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The way to go
At the end of the last year we have started discussion about the state of the music business where a lot of people lamented demise of the physical medium as a primary way of distributing the music.
Nine Inch Nails have recently released their new album Ghosts I-IV which success may indicate the way of the future for other bands. The album is self-financed, self-produced and self-released. It is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike license, which gives the fans freedom to do anything they want with the music short of selling it. The music, essentially, is free for anybody who wants it.
How are they planning to make a living by giving away their music? Let’s see.
It’s a four-part album available in several forms:
- Part 1 (first 9 tracks) can be downloaded for free from the NIN website. And because the album is released under a very permissive license, the whole album can be absolutely legally downloaded from your favourite file sharing network.
- $5 gives you download of all 36 tracks DRM-free in very high quality MP3 or lossless FLAC, plus a 40-page PDF booklet.
- $10 gives you 2xCD set in a six panel digipack package with a 16 page booklet.
- $39 will get you a 4x vinyl edition which will be released in early April.
- $75 gives you a “deluxe edition” which comes in a hardcover fabric slipcase containing 2 audio CDs, 1 data DVD with all 36 tracks in multi-track format, and a Blu-ray disc with all parts of the album in high-definition 96/24 stereo and accompanying slideshow.
- And if all that wasn’t enough, there was also a $300 “ultra-deluxe” limited edition package, which had a run of 2500 copies and as of today is sold out.
How did the album do commercially so far? The band have grossed $750,000 in a space of three days after the March 2 release. Without record company backing them up, without a major marketing campaign, etc. Although their bold move made rounds on the Internet and was even subject of a story in New York Times.
So, no, shift to the digital music won’t deprive fans from the ability of getting something to hold in their hands if they really want to.
And with the talk of a new album, I hope somebody in the Purple camp is reading this and taking note. Because I’m not buying the same music twice again. Particularly not a few months after I bought it the first time.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I like the idea of buying the product in the manner that you would intend to use it. Much to my “faves” delight I do buy at least two versions of new music. If it comes out in vinyl I defintely buy a copy & If I like the music alot I also end up buying the cd for my car.
March 8th, 2008 at 03:54NIN has the right idea, it is the future. I too hope the DP and their team can do something similar.
March 8th, 2008 at 15:36I think the advantage of NIN is that it´s still essentially a one man project, with Trent Reznor taking creative and now business control himself. Unforunatly not everyone is in a position as good as that, yet.
March 8th, 2008 at 15:51The Charlatans have had success in the UK in the past week, with free downloads that would have propelled them to No. 2 in traditional album charts. If NIN are making money, there could be something in it. With Purple though, I do really object to the whole recent spate of ‘special’/’tour’/’deluxe’ editions; I bought it the first time!
March 8th, 2008 at 16:50This seems like a good idea. Bananas was released without any money put into commercials etc. (Probably the same with tha last (horrible) CD.) I read they sold 2000 copies of Bananas in the UK the first two weeks. That´s really nothing. nothing. So, they don´t risk much on putting it out on the internet (getting 5 times more paid per copy) – all their income comes from touring anyway. It´s only (more or less) us loonies that buys them anyway! We´ll find them however and wherever they are sold!
March 9th, 2008 at 21:39Don’t be surprised if Purple do this the next album out… at the very least it will be available for download in it’s entirety anyway, but this would be an overall great idea.
July 3rd, 2008 at 07:05