Crave

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.

Saul Williams chuckles when asked about the word "disheartening."

Cover art for Saul Williams' new album

(Credit: Saul Willaims)

The public has the choice of obtaining the digital release for free or pay $5 for a higher quality download. Reznor, the artist behind the band Nine Inch Nails, ignited wide debate about the effectiveness of Radiohead-esque giveaways and the value of music when he revealed last week that 80 percent of those who downloaded the album were unwilling to pay.

Reznor said in an interview with CNET News.com on Thursday that while he was generally pleased with the response, he also expected a larger number of people would dig into their wallets to support good music.

Williams, in contrast, says he's isn't bothered by the numbers. He suggested that Reznor tends to worry too much and jokingly referred to him as the 'king of emo.' Williams said he is taking a longer view. He says it's too early in the album's economic lifespan--or in the search for new music business models--to call the promotion a bust.

In an interview on Wednesday with News.com, Williams revealed he is grateful for the opportunity to promote his music using groundbreaking techniques and also to technology for setting him free from the "constraints of race."

What do you think about what Trent said...and are the numbers accurate?
Williams: They were for that day and the thing is the numbers change every day. But yeah, they're accurate.

The public jumped on Trent's use of the word "disheartening." What do you make of it?
Williams: I'm actually extremely optimistic. The only thing that I really have kept in mind is that, one, we're two months into a project. An album is not like a film, so that like, 'Oh, we did it, two months and it's done, now it's going straight to DVD.' The marketing campaign starts this month with the premiere of our video of Sunday Bloody Sunday on MySpace, MTV and all the major networks.

The marketing campaign that we started begins this month as well. We start touring in March starting with South By Southwest and then move across the country and then on to Europe. So the album has gotten a great deal of writes up and had a huge response from people immediately. But that was all from just releasing the album. That was with, like Trent said, with no marketing, no press, nothing spawned from us. It was all people like yourself saying, 'Can I talk to you about this?' But we hadn't paid a publicist as of yet.

I think it's early in the game. I'm not disappointed at all. I think Trent's disappointment probably stems from being in the music business for over 20 years and remembering a time that was very different, when sales reflected something different, when there was no such thing as downloads. Trent is from another school. Even acts that prospered in the '90s, you look at people like the Fugees or Lauren Hill selling 18 million copies. That sort of thing is unheard of today. But Trent comes from that world. So I think his disappointed stems from being heavily invested in the past. For modern times, for modern numbers we're looking great, especially for being just two months into a project.

Experts have told me that the economic lifespan of an album can last as long as two years.
Williams: Exactly, the lifespan from my last album, from touring, which is really how I made my income and everything, lasted for two years. I didn't start touring with that album with Trent until 2005. It came out in 2004.

Wasn't the online promotion of NiggyTardust an experiment? You guys originally were just testing the waters?

Williams: It was certainly an experiment, but you know, life is an experiment. I know that the life of this album has a lot to do with how it feels and looks and how it comes off on stage. That's what this album was for: to set the stage for me to perform in the way I like to perform and maybe get more people at a show than I normally would.

That was your goal. You mentioned that the last time we talked.
Williams: Exactly, so, it is an experiment and I think it was an experiment going great. Imagine a couple trying to have a baby and two months into it the husband goes to the press and media says: 'My wife can't have children!' (He laughs). You should give it a year. I mean you're trying to have a baby.

Are you guys friends?
Williams: Trent and I? Yeah.

How did you meet?
Williams: We met on the road, when he asked me to tour with him. From there our bonding was immediate. We immediately clicked over dozens of things, which led us...maybe the first day, the first or second day we met, was when he asked me if I wanted to do an album with him.

So he liked your stuff?
Williams: I would be on stage and look to the side of the stage and see him in the corners of the wings dancing and I'd say, 'Oh s**t, he's really listening.' Every night, it never failed.

Do you think some of his disappointment might be because he really wants to see you do well?
Williams: Okay, don't get me wrong. I don't think Trent is as truly disappointed as he sounds in that blog. You got to think of him this way...listen to his music (he laughs). In my opinion, oh, he might not like this, but I think he's the king of emo.

Of course he's going to voice his disappointment. And with all that being said, we've talked a great deal since the blog, and all he said is that, 'I wish we had better numbers.' But really his whole purpose of releasing that statement was that we could avoid some of the pretentiousness of some of the other groups that have perhaps done something similar, like Radiohead keeping numbers to themselves and us wanting to say, 'Hey, look this is an open experiment that all artists should know.' I think that this information is essential for all artists trying to do what we're doing and figuring out whether this is something that will work.

