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NIN's Music Experiment Sells Big Numbers
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like Trent Reznor's new Nine Inch Nails album experiment is a success. Among the various options he gave fans, the most expensive was the $300 Limited Edition Ultra Deluxe Package. It took just over a day for that package to completely sell out, earning Reznor $750,000 in revenue from just that option alone."
I got the $5 download, it's a really good album, the tracks are strange, but work suprisingly well
As big name artists like NIN and Radiohead pave they way, I fervently hope and pray we are seeing the end of the RIAA.
I haven't bought an American CD in years because of how the RIAA strong armed colleges and effectively shut down web radio.
This system is far fairer to the artists as well; they get a far bigger piece of the pie. There will be fallout for artists I am sure, but I think it will lead to a far richer music industry in the U.S.
In short, I am just really happy that a few bands are beginning to pave the way to a world without an RIAA.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
I guess people still do value high-quality (as in encoded) music.
Sure hope they didn't artificially compress the range and fk it up.
Is it such a surprise that this way of selling an album makes a lot of profit? One part is given away for free, if you want them all, you pay 5$, that's peanuts. And the biggest profit maker of them all: All the people in the middle are cut out. Especially the record companies and the *IAA people. Once artists start to realise that this is the way to go, the big companies and *IAA will be were they should have been a long time ago: flat on their asses.
That is good news for artists who want to publish their own music. Clearly such a business model can be successful for the artist.
However, is this success likely to be duplicated? Is it just because this concept is so novel that so many people were willing to pay so much for the special edition? Would that many people line up to buy the special edition of his next album? Are other artists as likely to experience this success once such things become more mainstream and less unique?
Part of the criteria that people use in deciding the value of something is how rare and unusual it is, and since this is one of the first such instances of an artist-produced album, I wonder if the profits that Trent Reznor has enjoyed here will be sustainable for other artists.
Consider: all of the people who paid $300 for his special edition release, probably listen to many other artists as well. Would they spend $300, or anything close to it, for special edition releases of albums from all the other artists they like? Probably not; most almost certainly couldn't afford to pay $300 x N artists x M albums; Trent was savvy enough to do it first, so he gets to enjoy what is likely an unsustainable pricing model.
I'm not trying to belittle his accomplishment, which is awesome (although I personally wouldn't know a Trent Reznor song from a Barry Manilow song, I'm glad that someone is pushing the boundaries for music distribution and trying to fix the music publishing system), I'm just trying to point out that anyone who thinks that all artists can be this successful, need to realize that this is unlikely to be duplicated, based on purely economic considerations.
In order to make huge amounts of money, artists should charge huge amounts for their music.
At least the ones in California. I'm absolutely certain that several doctors will be getting emergency visits in the coming days from **AA executives.
The smile on Trent's face should be worth a few pictures. ZOMG!! if you give consumers a choice and don't try to screw them over, they really do pay for stuff... WTF?
This was an experiment for Trent, but it cost the **AA more than he could have ever imagined. Yes, I did say **AA. Believe me when I say they are watching what happens to the RIAA with great interest.
Now, all of the **AA pretty much has to admit they got it wrong. They won't admit it of course, but you know how that conversation is going to go in the board room. 'I told you so' is the magic phrase that attracts flying chairs... or something like that
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
When people are given choices, they are often through their own free will kind to other human beings. There is no need for guns pointing at peoples heads to make us play nice and share - we will do it naturally if left alone.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
We all know that ./ is an excellent distribution channel but it's now proven that all conventional music distributors and media protection entities are DEPRECATED.
- I hope other artists takes this as a lesson and start releasing albums this way as well.
I believe in a future without a need for labels. I believe that ever developing distribution channels will make it possible for all artists to sell their own works directly. I believe in a future without DRM. Will you believe? If enough will we'll end up with a self fulfilling prophecy on our hands...
.: Max Romantschuk
This is the new wave of music and I am very soon going to order their $10 hard copy! The people who use this modern kind distribution need to be encouraged! Let us all at least pay $5 to support them, you know encourage more folks to use this kind of business model and embrace the future.
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
The artist's choice:
Option 1) A tiny percentage of your publisher's profits for life - if you live long enough for their 'costs' to be recouped.
