The Band Nine Inch Nails really seems to understand where the music industry is headed. They recently released their new album called “Ghosts” on Torrent sites as a free download. NIN isn’t contracted to any specific record label, so they have the freedom to decide how they are going to spread their music. The band was quoted as saying in their release notes for the album, “now that we’re no longer constrained by a record label, we’ve decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.” If only the record labels thought the same way…
What’s available on Torrent sites is the first nine songs to the album. The full 36 song album is available on their site to purchase (although their site is having serious issues right now), or from Amazon’s MP3 store for just $5.00 which is a great price for all of the songs that you get. What they’ve done here is pretty amazing and could open the door for other musicians to try the same route of distribution if they’re successful. They’re also benefiting in massive ways because of all of the publicity that they are receiving from this. It’s a new way to distribute music and people are noticing.
The only problem thus far with the method that they’re currently using is that it has become really popular really fast and their servers haven’t been able to keep up with the demand of all the people trying to purchase and download the full 36 song album from their site. A message on their site says that they’ve been adding more servers and hope to make it all more stable soon. They also took a moment to thank their supporters for “making this such an immediate success.”
Our feeling is that they’re going to have many, many supporters who end-up spending the $5 for the complete album simply to thank them for embracing new technology. And you can bet that fans will be more willing to spend money on NIN memorabilia and making donations just to give them extra support. If this method proves to be successful, we’ll probably see other musicians try to follow which can only be a good thing…
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Tags: Web Sites, BitTorrent, Downloads, Music, Recording Industry
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This was an awesome idea. Being a huge NIN fan it was quite a surprise to wake up finding a new 36-track album. I downloaded the first nine songs free, later today I’ll end up preordering the two cd set which comes with a free download of the whole thing.
It’s a great idea, but only if they can fix all the problems… I understand they were unprepared for the huge response, which made it very difficult to actually complete a purchase, so I’m sure they’ll be better prepared next time. However, even after I was able to complete my purchase, I had problem after problem with my download page; I’d get 4MB or so, then it would stop. I’d try again, and it would stop again, over & over, never getting anywhere near the complete 600+ MB file. I tried sporadically throughout the night, and had the same problems. Now, this morning, my download link has expired……..
The two emails I sent to support@store.nin.com (one last night & one early this morning) have yet to receive any response.
It’s a great idea, if it works, and it’s great for consumers, if they can actually get what they pay for.
Nifty - Reznor is a great guy.
I just hope the quality of the downloadable version is good (read: lossless compression), and that he’ll still be releasing pressed CDs… I’m a cover-art whore
f0dder: on the NIN site, you can buy the 36 tracks in FLAC format (that is, if you can actually get it to work…). Buying at Amazon only allows 256kbps MP3.
Also, it looks like the entire nin.com site is down, as of this post.
They weren’t prepared for the immense response that was received. Nothing is tried and true for this method of music release and distribution. I’m sure this release was a learning experience and will make the next release even better/smoother.
While it is sad that they couldn’t handle the traffic, it is also a blessing. This means that the response was far greater than what they had anticipated, and it may open the eyes of other music publishers out there.