All that really was about was to say, 'Look, yeah it is disappointing because the imagination is amazing.' We could imagine 4 million downloads all paid. Any of that is imaginable. And there is a great deal possible because like I said we're two months into this thing. The video, like oh my God. The amount of work that I just put into this video "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is more than I ever put into a f***ing film. It is so intense.

What did you learn about how the technology helped or hurt you?
Williams: Tech wise, I think people were really pleased with the different bit rates that we offered. You can see for yourself the number of people that chose FLAC and all that. We've heard rave reviews from people about getting what they got for the cheap price that we offered. To me the coolest thing with the downloads is the lyrics. I don't think most people realize that if you do download the album and put it in your iTunes and on your iPod, if you keep clicking that center button of your iPod while the album is playing, you'll eventually see the lyrics. You can read the lyrics for every song while you're listening. Little stuff like that made it really exciting for me.

What would you change about the promotion?
Williams: I don't really see what we've done in past tense yet. It's really been a short time. And I'm really pleased with where we are. As a poet who releases books, I'm really familiar with how things spread by word of mouth.

The lifespan of an album can be as long as two years or more. You look at something like The Beastie Boys' first album, which sells a million copies every year. It's nothing like a movie, so I think we're doing great. We're off to a running start. We still have a physical release date to look forward to. We still have touring to look forward to. We still have marketing and promotion that all starts this year, so I don't regret anything. Not yet.

Do you still believe in these online giveaways? Will you do this again?
Williams: I don't know. I think the online giveaway for our project was perfect. Cause you're dealing with myself, an artist not everyone has heard of and not everyone is going to necessarily try if they have to pay for it. Giving them the opportunity to get it for free from us I think was a really positive and intelligent choice on our part. Would I do it again? I have no idea.

What about the costs that Trent talked about? Tell me about the 'sample clearance fees' you guys had to pay?
Williams: Yeah, I used a major sample from (the rap group) Public Enemy for the song 'Trigger.' A sample can cost you about $10,000 or more.

He also mentions the bandwidth costs. Were those expensive?
Williams: I would say they are not. We had a special deal with Musicane (a company that helps performers distribute music online and oversaw the Web site, credit-card transactions as well as other back-end chores for Williams). They can add up, but the reason we went with Musicane is that they had the best bandwidth costs. In fact, we didn't have to pay for bandwidth. That was our deal.

Trent talked about how happy he is that your music is in more iPods than ever before.
Williams: To me that's the real deal. That's how I see it. And that's what leaves me not feeling disappointed because we all know that artists earn the most from touring. So it doesn't work against me giving it away free to so many listeners. The more people that are into it, the more people that say 'I got to see this live.'

Trent also said you guys couldn't find any traditional record deals that appealed to you.
Williams: Everybody seemed to be interested, but in my opinion nobody seemed to be a visionary. If you look around you, you don't see a lot of black alternative acts out there.

It's not because black alternative acts don't exist. It's because there's this belief in the marketplace that, 'Oh, who are they going to sell to? People in the hood won't like them and so-and-so won't like them' and there's big confusion about who we appeal to.

For an artist like myself, the sort of attention that I'm getting, and who is not sticking to my guns--all puns intended--I think it says a lot.

Can that be a tough sell?
Williams: I had people at Sony take me into the office and tell me, 'But that's not hip-hop. Your album isn't hip-hop.' To me that's what this is really about. By releasing it online and not dealing with the labels, it gave me an opportunity for once as an artist that I didn't have to compromise in the face of people who have limited ideas and conceptions about what it is to be black and make music.

And to me that's the role of technology. Technology is here to free us from the grip of history. That's why I'm thankful to the Internet. That's why I'm thankful to this form of (music) release. Because in many ways it set me free.

I've been in meetings with reps at labels and they walk me to their urban department. Literally I'm like, 'But I'm not making something limited to urban music,' and they're like, 'Yeah, but you're black.'

That's why I'm grateful to technology because it freed me from the constraints of race.

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.

One of the recording industry's most daring experiments ended on Monday. Three months after Radiohead stunned the music industry by allowing fans to pay whatever they wanted for the album, In Rainbows, the band has now opted for a more traditional sales approach.

That was fast.

Just weeks ago, the group was being congratulated for laying the groundwork for a new business model that pundits said could one day save the music industry. But as Radiohead prepares to distribute songs the old-fashion way--selling CDs out of retail stores--not everybody is cheering.

Nicky Wire, a member of the Manic Street Preachers, a rock band whose hits include "Send Away The Tigers," told a news publication last week that Radiohead's offer "demeans music."