Option 2) 100% of your self-publishing profit this year, maybe next.
Not only is the share of profits better, the costs are better (despite smaller sales). The costs in option 1 are colossal, whereas in 2 they are miniscule, especially given unconstrained promotion and reproduction to (hopefully virally) foster a far bigger market next year and a consequently bigger revenue.
So, it's pretty clear why traditional publishers are keen to educate the next generation of their client base as to how precious a thing an artist's copyright is, and how despicable it is to copy an artist's work.
There will be a stampede soon when everyone realises option 2 is not too good to be true...
That limited editions sell? That is NOTHING NEW. They ALWAYS SOLD, which is why you can't move for special editions. The RIAA KNOWS that limited box sets sell, all this does is confirm it.
The limited box set being available for 300 dollars is NOT the news item, neither is him making lots of money by selling directly to the consumer, the RIAA knows this as well. They KNOW you make the most money if you are the one doingthe selling, that is why they want to continue doing the selling.
The new bit was the rather large free sample andhis relaxed attitude to copying the rest, but again, a lot of artists have been relaxed about copyright from the start. It is the music labels that think copying is evil!
So by all means, cheer the eventual death of the major record labels and their fronts, but don't think that a limited box set making lots of money for the guy selling it is going to suddenly wake them up. This is old news to them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think this shows the future of where, IMHO, the music industry, or at least individual artists, should be going: convenience and patronage. People are realizing that the inherent value of a CD, and especially of a downloaded mp3, is pretty close to $0. The main reason to spend money on an inherently worthless mp3 is for convenience: $1 and 1 minute to itunes, or $0 and searching the pirate bay / mucking with bittorrent. The other reason is because you genuinely like the music and want to support the band, so give them money for the sake of giving them money.
This NIN experiment shows it clearly: there's $0 of inherent value in the songs themselves, as they are CC licensed and can legally be copied. For the convenience factor $5 or $10 gets you the mp3s or 4 CDs - pretty hard to beat (ignoring NIN's site being hammered the last few days). The $75 set is clearly patronage; you get the shiny book and some extra CDs with it, but you're really spending the money because you want to give NiN the money. The $300 level is an odd one, as it's a combination of patronage and market speculation for resale.
I don't buy modern music, but just because I don't hear it. However, I do hope that musicians finally manage to remove the middle man and start distributing their own music and receiving the full payment.
The main reason of this hope is not for my love for musicians but for the effect this can have in every other business based in mass distribution of copies of a data item.
Photography, novels, software, all may find ways of receiving direct payment from the consumer.
I really hope that this trend continues. I'd love to see something like this:
An online music store with all kinds of music (like the iTunes store), but:
- No DRM *at all*.
- Previews as MP3. Say, the first 30 secs of every track. The first 50% would be better. Should be "kind of good quality", say >= 128kbit.
- All tracks in at least the following formats:
- MP3 "good quality", say >= 256 kbit
- Lossless in a free, open format. Flac in other words.
- The ability to use the store from the web.
- The ability to put multiple tracks in a "cart" and download the whole cart as a zip would be a big plus.
- An open API for different clients would be a huge plus.
- And, last but not least, the ability to have some sort of "account" and to re-download tracks I already purchased, whenever, wherever and how many times I want to.
It would be ok if the tracks are somehow watermarked, i.e. if they can tell from a file which user downloaded a track and block his or her account if they are redistributing the tracks.
I would also appreciate formats "better than CD", e.g. Flac tracks in DVD Audio quality (24 bit, 96 kHz if I'm not mistaken). I'd also appreciate album covers and similar stuff.
I am prepared to pay for a quality product I can use for years to come. I am not prepared to pay for some badly encoded track I can use on few specific players, and I do *not* want to re-buy everything if I switch players/want higher quality etc.
Just had to say that.
For 2,500 signatures, he must have been at it for a while. Still, I wish I could be paid 750k for signing stuff for a day, all while taking a break every ten minutes to pork on groupies. Still, you have to wonder how the little guys could make it with this system. A damn good idea would be to start a website for free audio publishing that has it's new artists ranked so that people with talent can climb the latter quickly. Still a lot of work would have to go into it to get publicity and make it better than youtube quality.
