Trent Reznor: Why won't people pay $5?
UPDATE (1-22-08) at 2:25 p.m.: More than a week after this story was published, Trent Reznor accused CNET News.com of misquoting him about the issue of a music tax on ISPs. We have posted an audio excerpt of the Reznor interview here. For the sake of full disclosure, we have also updated this story to include the text of what he said following his remarks about the ISP tax.
Very early in a discussion with Trent Reznor, the front man for the band Nine Inch Nails, it's obvious how highly he prizes his collaboration with musician Saul Williams on the album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust.
Reznor produced and helped bankroll the album, which debuted November 1. All the more reason why he was stunned when fewer than one in five people who downloaded the music were willing to pony up $5, roughly the cost of a McDonald's Quarter Pounder.
Saul Williams and Trent Reznor
(Credit: Atticus Ross)Williams and Reznor were trying to follow the lead of Radiohead by distributing music online without the backing of a label. Like the British supergroup, Williams made the album available for free in one version but he also offered the option of buying a higher-quality digital download for $5. The promotions were groundbreaking and plenty of people predicted that a profitable outcome would convince many musicians to drop their labels and use the Internet to distribute their own artistic creations.
And then Reznor ended the hoopla last week when he reported on his blog that 154,449 people had downloaded NiggyTardust and 28,322 of them paid the $5 as of January 2. In the blog, Reznor suggested that he was "disheartened" by the results.
Now, in his first interview since releasing the sales data, Reznor on Wednesday talked about his rethinking of music in the digital age. (To see an interview with Williams, published Friday, click here: "Unlike Trent Reznor, Saul Williams isn't disheartened.")
Q: Trent, lots of fans were shocked and saddened by how disappointed you sounded with the sales results. Many piped up to tell you that the numbers may be misleading. Were the numbers that bad?
Reznor: I'm not disappointed with the numbers with Saul at all. I think, particularly looking at what he's done historically and in the climate of today's music scene, that's something to be proud of.
What disappointed me is that I had thought--and this is just based on how I experience music--given the opportunity (his voice trails off). Why do I end up stealing music? Usually because I can't get it easily somewhere else or the version I can get is an inferior one with DRM, perhaps, or I have to drive across town to get it to then put it on my computer or it's already out on the Internet and I can't pay for it yet.
If I think of it a month later walking through Amoeba (record store), hmm...do I want to just buy a piece of plastic and give most of the money to the record labels, who have to be thieves because my experience with them has always been that? And you have a lot of reasons why you didn't do it. So I thought if you take all those away and here's the record in as great a quality as you could ever want, it's available now and it's offered for an insulting low price, which I consider $5 to be, I thought that it would appeal to more people than it did. That's where my sense of disappointment is in general, that the idea was wrong in my head and for once I've given people too much credit.
Saul and I went at this thing with the right intentions. We wanted to put out the music that we believe in. We want to do it as unencumbered and as un-revenue-ad-generated and un-corporate-affiliated as possible. We wanted it without a string attached, without the hassle, without the bait and switch, or the "Now you can buy the s**** version if you buy..." No, no, we said: "Here it is. At the same time, it'd be nice if we can cover the costs and perhaps make a living doing it."
I'm not saying that this is a completely accurate test. Yes, there is a possibility that people downloaded it and the same people went back and downloaded it and paid for it and that can throw the numbers off. I get all that.
It kind of gets into the bigger picture that you've had to face as a musician over the last few years, which in my mind was a bitter pill to swallow, but it's pretty far down the hatch with me now: the way things are, I think music should be looked at as free. It basically is. The toothpaste is out of the tube and a whole generation of people is accustomed to music being that way. There's a perception that you don't pay for music when you hear it on the radio or MySpace.
There's a difficult transition in the mind of the musician and certainly in the mind of the record label. If that is the case, how does one adapt to that?
How are you going to adapt to that?
Reznor: For me, I choose the battles I can fight. In my mind, I think if there was an ISP tax of some sort, we can say to the consumer, "All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your
car and put in your
iPod and put up your a-- if you want, and it's $5 on your cable bill or ISP bill."
Someone asked me recently whether I've used 4-1-1 lately. I said 'Not really." They said do you know you're paying for that every month? 'I am?' Yeah, X-amount of your money goes to a service that you don't even use.'
Was everybody in the Williams camp happy that you disclosed the sales numbers?
Reznor: I didn't see the harm in not using this opportunity--and I'll name check Radiohead on this--they've done a pretty suave marketing plan on this new record.
I think generally it's been a pretty cool thing, but what they've done is used those (sales) numbers in a way that they can spin them anyway they want cause you don't know what they are. They can present themselves as the biggest band in the world. Someone leaks out a number of a million and someone says a number of visits and someone else says that must mean they made a million and someone else says the average price was $5 or $6 and that means they made $10 million.