"Fair play to Radiohead for doing something different," Wire told the United Kingdom's Daily Star. "It's certainly great publicity, but I think it kind of demeans music. Music used to be a market; now it's all gone digital. It's worrying (that) cinema is doing well, video games are doing well, but music isn't. The free-download phenomenon is ruining the industry."

Such statements are heresy to the "free" culture, but Wire may be right to question whether Radiohead's experiment was a success.

Nobody other than Radiohead and its handlers know how much money the groundbreaking promotion generated, and they aren't sharing figures with the public. Nonetheless, there are signs that the revenue was less than spectacular.

Last month, ComScore, a traffic-tracking company, stirred controversy when it estimated that 62 percent of those who downloaded In Rainbows did so without paying a cent for the music.

The band called ComScore's figures, which were calculated by tracking a sample group, "wholly inaccurate."

The obvious question now is why would Radiohead kill the promotion and go back to a traditional sales model if the cash were rolling in?

The album is still in its infancy, say music industry executives. The economic life span of an album can last as long as two years. It starts when an act releases a record and is extended when the performer goes on a concert tour.

"For those of you who wish to buy In Rainbows in the usual way," said a message at Radiohead's site on Tuesday, "it will be available on CD/vinyl and download from traditional outlets from the 31st December 2007."

Several publications have also reported that Radiohead is negotiating to make In Rainbows available on iTunes.

You can argue that the reason to pull the plug on the offering is to give the band a chance to tap into the shrinking but lucrative CD market. Discs are still the way most people listen to music.

But if the pay-what-you-want promotion was a cash cow, why not keep it going at the same time that you sell CDs? If the digital and CD markets are separate then there's no fear of undercutting disc sales. If they are not, then hasn't the high-profile online promotion already doomed physical sales?

And then there are the statements made this weekend by the group's manager, Chris Hufford, in an interview with the The New York Times. He indicated that the In Rainbows strategy was a one-off.

"This was a solution to a series of issues," Hufford told the Times. "I doubt it would work the same way ever again."

He's not saying the promotion was a bust, but neither is he hollering, "Eureka, we've discovered the new paradigm!"

There's no doubt that Radiohead's gutsy move scored points with fans. Another benefit is that other performers who follow Radiohead's experiment, such as rapper Saul Williams, are sure to learn much from their experiences. They might even improve on the idea.

Last month, Williams launched an offering similar to Radiohead's but tweaked it so people would have more motivation to plunk down money. At the same time he gave away a digital version of his album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardus, Williams offered a higher quality download that could only be obtained with a $5 donation.

At this point, it looks like Radiohead began a discussion. There's plenty still to be debated.

Rapper Saul Williams

(Credit: Atticus Ross)

Could John Hammond have discovered Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, or Bruce Springsteen by scrolling through MySpace pages?

The Babe Ruth of talent scouts, Hammond made Artists & Repertoire guys famous. These music-label reps have a storied history of haunting backwater honkey tonks, nightclubs, and dive bars in a quest for hot new acts. In the future, some may be asked to forget the clubs and restrict their searches to the Web.

Private-equity firm Terra Firma, the company that acquired record company EMI in May, is now trying to attract investors by floating a plan that includes drastic cost cuts at the struggling label, according to a story in The New York Post. The paper said that according to a "confidential investor presentation," Terra Firma is considering slashing EMI's fixed costs by $223 million.

Under the proposal, EMI would slice $58 million from its A&R and marketing budget. The savings would come from requiring talent scouts to rely more heavily on sites such as MySpace to find talent, the Post reported. The company would also use social-networking sites to promote acts. The plan is only under consideration and final decisions have not been made, one of the label's spokesmen told CNET News.com.

Nonetheless, this shows just how much influence MySpace has acquired in music circles.

The site is already teaming with hopeful musicians who may find it beneficial to build jaw-dropping Web pages and MySpace profiles to help them stand out.

Rapper Saul Williams, who is distributing an online-only digital album called, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust, said MySpace is helping to boost ticketsales.

"MySpace has made people more interested in seeing live performances," Williams told CNET News.com during an interview two weeks ago. "Its extremely exciting for me to see how the Internet is bringing more people to live shows than ever before That's one thing you can't duplicate on the Internet. You can't get that exhilaration that comes from a live performance from a computer screen."

If that's true, can is MySpace really an effective tool for A&R guys?

"It's true, you can find some interesting music on MySpace," said one music record executive, who asked to remain anonymous because he has dealings with EMI. "Yet, I look for bands with strong live followings and a strong live presence and there's no substituting getting out there and seeing whether someone can actually play. I don't think you're going to find the next Bob Dylan on MySpace."