Help fight spam
When I saw the headline in my RSS reader, I thought I was going to find something about daring music being released and, even so, capturing the attention of the audience. But oh no, the "experiment" in question is on SKUs and price segmentation. It's somewhat wrong that these two things are conflated. The supermarket in my neighbourhood has been doing some mineral-water experiments: buy three and pay just two, you see.
"Ghosts I-IV is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license."
Excellent, and here it is for download in FLAC!
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4061815/Nine_Inch_Nails_-_Ghosts_I-IV_%5B2008_FLAC_Lossless%5D
I would have liked to buy the 2-CD set. Unfortunately, the shipping was more than $13, to Europe. Well, guess I will have to wait until it is in the shops here. The last couple of years, Reznor seems to bring out his albums around my birthday, which is nice of course :).
Then go torrent it. It's licensed under creative commons. All those torrents are legal. Have fun.
Why Trent didn't set up his own bit torrent tracker and save boatloads of bandwidth is beyond me. A few ads on the free download page to make > 0 revenue off those opting for the free version wouldn't have hurt either.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
FYI mods:
The parent comment is not wrong. The whole album is CC licensed and therefore all the piratebay torrents, even the unofficial ones, are totally legal.
I wonder how the **AA will blame this on digital piracy and those pesky college kids...?
This, coupled with the fact that some major studios have pulled some **AA funding, and the fact that they have attempted to make money buy pissing off their user base (hopefully) spells the end for the **AA.
In the words of Monty Python "and there was much rejoicing!"
There's nothing intellectual about intellectual property.
You mean like shareware?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
The article says he's going to be releasing the album through a Sony BMG label later.
The big question is - is it merely a distribution deal, or does Sony own a piece of the proverbial pie?
If it's the latter, what's to stop the RIAA from turning around and suing anybody that had downloaded the album prior to the conventional release?
Is it a despicable thing to do? Yes - but this is the RIAA we're talking about.
Every time we think we've seen them stoop as low as they possibly can, they find some way to limbo even lower.
Brick and Mortar could absolutely do this if they wanted to.
... it's 9 tracks. The guys getting the deluxe set are getting extra materials. This is exactly how I believe modern music marketing should go.
And it's not just "releasing" the album for random amounts - it's the crucial idea of upsell/scaled value.
You can download 9 track free... NOT the whole 36. But if you just want some tunes,
All the brick and mortar guys have to do is implement some custom on-demand tech to deliver the album that's needed at point of sale.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
A lot of people have mentioned it here, such as it is just for speculative resale or wealthy patrons, etc. The 300$ option is the only available option that included the vinyls of these tracks. I mean seriously, I would imagine that there are DJ's that still use vinyl for clubs and that of these, some work enough high profile venues that being one of the 'few' owners of these vinyl discs would be a 'duh' choice had he charged 3 times as much for them.
Shareware (or demos as they should be called) probably isn't what the GP meant, as it's still copyright infringement to copy the full version of a shareware application.
The one thing I was dissapointed by, was the direct downloading. I would imagine this took a fair chunk of profit away from Trent, and caused some agro with fans getting timeouts.
The full albums eventually appeared as torrents on PirateBay, and (most)people ended up paying on the nin site, then using bittorent instead to get the album.
Really would be cool if Piratebay could come up with some way to allow payment directly through their site. Sort of a one stop shop for artists wanting to cheaply and easily release their works? Even if they simply list the paypal account to pay to and rely on fans being honest. I would have actually paid more than $5 for the plain download..
I can't seem to connect to nin.com. Does anyone know of a cached version of the page?
I haven't listened to much NIN since Pretty Hate Machine, and I'd like to know what the hype is all about.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If Mr Razor was an unknown releasing his first album this way, their would be far fewer people willing to pay $300 for a limited edition set and far fewer people even paying $5 for the normal set... assuming we even knew it was available.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
I bought mine the same time, via Amazon and downloaded it within about five minutes.
Not only that, but I discovered at the same time that Amazon's MP3 Downloader is available for linux from their site. In fact, I just downloaded the *.deb, right clicked to install and sucked down my 36 files. That was the last thing I expected to see from Amazon, but I suspect they realized that a large portion of the people who would find DRM-free music to be appealing are my fellow linux users... and like Trent, they are catering to us.