I highly doubt that's what happened based on my own experience.
And I'm not saying that Radiohead and Saul Williams are in the same breath in terms of popularity by any means, but it felt to me like that, partially inspired by Radiohead, we tried this and here's the results we got and I assume there's a bunch of other bands that are intrigued by the idea that may want to follow down that path. I'm not saying it was a failure or a success. I think it was both. But it wasn't 90 percent of the people that showed up paid us what we asked for. Nor did I ever think it would be. I'm not sure what I did expect.
But I've found it entertaining reading different people's perspective on the Web, what they've thought of what I've said. There's been a wave of people that said, 'Oh, that's depressing. Only 18 percent chose to pay for it.' Another whole wave of people feel just the opposite. I don't really know. That was the point of it. I've heard people say, 'What was the point of that blog?' It was just to share information with you. It wasn't any kind of concrete analysis of anything.
I'm sure I didn't win any points with the aforementioned people by doing what I did. I questioned whether it was the right thing, but it felt morally like the right thing to do. I'm not ashamed of it. I find myself a bit defensive right now, like 'Did I f**k up? Should I not have said that?'
Talk about technology and your experience using the Web as a distribution method.
Reznor: When we started the idea, we liked the clean feel of the Radiohead experience. It didn't feel like we were a sidebar on the Snocap site. Somehow that kind of thing cheapened it in a sense for whatever reason. I'm not sure why. That's based on my own perception. I like the idea of feeling kind of homemade and simple. There is a beauty to the fact that everybody has got their own distribution network that is already set up. How simple and obvious to just do this. But the reality of that is building the infrastructure that has a store and accepts the right form of payment and fulfillment and all those boring kinds of things.
What did you learn from the experience?
If I could redo everything and start again, I think having a physical product is a good thing. I think that having some more coordination on our part--and I'll take the blame on that because there was an urgency to get this done and get it out that I was the ringleader for--I think if we could wave a magic wand and do it again I think being able to offer an inexpensive version in addition to a premium physical product that could be shipped out afterward.
On day one you can buy it online and it's also in the store. But the manufacturing (of CDs) is the leak (to file-sharing sites) for everything and the leak is important to get around. The leak blows momentum. It happens and it's going to happen on every release there is. It's a fact of life. But that leak happens once it leaves mastering and goes to manufacturing, if it hasn't by then, then it certainly does at that point. I like the energy of release day, the excitement of watching blogs light up and bulletin boards. I think that's an important spike in attention. And the only way I can see to accommodate a physical release if it goes to manufacturing after the thing is in the hands of people. But I do think there is a need for presence in physical retail.
Are you going to abandon this or will Nine Inch Nails offer a similar promotion as Williams?
If I had a record to put out today, I would do something very similar to what we just did cause I don't think there is a better option. I would include a physical piece as I just said and all of the components I would make sure had value.
Saul said he doesn't have any regrets about the way the album was released. He credits the Internet with setting him free from having to deal with the labels. Is this how you feel?
Reznor: I can't tell you how great it felt when Saul and I and his team said 'Let's do this. Let's go.'
There's not an army of people saying no for this reason. To feel in control of your own destiny for a change, that's an incredibly liberating feeling. Where it needs to be worked out and fine tuned is the right way to hopefully generate enough commerce from it to justify doing it and really working on the right way and right tone to get the word out to people that doesn't feel intrusive or old school.
But at the same time there is a little bit of an element with Saul's record of a tree falling in the woods...It hurt my feelings to see it not show up on everybody's Best Album Of The Year lists, because I think not enough people knew it was out there.
In a separate interview with Saul Williams, the rapper and spoken-word artist has a very different take on the sales performance of NiggyTardust than Reznor. That interview will appear on CNET News.com on Friday.
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. 
As long as Copyright is forever, then to h*ll with the Copyright holders.
Now, if a movie becomes a classic and is recognized as such, THEN the copyright should be extended to 25-50 years and only in that case.
How do you make the tax fair?
With regard to the sales numbers, I wouldn't be so negative. It was a first try, and lessons can be learned. Offering the music for free download is a necessity in my view, besides food (even then, sometimes you can...), what can't you try before buying? Offering a very low quality free download (64, not 128) should be offered another high quality one (192 - 250) for 10$ and maybe the 3rd option being the Quality download and a CD shipped (15$?). In any case, the high quality downloads should be under CD quality (under 320) to keep the CD appeal higher.