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails

(Credit: Rob Sheridan)

Correction: Saul Williams' album debuts Thursday and is available for free or a $5 donation.

Rocker Trent Reznor doesn't pretend to know the answers to what ails the music industry.

But that hasn't stopped the iconoclastic front man for the band Nine Inch Nails from marching to the front lines--in lock step with British band Radiohead--in an assault on the traditional music business.

Reznor, who made news earlier this month when he left his record label, spoke Tuesday with CNET News.com about the decision. He also bashed the music industry, detailed how he persuaded performer Saul Williams to give away his latest album for free, praised Radiohead for distributing music directly to fans via the Web, and indicated that instead of fighting the so-called free culture--people who share music online--he plans to embrace it.

"Personally, I would like people to support artists," Reznor said. "After all, we as artists dedicate our lives to producing the best music we can. It's been a painful process for me personally (to see the changes in the music industry). But should I be angry at the audience that wants to hear music so much, an audience that is so passionate about hearing it they go online to get it two weeks before the music debuts? No, I want them to be that way."

Reznor has become a revolutionary figure to the file-sharing community. A video appeared recently at YouTube that showed him during a concert performance lamenting the high prices of CDs. Fans whooped it up when Reznor told them to go ahead and steal his music.

Since then, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead have become symbols of a growing movement among performers who are trying to use the Web to cut out the traditional middlemen of distribution: record labels.

Musicians Saul Williams and Trent Reznor

(Credit: Atticus Ross)

Radiohead shook the industry earlier this month by releasing a digital version of their latest album and asking fans pay whatever price they believed the album was worth. It was unprecedented move largely because it appeared to address an issue that music industry has largely tried to ignore. Music fans, many of whom obtain songs for free through illegal file sharing, perceive the dollar value of songs as almost nothing. Unless something dramatic occurs, many believe there is a chance a large number of fans will never again be swayed to plunk down money for music.

Reznor, 42, said that the music industry is spinning its wheels trying to fight that perception. He said that in the future songs can be a way to entice fans to buy concert tickets and merchandise and he recognized that this may be how musicians make their living. He has recently produced an album for Williams, a rapper/filmmaker/spoken-word artist, called The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust, which goes on sale Thursday on Williams' site.

Not coincidentally, the digital version of the album, which is free of copy-protection software, is priced for free or fans can make a $5 donation. It was Reznor's idea to give away Williams' music in a similar way as Radiohead.

"Radiohead is one of my favorite bands," Reznor said. "When they announced they were releasing that album for free, I got dozens of text messages. It gave me goose bumps. It's such an exciting way to sell a record."

Now, here's the rub. Reznor isn't the naïve artist who doesn't understand dollars and cents. He said that he knows giving away music may not make business sense. In addition, such a model could work for marquee bands like Radiohead but not for up-and-coming acts.

"Radiohead has a built-in audience and they have the luxury of being able to experiment with a new distribution model," Reznor said. "I think there were some serious flaws with how they executed but it was a good idea."

Reznor addressed some of the questions about whether artists are prepared to become merchants. Who is going to oversee sales, promotion, marketing, site supervision, and the countless other chores that record labels historically handled?

But Reznor isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He said that he was part of the negotiations with Musicane,the company handling the online distribution of Williams' upcoming album. Musicane is overseeing fulfillment, payment processing, and customer service.

The beauty of Musicane, according to Reznor, is that it provides the backbone for distribution without requiring musicians to invest "hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"Look, we're looking for what works and this seemed like it made sense," Reznor said. "Ask me in a week about how it went and hopefully I'll be saying the same thing."

It's doubtful that even if problems crop up Reznor can be dissuaded from his belief that the Internet is good for artists. He thinks that the Web creates direct links between musicians and their fans. This is beneficial even if sometimes it's hard for performers to stand out among the countless acts trying to promote themselves online.

"The greatest thing about the Internet is that everybody is their own distributor," Reznor said. "Being your own distributor is power and the thing that labels once held over artists. The power of getting your message out to an audience is very empowering as an artist. These are exciting times and things are happening that I couldn't imagine just a few years ago."

As for the future, well, Reznor fully acknowledges that he--like everybody else in music--is unsure of how things will turn out. But he says he's sure of one thing: the old way of doing business is dead.

"I don't know what the future holds," he said. "I don't know what model is going to work. I do know relationships between music labels and artist like myself aren't going well. These days when digital elements come into play labels have dealt with them generally poorly. It has gotten to a place where it couldn't be worse. Their treatment of artists has less sympathy and it's more like 'What can we get out of you?' My only concern has always been that my audience is treated fairly."