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March 3, 2008 9:22 AM PST

Nine Inch Nails releases Internet album

by Greg Sandoval

Trent Reznor

(Credit: Rob Sheridan)

Trent Reznor, the man behind the rock group Nine Inch Nails, continued his foray into self-distribution by releasing a 36-track instrumental album over the Internet.

The album, Ghosts I-IV, went on sale Sunday on NIN.com, the band's Web site, and was available in a varying range of price packages.

Reznor is giving away the first nine songs of the album for free. The entire album in a digital version is available for $5. Nine Inch Nails' fans can order separate disc-sets of the album (with varying bonus materials and merchandise) from $10 to $300.

With the album release, Nine Inch Nails is the latest to offer its own version of the online promotion made famous by British supergroup Radiohead. In October, Radiohead released In Rainbows over the Internet and stirred excitement throughout the music industry by allowing fans to pay whatever price they chose for the music.

Reznor, who split with his record label last year, applauded Radiohead's move. In October, shortly after In Rainbows came out, he helped little-known music artist Saul Williams release an online-only album in a similar way.

In keeping with Reznor's views that performers should embrace BitTorrent and other file-sharing technologies, Nine Inch Nails has uploaded some of its new songs on BitTorrent sites.

"Now that we're no longer constrained by a record label," the band said in a statement, "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."

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.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (8 Comments)
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Roy Clark Launches 'Loopy' On-Demand Music
by dascha1 March 3, 2008 10:18 AM PST
Visit an American Country Music Hero's web site to listen and learn
automatically:

http://www.royclark.org

And soon you'll bring back good, wholesome old-fashioned values.
Reply to this comment
New Nine Inch Nails album delivered through TuneCore
by cjs351 March 3, 2008 10:30 AM PST
I'm the marketing intern at TuneCore, we're the digital distribution company that delivered the new Nine Inch Nails album to Amazon.com. Our service makes it possible for everyone to deliver their music to iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster and more while getting to keep 100% of their rights and royalties. We are very proud to have a role in Trent's groundbreaking new vision! Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

-Jake
Reply to this comment
Good Luck geting a (legit) copy.
by geek. March 3, 2008 10:38 AM PST
I paid the $10 for the CD/Download version, and it subsequently failed. I also tried three times last night and once today to get the free copy.

Customer service is a joke too, as I haven't received a confirmation of receipt that I sent an email to them (for the paid download).

So no my choices are to either wait until the issue is resolved by the powers that be or to go DL it off a Torrent.

*** Trent!
Reply to this comment
Re: Good luck getting a (legit) copy
by T38 March 3, 2008 11:28 AM PST
Did you try to get it from NIN's web site, or from Amazon.com? If you tried to get it from NIN's web site, I don't know what to tell you. However, if you tried to download it from Amazon, give it a day or two. I had the same thing happen to me when trying to download a Future Sound of London track. Within a couple of days, I received the e-mail confirmation with the purchase number on it (support won't let you create a trouble ticket without the purchase number). I was then able to contact Amazon, who re-opened access to the tracks for me, and I was able to d/l the track successfully.
You can get it off a Torrent
by basraw March 3, 2008 2:15 PM PST
read the slickdeals.net thread

they have a link
Can't download and customer service stinks.
by hunter_jc March 3, 2008 5:35 PM PST
If they are not going to answer any email then don't tell its customers to email the support email. I can't download any stinking music or maybe the new music is call silence. I am downloading something with that title from pirate bay. hope it an't virus
Reply to this comment
amazon download is pretty easy
by travisfells March 3, 2008 6:36 PM PST
Found out about the release at work today. Tried to download from nin.com at about 8 pm on 3/3/08. The site was pretty much fully crashed.

No big deal, went over to amazon, drop 5 bucks and the tracks were on my pc in no time. listening to them now.

Still going to buy one of the other versions.

Glad my money is finally going to the artist not the record company.
Reply to this comment
by acamp123 August 4, 2008 1:54 PM PDT
This is a really great new model. I think its good that there is a resurgence in the importance of live music today. NIN will be playing at Voodoo in New Orleans this year and if you look at NIN's past voodoo performances this will be their show of the year! Check out some videos of NIN at past years of voodoo at http://www.thetenthritual.com/?content=video
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