It's really shaping up to be a fantastic time for information and entertainment. Imagine how much more interesting it would be without the ignorant corporates and government types (the ones who just don't get it that is) in the way.
I wonder: how many of those 8k concurrent connections are from people who paid the money but couldn't download their digital purchase from NIN.com because of how incapable the servers were of handling the demand? I for one bought the $10+$6.99S&H CD set, then spent the next 6 hours repeatedly trying and failing to download the Apple Lossless files for which I paid. Once those files appeared on The Pirate Bay, I jumped on that torrent and downloaded from there in a matter of minutes. I'm messing with the statistics by doing that, and I would argue that many other people did likewise.
Speaking as someone who paid something like $150 for the Fun House tapes years ago.
7. Profit!
A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth.-Mark Twain
The link that says listen on the order page launches the entire album in a stream.
But I see your confusion. You have to actually click on the link for it to work -- you can't just literally listen UNTIL you click the link.
:) And your right. It would have been nice if the original post included the above link straight to the player. Probably time for one of those "you must be new here" quotes. :)
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
"custom on-demand tech to deliver the album that's needed at point of sale" is a really tall order, however. The people who are handing over $300 each are getting a very limited-edition product, with cloth-bound books and hand-signed gilcee prints. That's not something you could download to a shop currently, and even if there was a technological solution somehow that created all those materials it wouldn't carry the same feeling of exclusivity that is one aspect of why people are handing over serious cash.
Being able to run off a custom-printed CD and case is something that can be delivered to a B&M shop easily, but it can be delivered straight to the customer for even smaller overheads, and has been done so.
On another note, all 36 tracks are under a CC license that makes it legal to download them from TPB if you wish anyway - just because it's just the first 9 on the official site doesn't mean they aren't all available elsewhere.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Kim where are you? I have been hearing on the radio this bitches rant about how Radiohead and NIN's attempt at going on without the RIAA has failed misserably. She said that they both flat out failed and that trying to sell your music without the RIAA is just about impossible. I wonder what that stupid bitch has to say now that the $300 set sold out in just hours.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I recently posted some of my ideas about where the big record companies dropped the ball, including one that is similar. The high-end box-set seems like a damned good idea. I'm not a big enough fan to blow $300 for Ghosts, but I would probably pay $300 for a box-set of everything NIN has ever done. Even the deluxe Ghosts set is a good idea @ $75. It targets serious fans who don't feel justified spending $300.
The entire pricing setup is done well... You can support the band for a trivial $5 or get a lot of interesting extras for less trivial amounts. If this kind of thing ended up being done with a one-stop-shop site for many bands, the RIAA would be seriously worried.
I paid the $5 days ago, (before the story appeared on /., digg, boingboing, and every other news site in the world) but have YET to get a successful download of the FLAC version, and have now "exceeded download limit" even though their server crapped out on me every time I attempted to download it over the last few days and...I repeat...I have YET to download it even once. (I'm a bit frustrated here, if you can't tell.) Three e-mails to the NIN store later and no response. BitTorrent here I come.
You make the typical error of suggesting that existence has a purpose and yet it doesn't. So whatever you do it is as important, or if you prefer, as unimportant as any other things you could do at that same moment.
Music is there to improve moral. People play music in stadiums to make the crowd react, they play music in tv shows to impose a mood, people work with songs in their head, etc. When you feel bored you can always whistle a song. Music is much more important than you think for keeping people to work hard and for keeping them happy.
So yes, musicians deserve to have millions as much as the next guy in society if you base your analysis on usefulness. Sadly, the salary of one's job is not based on how important it is but on how in demand it is.
Doctors are paid more because not everyone can be accepted at medical school. If anybody could become a doctor and if anybody could finish their medical training at their own pace, we would have much more doctors and they would eventually earn as much as everyone else.
Limited Edition Digital Music is an oxymoron unless there is DRE or watermarking. Is "individually" signed and number copies a euphemism for Wathermarking, and "we're watching you"?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I think an important thing to mention to those that are not NIN fans is how this release was announced.
It wasn't.
Two hours before this album was released online, there was an ominous "Two hours..." message posted at nin.com
Then, BAM, new album. Even the most die-hard NIN fan had no clue it was coming. Where as before the marketing procedure took months, and there were many slow leaks in the process, this time Trent was in control.