Another reason not to be so negative, is that this experience has probably brought the music to an audience not acquainted with the artist's music. People not used to illegaly download music by any way, might have been tempted (by all the media buzz)to download and listen to the album for free, potentially broadening Saul's fan base.
But I'm not a fool, I know most people will tend to download without paying, the reason being the kind of society we live in and human nature. Eventually, only a few songs would be offered for free (64) and the album for a very competitive price. Personally, if my favorite artists released an album in this way, I would pay 15$ without hesitating.
if i make a jigsaw puzzle with my own hands and it costs me $5 in supplies and 2 hours of my time, and i turn around and sell it for $50, that's how i recoup and profit, therefore being able to feed my family. i don't expect a "puzzle tax" to take its place.
it costs money to make this music. my album cost $1400 in the studio. now it's up to me to recoup that based on the idea that i have confidence in the music.
better artists deserve better profits and the ability to continue to make music. poor artists will invest $1400 and not get it back. that's the sign to stop doing it.
through. Then, as you imply, you realize that it could lead to our
being swamped by a tide of mediocre musicians. There is one
example of someone making money on a concept involving
mediocre musicians- American Idol. How'd we like it if their
"feedstock" were all treated equally by some government-financed
distribution system?
Question is, should all muscians expect to make millions of dollars a year? Minstrals of bygone years barely kept stayed alive.
Artists can be very arrogant about what they should make in this world. Even after making millions and then blowing it on crap, they whine again and again. I gave up music because of this. I have my vinyl records, I digitized them to mp3. I enjoy my collection.
I'd guess 50% of the people downloaded it because it was free, and maybe 50% of those (25% total) actually have given it a full listen. 25% of the total probably downloaded it because Trent was involved, and gave it a cursory listen to see what it was like.
His response is similar to saying "100 million people listened to my music on the radio for free, and only 8% bought the album". The $5 price tag for download only I personally think is about the right price for good content, especially if there is no extra media with it. Include a PDF with "liner notes" type of deal, maybe some exclusive wallpapers and a code to get the music videos or whatever when they become available, you have a good price.
Self promotion is just that. If he was at the local flea market trying to peddle the album for $5, bet he wouldn't have gotten the take rate he did.
I still buy my CDs from the local shop. Yes, I rip them for my car and my MP3 player, but I don't share them.
So why should I pay a net tax to support music downloads when I personally derive no benefit from it? Hands off my wallet, okay? Your idea sounds a little bit like social collectivism and feels a bit like a mugging.
By the way, I own a couple of NIN CDs, so Trent buddy, you have already gotten a chunk of my change. Thanks for the music by the way, I am not ungrateful for hearing it.
But I DO download Japanese albums that I cannot find in the United States and that would be too expensive to have shipped over here (I looked, near 40 dollars for one CD with international shipping).
They should have offered the low-quality download at a 'donation' price, and the higher-quality version at the named $5 price.
Trent's also right about following up with a material CD release - people still want to buy cover art and CDs to put on the shelf. If the album is solid musically, then odds are I'm going to want to buy a 'real' version - especially after I've listened to it a few times.
Use the inexpensive medium of the Internet to get the album out there to as many people as possible while still offering CDs for sale.
Then cash in on concerts. ;)
Best of luck Mr. Reznor; your way up there on my list.
-Alex
If I'm right, the only reason artists have for making albums is to get people to come to their concerts. If they gave the music away, they don't lose much, and they could greatly increase their audience at concerts.
If that's the only thing you took away from this interview, you are clearly a moron.
I have a bias because I am a musician. Can you even try and imagine a day without ANY music? It is virtually impossible to do and really hard to comprehend. So I do not agree with or apparently do not understand your comment.
I think if an artist has a good album it should be posted for people to hear time and again. (for free) If the artist needs money, GO ON TOUR and perform live. I already paid for the computer / MP3 player that plays your 0's and 1's. As an artist, go out and PLAY for people, the one's who support your $200,000 cars... I do agree with fighting against a "community" tax. A complete waste of time and energy. I do agree that record labels are cheats, liars, and overfed executives.
A tax on ISP's for music is almost a communist idea. Does that mean that rock stars, who are used to 20 million dollar homes will go to a "community agreed" salary around 50-80k a year? No chance. There is no way to equally distribute money.
That is my all my ranting and raving, let me know who agrees and / or disagrees.
I listened to it for about 3-4 weeks. I had fun listening to the N word a lot.
lyric refrain quote: "The trigger is you, the n* is you"
This album did the same amount of business as previous Saul Williams album released the old way.
This wasn't about taxes. It was about their experience in pushing the envelope and making real information public. Radiohead and the media touts some overly impressive numbers for their experiment. I had questioned how well that had actually worked... how with Trent's information I question it even more.
