Further thoughts on NIN and online music distribution

The other day I blogged about the new NIN album being made available for download, and said that it was a move very similar to that made by Radiohead with In Rainbows. As it happens, the strategy that NIN has adopted is quite a bit different to Radiohead’s, and Ars has a good discussion of the issue.

With In Rainbows, Radiohead allowed people to buy the album online in digital format, but to chose how much they wanted to pay (including choosing to pay nothing). There was no particular price recommended. And there has been considerably debate since then as to how many people actually coughed up some dough, and how much. Radiohead hasn’t made a statement on the matter, unfortunately, other than stating that estimates that have been published by third parties are incorrect.

For the new NIN album, however, the only explicitly free version was the first of four volumes (the first quarter of the album, or the first of four albums, depending on how you want to look at it — the ‘album’ model doesn’t translate very well in this instance), which was made available via BitTorrent. In order to download the whole album from the official site, it costs $US5 (it’s available in high-quality MP3 and a variety of lossless formats). There are also various other options, including just the CDs, up to a $300 deluxe version (which has sold out overnight).

It’s important to note, however, that the album was released under a Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to distribute or modify it for non-commercial uses. So it’s perfectly legal (according to that licences) to buy it and then upload the whole thing to a BitTorrent site. I’m not about to visit one from work to check, but I’ve no doubt it’s already readily available that way. It’s also legal to create a remix of the tracks and make that available, and in fact the nuts and bolts of the tracks have been released so you can load it into the correct software to do just that.

As much of the commentary has pointed out, this may on the leading edge of a new paradigm in music distribution, but it’s hard to see how a more obscure band might make any money out of it. NIN has a dedicated fan-base, and many of them live their life online, so once a few sites like Slashdot announced it, it was always going to be huge. The Ars article, however, points out that Trent had previously tried to do something similar with another album by Saul Williams — offering it for free or for $5 online — and hadn’t made enough money to cover the costs of producing the album.

A lot of less well-known bands already do release their music online for free, through sites like MySpace, YouTube, and so on. They don’t expect to make any money out of it, but rather achieve some measure of recognition. These sorts of less popular artists tend to make all of their money through live shows anyway.

But I suspect that a combination of online availability and a bit of canny marketing might work well for the better, less well known, artists. I was amazed to walk into JB HiFi the other day and see the new Panics album Cruel Guards in their top ten. I hadn’t heard of them until introduced to them by my partner a few years back, and I wasn’t aware of anyone else having heard of them either. But apparently Tripple J declared it the best Aussie album of the year, or something (which it is, but possibly isn’t their best album). So evidently a bit of good press can do wonders. Similar effects can be seen with the Shins and Garden State and the Moldy Peaches and Juno.

I haven’t had a chance to download it myself yet (but I should get it today whilst the Aussie dollar is so good), but I’ve been listening to it streaming from the NIN site. It’s good, but it’s not like a regular NIN album. All the tracks I’ve heard so far are instrumental, and all pretty moody and atmospheric. I’m curious to see how it holds together as an album.