Make an album, make artwork, set up servers, release online. Its a good setup. Do you have any idea about the kind of label BS that you have to go through with an album? The promotion, the radio samplers, the flyers, posters, it is a lot of time and effort - there is like a 3 month window for it all. Here, Trent took his 10 weeks to make it, and then pretty much put it on his website.
You can bet the next album has an even shorter window, and again he is in control of its secrecy. I've never before seen someone announce *and* release an album on the same day, and with Trent's history, he was the last person I expected it from.
Yea but is this album RIAA free?
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I wonder if the bands that make a lot of money with this approach will share the wealth by lowering concert ticket prices. I doubt it.
I've been a NIN fan from the moment I heard Pretty Hate Machine, until sometime last year.
I realized that due to Reznor's accountant blowing most of his money and his now sobriety, he was looking to make a payday.
First, he has you pay $60 (or $75) to join his exclusive fanclub so you can get special tickets to his concerts, you get first pick, you stand in a special / shorter line, you get into the building early, and you get a card for your wallet to look super cool. I paid for it.
He has three tours in the same year? I actually went to them all. Two were the same, the third was barely different. Why have another world tour all the sudden yet have it be exactly the same? Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. Each time, the super special tickets I bought were a failure, cannot find the lines to stand in because the signs are not there or knocked over, not allowed in early, no real difference than if I bought from ticketmaster.
He then releases Year Zero within a year of his last album. I knew he had one last record to make for his contract before he was out, and I consider this one to be the "filler" just to finish his contract. I preordered it from the site he advertized, they send it to me, and I've listened to it once. I don't find it very good. I should have just stolen the music like he told everyone to, funny. The leaked album on a USB drive in a bathroom... haha.
A song here and there I could like if I listened to them a lot, but it never hooked me like anything else he has done (including movie soundtracks), so it sits gathering dust. Now I see why he told everyone to just steal the album. He'd shout this at his concerts even. He didn't care about this album, and since he was not getting the money from it, it didn't matter.
Now he releases a bunch of tracks without vocals, and does he tell you to steal it? No, he says here is a taste and if you really want it, you can pay for it, and he'll get all of the money. I would surmise he has put even less effort into this collection of songs since there are not vocals than he did for Year Zero, yet he wants his paycheck. Of course he does, now it directly affects him... don't steal it now, just steal my other albums!
I'm sorry Mr. Reznor, you've taken me for a ride on my money long enough. You told me to steal the last album, well, I'll be stealing this one instead. If I find I listen to all of your songs more than a couple of times before throwing them away, I will probably pay for them because I am actually honest and believe in paying for what I use. Enjoy your personal gouging of the fans instead of the RIAA gouging of the fans. Same effect, different person.
This is the first music I've paid for in 5 years. Wise up, sir.
One of the more surprising things about the story is that there is a free version of the first CD, and a $5 option that gives all the music, but people still paid $300 for the whole set. It is interesting how much more people are willing to pay for the extras.
But in all seriousness, this is pretty bad ass. I know that the labels have put him through hell in the past. It's nice to see him thriving on his own now. I hope this sparks a music industry revolution
So there are 2,500 people willing to pay 300 dollars for an album. I guess when you throw "Ultra Deluxe" in front of something... who can resist??? (besides me)
this was made by the artists for the fans - not made by the artist for a corporation to sell to fans. The art or the distribution didn't suffer as the RIAA would make you think. In fact this album was better than the last couple of obligations to interscope.
To answer your question, what everyone thinks is so great about the album isn't necessarily just the music, but how it was released. It's the option to listen before you invest that got me. Personally, I like the ambient nature of the album. I think it's great to work to, and the argument that it is too "simple" is like telling Jackson Pollock that your kid could paint that shit - his response: "so what do you have against your kid?" Like a beautiful mountain or a fart in the car, it's there for you to enjoy as much or as little as you want. What NIN has done here is shown us that music doesn't have to be over-produced, over-polished, and over-priced in order for it to be exceptionally profitable. And that is very important for an allegedly ailing music industry.
