,on computers, and hide the names of the song and material with saved names like "pussyfuck".

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

[Ash Vince]

He said recently in an interview that he's trapped in a contract and has to produce some number of albums for his label,.... This also means his label are probably stuck with him for the same number of albums proving the previous one sells a certain minimum number.

It sounds similar to Matt Groening and FOX. They pissed him off by not letting him concentrate on Futurama and making him churn out more Simpsons so he used the Simpsons as a vehicle to insult FOX executives whenever he could. They had to put up with it as he was sticking by his contract and making them money.

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

[pilgrim23]

I have the $20 royalty check for my plus 130,000 sold albums. McCartney is not a normal musician and I do nto abide by slashdot wisdom bunkie. been there, but I could not AFFORD the teeshirt. -nuff said.

Re:Trent, you say "Steal My Music", but,

[justinlindh]

Posted too soon. Found info on the USB drive sharing thing on Wikipedia. Here's a snippet of what happened:

On February 12, 2007, a USB drive was found in a bathroom stall during a NIN concert in Lisbon. It contained a high-quality MP3 of the track "My Violent Heart," which quickly circulated throughout the Internet. Another USB drive containing the same track was purportedly found in Madrid.

On February 19, another USB drive was found in Barcelona, containing the track "Me, I'm Not" and an MP3 of static.

On February 25, a third USB drive was found in Manchester, containing the track "In This Twilight" and an image of the Hollywood sign apparently demolished.

Concerning the use of USB drives as a form of promotion, Reznor explains:

" The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want -- DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.

That's awesome, and makes my nerd heart warm.

Does this even matter?

[gosand]

Does this really matter? After all, it isn't his music anymore, he signed those rights away. He can't give permission to steal it. Wonder if he meant actually stealing the CDs from the stores, or downloading it. Those are 2 different things as we all know.

Unfortunately, we are in the scenario where an artist that people will listen to (read: popular) got that way because of the RIAA and the industry they are in... they have likely signed a long-term contract. Once they are out of that contract, the general population won't really care about them (read: Pearl Jam, Prince) and they will kind of fade away. Personally, I like all of these acts I have named, but they aren't in the main spotlight anymore. This is a system that the RIAA has created, and unless someone can a) gain huge popularity without them and b) stay out of their clutches, it won't seem possible to break out of their system.

Steal My Music Too, While You're At It

[MichaelCrawford]

You could really help me out if you shared my music on the Internet.

If you play piano, there's sheet music available for two of my songs, with the rest coming sometime soon.

It's all completely legal to share, as it has a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. You can create derivative works such as remixes, and even sell my work or perform it in front of a paying crowd, but you must share alike - that is, give your derivative works the same license.

Why am I doing this? I am studying both piano and music theory with the aim of going back to school someday to major in musical composition. I want to compose symphonies.

I'll be in my fifties by the time I graduate - I can't afford to spend years building up a fan base. So when your local symphony orchestra plays my work, I want there to already be a loyal fan base in your city.

Thanks for your help!

That's not quite accurate.

[raehl]

It's very easy to give stuff away - once you've already made your pile.

It's very easy to give stuff away - when selling it puts money in someone else's pile.

Artists for major record labels don't make any money selling CDs. You give your mechanical rights to the record company, they promote you, and you make your money on performances. That's the deal.

In the old world, this was a 'good' deal, as without the muscle of the record companies promoting you, your act was going to continue to play bars and night clubs instead of stadiums.

In the new world, there's the internet, and you can do quite well for yourself keeping your mechanical rights and performing less.

Re:Tickets to his show run $89 for two !!

[Goldberg's Pants]

Working on the logic of some assholes on here, you just said something positive about something, ergo you must be a shill for Tool.

Anyway, Tool aren't bad. I've been a NIN fan for about 14 years now, and in 2000, I started boycotting RIAA CD releases. Trent's new album this year, "Year Zero", is the first CD I've bought in seven years. Why did I buy it? Had it been a traditional release, I would never have bought it most likely, despite being a huge fan of Trent's work. However, Trent's marketing, in particular leaking several tracks on USB drives and dumping them at various concert venues was enough to hook me (not to mention the multiple websites and the extremely elaborate back story for the whole album). Because of all that, I wound up buying the CD the week it was released.

Trent has already said that once his contract with Interscope is up (one more album) he's going to an online distribution model and not bothering with a label.

As for Trent's comments... I already knew his attitude toward the labels. On that video I'm more interested in the fact there seems to be not one for TWO security guys right in front of the person with the camera not doing anything about the dude with the camera.:)