Audio: What Trent Reznor said to News.com
Rocker Trent Reznor is angry with CNET News.com.
On Monday afternoon, the leader of the band Nine Inch Nails posted a blog at NIN.com and accused me of misquoting him in a question-and-answer interview titled: "Trent Reznor: Why won't people pay $5." He suggests in his post that he did not make statements supporting a music tax on ISPs that appeared in the January 10 article. He also implies that CNET had some kind of hidden agenda when he writes in his post that the story was "written before I was involved."
It's not uncommon for celebrities and politicians to accuse the press of misquoting them. Sometimes it's true. Not here.
Below is the recording of Reznor's comments in question.
Reznor gave me permission to tape the interview and the words in the story are as he said them. I've also included what was said immediately prior and following the comments about the ISP tax so you can hear the context in which he made them.
You'll notice that I didn't quote everything he said; that's common practice. (We spoke for an hour and the final transcription of the interview was more than 4,000 words long. Normally our stories are between 1,000 and 1,200 words. We wanted to give him as much room as possible to speak and made an exception by publishing his interview at more than 1,800 words, already longer than usual.)
Reznor is a fascinating interview. He is frank and always says something controversial. He certainly was in our interview. Click the button below and listen for yourself.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
I guess he thought he made it clear that forcing a tax on everyone is not the best idea, which is what I got from that excerpt.
Rock 'n' roll has a strong tradition of bashing authority (i.e. government). Somehow I don't like the idea of the government controlling music revenue, and, therefore, music itself.
Trent, your experiment was a success! You're just failing to recognize that. You should follow it up with some fine tuning of the marketing. Offer even lower resolution mp3's free and loss-free encoding at a premium. Then emphasize that difference in your ad copy.
But don't charge me tax because you can't figure out how to make 'enough' money from your projects.
In this case, is it appropriate to quote only the tax words in huge red callout text on the page of the article?
You can't point to any example of the Wall Street Journal doing that. I wonder why they don't?
I saw Saul Williams on tour with Trent, so I jumped at the chance to download it. I would willingly pay $10-15 for the privlidge to have it in my iPod, but I did what a lot of people did: I downloaded the free version at 192kps MP3. I did this with the intent of checking it out & going back later to pay for a better version of it. I did the same with In Rainbows.
I listened to it & the album is awesome. All that and a bag of chips. Like most albums, it takes a couple listens to set in. Then a funny thing happened: It got lost on my iPod with 10,000 other songs. I download a lot of tunes from eMusic, & still buy media as well. The days of a new CD being left in the player tray until it's my "favorite new thing" are over.
A vinyl record gave a face & soul to music. I used to loathe CD's turning songs with names into nameless track numbers. Now that I consume MP3's, i pine for the days a CD would focus my attention on 12 or so songs at once.
Saul's album was just another file on shuffle in my hard drive, competing with songs & playlists I had more emotional investment in. So I forgot about it. I never got around to paying for it. Same thing happened with In Rainbows.
I understand Trent's "disappointment" lies mainly with the fact that he figures it was probably NIN or Williams fans doing all the downloading since they did not promote the album outside of their circles. NIN fans are rabid & loyal (i saw NIN 5 times on their last tour -- it rocked THAT much) so I can understand how it seemed somewhat of a letdown that this was how his fans showed their appreciation. By not paying for it.
I was taken aback a little by the figures he posted in his blog, & I can understand where he's coming from. So I went back & paid the $5 for the FLAC files. I'll probably buy it in physical media when I can.
I think a lot of people are so tired of getting screwed by labels that they just want to take the goods out for a test drive before they plunk down their cash, but wind up forgetting about it & walking off with it for free even if they like it.
If the MP3's would have time-bombed a couple weeks after the download & been unplayable, it probably would have reminded me to go back & pay for it. The only problem with this is that everybody is different on how long it takes them to get into something.
So I think Trent's on the right track, but the tweaks are needed.
P.S.
I tried to go back & pay for In Rainbows, but they closed their download store online.
interview (and made the headline what you did), then when you
read his post on his blog, you say he "suggests" and "implies"
things he didn't actually say, without actually quoting what he
DID say. He didn't say you misquoted him. He resented you
using his flippant comments to make him out to be a posterboy
for a $5 ISP tax by your headline!
If this is the kind of journalism I can expect from Cnet now and
in the future, I might just have to cancel my RSS feed.
was an ISP tax.." and laid out a scenerio, there is a difference. So,
Trent is right and you did misrepresent what he said.
You should appreciate the fact that Trent even considered an Interview with you!
I would give my right eye, left arm and eye sight to have the oppertunity to get to know a man of such Talent and Influencial Creation as this man is able to make. He has one life, which is this life. So back off and leave him alone!
conclusion. Reznor threw an idea out there and pretty much
nullified his own idea with the 411 example. Sandoval appears to
be affected with the journalist's "not really listening disease".
Then here you are using a news site ? mass media, not your personal blog! ? in an attempt to rehabilitate yourself ? i.e. for personal purpose. And you are doing so not by acknowledging the mistake and providing a correct interpretation, but by putting all the blame on Reznor.
All this looks just terribly unprofessional and embarrassing. You?d better spot right now and simply apologize.
was not that CNET misquoted him, but that what he said was
misinterpreted as actual support for the ISP tax idea. My
understanding is that the original title of the article, according
to The NIN Hotline, was "Trent Reznor favors an ISP 'tax on
music'" which was later changed because it was misleading.
Other people apparently made the same misinterpretation, due
in part to that original title which appeared on Google (as a
cached file) for a while after it had been changed. Perhaps he
needed to choose his words better, but I believe his blog was an
attempt to clear the air about his opinions, not to attack CNET
for any misquotations.
ps. Please stop sending me spam mail every single day. It doesn't make me want to read it when you bombard my inbox.
Trent Reznor offered a hypothetical situation and did not endorse anything in his statement. You inferred his support of an ISP tax, ignoring his follow-up on the 411 service offered by phone companies. You also took the idea of what he said far too literally - the idea that music should be as simple to purchase and port as it is to enjoy.
Despite your obviously over-literal interpretation, I saw nothing in your original article or the second article on the subject regarding putting music in your a--...
You should post the audio of the entire interview at this point to let readers decide for themselves what Trent most likely intended, and issue a retraction as opposed to updating your original article.
T
- Nobody is "really" in favor of the ISP tax
- by bearsareone January 27, 2008 9:35 PM PST
- Don't you have Brittany to run after or something else productive to
- Reply to this comment
-
(16 Comments)do with your time? Leave it alone... If Trent says his words were
misunderstood in the Interview then leave it be. Report back on
the matter, admit your perception was wrong, and move on. This
stuff gets really old - fast.