I would venture to guess that the $5 download would have been more widely taken advantage of it had been a band that someone was aware of. I had never even heard of the artist mentioned until this article, much less heard anything by him. Now if it had been NIN I would have jumped on it.
Wonder why Trent didn't push this out with NIN instead? Maybe NIN is still under a record label's thumb somehow. Even though they are "free agents".
Fan-boy Disclaimer: I have been a NIN fan since '89.
As I said before. I will buy a $5 NIN album in a heartbeat.
9 out of 10 artists never make a dime for their work, sad but true. I'm not talking just musicians either. The artists I know do it because they love it, they don't sit around wondering when their big check will come rolling in. They sit around and wonder how they can improve their craft so their craft will sell itself, or just so others will enjoy it.
Put out something that people will like and your problem will be solved, Radiohead figured it out pretty quickly. The best way to get what you want in what you do is to......NOT SUCK at it.
You have to cover all the bases to capatalize on the entire market. One of those bases is physical media. Another is WHERE you distribute. I buy on Amazon. Not on a lone website. Yeah, Amazon will get a cut, but it's also a sale that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
I own many CD's. I have never downloaded an MP3. Ho about you keep your stinking music and I DONT pay an extra $5 to my ISP for something I will never use and don't want. Do not tell me to pay for some luxury I don't want or need.
Thanks!
Syn
Then when you want to get it, you complain about how expensive it is...
1. They bought the album and it got scratched.
2. It's possibly their third time buying the album due to scratching, breaking, or friends walking away with it.
3. They're tired of having CD's all over their car and living room.
4. Most music offered online has caviets over how many times you can copy it or on how many computers it can be transfered.
5. It's difficult to find sample rates over 128kbps in legit stores, but through other sources one can easily find 320k sample rates.
6. Tired of format wars. Whether I own a Zune or iPod should be irrelevant. I just want to listen to my music.
I could keep going.
I would be in the poor house for the homeless if each time I sat on,broke,scratched,dropped,heat warped and went and bought a new CD.
That is pure insanity.
If there is to be truth in honesty in purchasing then I would like for example ITUNES to notice that I already downloaded a song or movie and it will notice that My pc was reimaged.
It appears your itunes music/movie folder is empty even though you had previous purchases.
Would you like to redownload your music/movie library for a nominal one time fee? To get back all my music and movies after a pc crash to me would be worth $20! to redownload them again.
What I don't get according to this article is how my stats were counted. I intentionally used the same email address for the free version and the purchase so that they could correctly account for me. Hopefully they were smart enough to put me as one in the paid column (and 0 in the unpaid).
I then played the album for my roommate and my brother because I thought some of the tracks were cool and I am 100% in favor of buying DRM free lossless encoded music directly from the artist. In fact I told my girlfriend not to buy the pre-release In Rainbows album online because the product they were selling was not equivalent to a CD (why should she pay CD prices for something that is not as good as a CD).
Case in point: in 1983 a CD cost about $20. At the time the recording industry stated the price, which was about double that of a vinyl LP or plastic cassette tape, would go down as production cost went down.
They never did...today that same CD is still $20, yet cost only pennies to make. Even taking inflation into account, they are still waaay over priced.
The RIAA and its ilk are just evil.
I bet you own a cell phone and pay money for the 'service' of that 4-1-1. Your ISP won't tell you, they will just charge you. Point is if all of them charge your going to have to subject to it like the 4-1-1 almost if not every phone charges for it so what are you going to do stop using a cell?. So in fact the tax would be wrong yes but still would be applied if they really wanted to.
As for Trent I think he had good intentions it's just that sometimes you cannot make money from good intentions.
I agree that people will just steal the music. But i don't think the solutions lies in just giving away music and expecting people to be "humble" and pay (although some might). Like he says he thought people where going to say 'it's good, what the heck ill pay the 5 bucks" but he forgets that not everyone is like that. The solutions might just be as previous people have said to make money off of Concerts. Or maybe give the free download with a low low quality so that maybe it might strike an interest in people, therefore leaning them to buy.
Customers want music, but just don't want to pay.
It's as simple as that.
Mr. Sandoval, do you really have trouble with the difference between your and you're? There is some serious proof-reading issues at C|net. STOP BUTCHERING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE! /rant
P.S. Good content though. Too bad poor grammar gets in the way.
- this is sad
- by the_deanster January 10, 2008 8:23 AM PST
- We should all want to support the artists. This is sad news to hear. I
- Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 5 pages (156 Comments)always thought that people would support what they liked,
especially if they knew it was going right to them, and not the
record companies. Man.
There's always ypimh.com, but if this story is true, people don't
really care unless there is a chance of public shaming.