nine inch nails have just removed themselves from their record label. its on nin.com. they are now offering another album for free, this time its in high def audio ( 24bit 96k wav files) and comes in at a whopping 1.2 gig !

what does that mean for everyone else then ? well, it means that noone is going to buy music on cd or mp3 any more. which sucks for little bands (like mine) who make any money they can from selling cds (it costs a lot to get them made - im not just talking about the 4p it costs for the blank disc, you have studio time, engineers to hire, you have to get artwork made, get it printed, and get everything marketed, that costs a lot ( about £3 per cd, if you split it up that way, so this means that to break even you need to charge £3 for the cd before you start, then, if i sell it for USD$10 (£5) i make £2 per cd, which is ok if i sell a million copies ( i get £2 million, promptly retire to spain, or barbados, and live like a pimp for the rest of my days) but thats not going to happen. i sell quite a lot of mp3’s via itunes ( enough to afford me a night in the pub once in a while, but i cant make a living from it., i do, however give away a lot of stuff, it helps with the ‘grass roots promotion’ - if someone likes it then they give it to their friends, and eventually someone will buy it. the problem, mr reznor is that you just fucked it for everyone.
i do realise that you are making a good move for yourself - you give away the cd for free, and (at the same time) you pimp out an email to your list (which by now is massive) offering ‘advanced VIP tickets’ to your upcoming tour.
which will cost about ten times the price of an album in the shops. makes sense. but, and its a big but, what if the band you were in (lets call them five inch fixtures) dont have a worldwide fanbase of millions of people (one because they havent got 30 albums out, two because they dont have millions of quids in the back burner to buy loads of press and three cos they are ‘just new’) what kind of living are they going to make from spending a load of money getting music made to give it away for free at the gigs they do for free already just to ‘play a gig’ ??

yeah. we are all fucked. but trent is ok, cos he has just sold out his tour, by using the bait of a free album as the lure. id rather pay for the cd and not go to the gig (though nin gigs are fantastic) that have to starve, all cos of trent reznor. way to go man. oh, BTW you can get my first cd ‘thirty silver coins’ by my band ‘hybrid machinima’ on the piratebay.com for free. if you like it, there is a donate button in the torrent. you could even buy it - there are links on the lefthand sidebard to the cds.
my new album is out now aswell, it costs USD 12 (£6) i make about £1.40 per cd after expenses (i have to pay for everything myself) its on itunes too. so if you want to help me buy a beer, or even some food, buy one.

cheers.

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