The point is, if you enjoy it, great - you can buy more if you want, or even download the torrent of the full thing without paying a dime and no one is going to come after you. And if you don't like it, you haven't lost anything except some time. It is the gesture that's important. I bought the physical media because I like the album enough to do so, and you're free to go back to listening to whatever you were listening to before none the poorer.
If, in your mind, this is a mediocre album, well that's even more ammunition to fire at the RIAA when you consider that a mediocre album did $750,000 in sales in two days, and that's with the least common price point. If anything, this album is proof that the RIAA is a dinosaur that deserves to go extinct, and making that statement so profoundly makes this album a significant milestone, and a significant work of art.
Would buy again.
Remember the band Marillion? Fish jumping around on stage in a kilt singing Kayleigh? They are still around (now lead by Steve Hogarth) and their recent albums have been funded in large part by fans pre-ordering the album before the album is recorded or even available as rough demos. As payback, the fans get their name in the Limited Edition Album. Marillion is a good example of a band who has made large strides in connecting with its fan base, even doing Marillion weekends where fans can rub shoulders with the band.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Paid the $5 option on Monday and still haven't gotten a download link or email back from NIN support. :(
I know they got hammered, but I want my tunes.
-Cov
I think that the obvious overwhelming sentiment from the online community is that this is a very positive step in a good direction, however I wonder how many people are supporting this move simply to either spite the RIAA/Labels and/or support this new distribution method.
However, let's say that the RIAA goes away and that everyone distributes their music this way. Will the droves of people will continue to support this movement once the novelty wears off, or will we end up back at the starting line with people downloading things for free?
well apparently they cant with cd sales either or they wouldnt be unknown.
All the talk about individuals spreading torrents of the paid-for tracks is missing the point.
Anyone care to bet that the RIAA and/or labels themselves aren't putting non-label artists tracks on the Pirate Bay just to undermine artists attempts to try and find an alternative business model?
Trentzilla ?
Oh balls!
There goes Capital
Go Go TrentZilla
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The old king is dead. Long live the new King. oh and maybe this will get Lars to stfu.
You're right. There's just NO SERVICE OUT THERE to provide temporary storage, cpu, and bandwidth. There's just NO MARKET for it. NONE.
consider yourself lucky to be able to download the album WHEN you bought it instead of several days later.
Yeah, that's to be expected. This is pretty new - an artist selling their own music in this way. Lots of people are flooding the site to buy the songs who probably aren't even big NIN fans. Just as a show of support so other bands they like will do the same.
I'll betcha once everyone sells their own music this way and the newness and excitement is over the first day lag will be much less.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I posted this when Radiohead did their deal as well... This is all fine and dandy for ESTABLISHED acts... This model does nothing for Joe musician trying to establish their career in music. I guarantee you all I could post a new album on the net and a) nobody would find it, b) most wouldn't pay for it under this model, c) the revenue from those who did wouldn't buy me a taco and Taco Bell. Record companies can still be relevant but I think they are going to turn more into media market companies rather than content companies. If I want to be a rock star I have to reach millions of people with my music efficiently. And while I can record my new album on my hot new Pro Tool HD system in my bedroom I can't, myself, create that level in deep market penetration on my own. I think this is where a record label (for lack of a term today) can help me. But this new type of label isn't about stealing my royalties, they are just a promotion machine getting paid a fee to promote my new album to a large audience.
I'm surprised they could even give it away.
i love slashdot.
Mever nind the typos.
Enjoy "stealing" it :) It is licensed as BY-NC-SA. You just can't make money off of it. See the faq for my source.
It is all that "record company BS" that got Trent Reznor's name in your head to even care about checking nin.com to see if there is a new albumn.. Why do people forget this? Because it is like electricity always being there... If Trent Reznor was a nobody this wouldn't work at all. It is the "BS" of the record companies that got him to his established position that allows him to even attempt this model. Take the "BS" away and you wouldn't even know he existed let alone him selling his music online. This is not a complete model for the "new" music industry... Joe musician can not succeed doing this only established acts and established acts come from the "BS" of record companies...
And they're right about at the price point I'm willing to pay.
Free samples, always good. If I like 'em well enough, $5 for a much better sample, also good. If I decide I love 'em enough for the long term, $10 for a hardcopy backup in a re-rippable format, also good. And the option to purchase fancier models if I am, or become, a diehard fan.
So I get to choose my level of financial involvement, and the artist comes off ahead no matter what I choose.
I see all upsides to this for both the customer and the artist, and no downsides whatsoever (unless you're a 3rd party distributor like the RIAA cartel, being entirely cut out of the action).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
That's great! You got to preview the music, decide what you thought and saved your money. You weren't forced to buy anything and you don't feel cheated. Everything worked, be glad!
Reznor has already been involved in a similar online album release, namely he worked with Saul Williams on the latters album 'The Inevitable Rise of Niggy Tardust' which was sold online only as a download in either mp3 or FLAC (finally some flac action, I'm dissapointed he didn't offer flac on this NIN 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.
She sold 50,000 albums on her own in the Eighties, which gave her the leverage to negotiate a licensing and distribution deal with Warner Music that let her keep her own music and label.
Faced with the choice of (a) no creative control but worldwide distribution rights, or (b) full creative control of nothing, Warner wisely popped for option a. Good move: her next albums were all million-plus sellers (with Book of Secrets selling over four million copies).
Yes, Warner's marketing muscle helped; the key point is that she didn't sell her soul to get them onside. And that deal was signed in 1991, long before most people were online. These days, someone that popular could probably go directly to the fans.
You forgot two other reasons for the delay in release...
"We have decided to push the release back another month as it would conflict with XXXXX's album and we don't want to steal their thunder".
"We have decided we will release the album in [country X] first, see how it goes, and then release it in other locations a month or two later"
Both common tactics of the big labels, and both reasons why albums appear leaked online WAY before official releases.
While the license allows you to obtain from another source, the $5 download option offers to the listener Immediacy, Authenticity, Findability and Patronage: four things which are Better than Free.
Personally, I consider Patronage to be the most valuable in this instance, as I greatly respect what Reznor and friends have done with this album/project and would like to show that I support the work. I downloaded the free Ghosts I collection last night, and after enjoying it I paid the $5 for the full download. I want to see more artists release work like this, so it's worth my money to prove that it is a viable model for those who dare to test these new waters.
What?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
In the last instance, people will pay everything they have for food. They will steal. They will kill.
Doctors are expensive because they save lives. Granted, it would be nice to have more, but more doctors could also mean more bad doctors. The good doctors would still have higher salary, though maybe less than now.
I lost my sig.
The special $300-ish editions are assumed to be on prepaid order - for example no store could "sign for the artist".
However, the bulk "generic CD" is fairly easy - nothing more than a CD burner, and a machine to do the label art. I don't want to order it and wait... I'd rather get it live in store with something like a half-hour max turnaround time. All this does is professionalize what amateurs do.
The benefit is enormous - you get the full strength of the Long Tail. Instead of the product manager guess-hoping what to order, every sale is demand-pulled. The machine doesn't care that it's the ultra-rare remix of Limahl or Britney's newest offering.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
That sort of works, but the problems I think you're going to hit are that
a) burned CDs are more fragile than proper pressed ones - I don't want to hand over any kind of serious money for them, certainly.
b) burned CDs are something the vast majority of people can do without even going as far as the shop. If I'm not going to get a 'proper' pressed CD with fancy booklet and packaging of the sort that isn't easy to do one-off runs of in a shop, then I might as well cut out the middleman and get it straight from the artist's (or label's) website and write it myself.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Define "unknown".
Locally we have many bands that you won't know about 500 miles away. Are they locally known? Yes. Therefore by some definition they are not unknown. But could they pull off something like this? Yes.
If a local band has 5000 "hardcore" fans, defined as "willing to pay 300 bucks for a 'special' album", then this could be quite lucrative, more so than playing local clubs can over that amount of time. If you could go back in time and had this opportunity for say, Queensryche, AC-DC, Garth Brooks, or Metallica (for example) before they were nationally known, would you? Some people would (myself included).
Locally one could produce a quality album with say two dozen tracks, nice cover art, etc. for say 3-5000 plus production costs. At $300/set your production costs are virtually irrelevant. If you sell 5000 that's a tidy chunk of money ($1,500,000). If you sell 1000 that's still pretty decent money ($300,000). And that is just the big package. Add in the smaller packages and you've got a pretty good recipe.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.