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Not too long ago, NIN released their first post-major-label release on the internet, free of charge. Being all instrumental tracks, it was a departure from what they would normally release as a full length album. I figured it was either a one-off kind of thing or that they would at least charge something for their next traditional release (with vocals and hit singles and stuff). I guess I was wrong.
Over the weekend (or today, I’m not sure) NIN released a brand new album called The Slip through thir website. To get it all you have to do is fill out your name and a valid email address. In return you get links to download the album in several formats, including MP3, FLAC and even WAV. It’s being released under a Creative Commons license, which means you are also free to share it with whoever you want as well as remix and rerelease your own versions of the songs (provided you aren’t charging for them).
It’s nice to see a successful artist giving back to his fan base like this. If we had NIN money we’d probably do the same thing. Unfortunately we only have Sinch money (which is on the same level as “gas money” or “lunch money”), so we’re gonna have to charge you for our new album. With your help we can one day make NIN money and you’ll all be first in line for all the cool free stuff we’ll be giving away.
We have the right to be compensated for the use of our creative works, and share in the revenues that they generate.
We have the right to license our works and control the ways in which they are used.
We have the right to withhold permission for uses of our works on artistic, economic or philosophical grounds.
We have the right to protect our creative works to the fullest extent of the law from all forms of piracy, theft and unauthorized use, which deprive us of our right to earn a living based on our creativity.
We have the right to choose when and where our creative works may be used for free.
We have the right to develop, document and distribute our works through new media channels - while retaining the right to a share in all associated profits.
We have the right to choose the organizations we want to represent us and to join our voices together to protect our rights and negotiate for the value of our music.
We have the right to earn compensation from all types of “performances,” including direct, live renditions as well as indirect recordings, broadcasts, digital streams and more.
We have the right to decline participation in business models that require us to relinquish all or part of our creative rights - or which do not respect our right to be compensated for our work.
We have the right to advocate for strong laws protecting our creative works, and demand that our government vigorously uphold and protect our rights.
Being songwriters, we obviously support this kind of thing. If you’d like to show your support (especially if you’re a songwriter yourself) you can add your signature here.
About ASCAP
We’ve been members of ASCAP for years now, both as writers and publishers of our music. They’re a Performance Rights Organization that collects roylaties on behalf of songwriters and publishers from places like radio stations and television channels that use their music.
Muxtape is really simple website that allows you to create an online mix-tape with your own mp3s. You’re supposed to have “permission” to use the tracks that you upload but that doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from uploading other people’s stuff. It’s definitely the easiest way I’ve ever seen to share music online with your friends.
Are you the kind of Sinch fan that’s always pushing your friends to listen to our music? We hear that from a lot of people and we’re finally able to give a little bit back. So, now instead of just working for free you can actually make money by helping to sell our music!
That link will take you to the E-junkie Affiliate sign up page. Register for an account and you’ll get unique links you can use to send people our way. If they buy something, you’ll get credit to the tune of 10% of the selling price. That’s $0.99 for our full albums and $0.49 for our EPs. It also counts towards our new package deals, so for those you’ll make even more.
On top of the affiliate percentage, we’ll be keeping an eye on who’s helping out the most. I can’t say exactly what the benefits will be at this point, but we’ll definitely be taking care of anyone who sends a lot of people our way.
You can post your affiliate links on your own website, Myspace profile, Facebook page or any other place you can post stuff online (forums, etc). You can even just email the links directly to anyone you think might be interested.
So, get your account created and see what you can do. I’ll say right up front that we really appreciate anyone who takes the time to do this. I know our fans have been helping spread the word for years, so it’s about time we let you guys get something out of it.
Let us know if you have any questions or need help with anything.
Up until now this whole Sinch thing has pretty much been a one-way street. We make music and you guys listen. We’ve received a few things from fans over the years: an acoustic version of a song here, a piece of artwork inspired by the band there… but we’ve always wanted more than that. So we finally got around to doing something about it and set up the Sinch Sound Share Project.
How it works is pretty simple:
We release packages of sounds/samples from our music on ccMixter.org
You download them
You use them in whatever way you want (as long as you’re not selling the result)
You upload the result to ccMixter
Everyone listens.
???
Profit!
We’re really excited to see what everyone can come up with. Whether you know your way around Pro Tools or have never touched a piece of audio software in your life… give it a shot. You might be surprised.
To kick things off, our very own Mike the Bass Player did a remix of the first song we’ve released the sound files for, “Cutting All Ties” from the Subdivisions EP.
In classic Mike fashion, it’s not working how it’s supposed to but you can still get to the file with that link so you should be OK. It should be available on his ccMixter page, but for some reason it’s not. As you can see there are no uploads even though according to his profile, he “has 1 remix.” Classic.
Anyway, you can find all the downloads along with links to audio software on the Sound Share Project page.
The internet tubes have been a-buzz for the past few days with the news that Radiohead’s forthcoming new album, In Rainbows, is available for pre-orderdirectly from the band. They are not currently under contract with any major label, so you’re actually buying this album from the artists themselves. What’s more, the digital download version is available for the fan-friendly price of “whatever you feel like paying,” although there seems to be an upper limit of around $200. Those of you feeling super generous will have to just send them a check for the difference.
A few other artists have experimented with this flexible pricing approach, but none as high-profile as Radiohead. And while they’re still likely to sign with a label at some point, this is definitely an interesting step towards shortening the gap between major artists and their fans.
Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.
Not much in the way of details, but I’m sure those announcements he mentioned will be very interesting. Can’t wait to see where this goes.
And on a more Sinch-related note, all of our future releases are likely to be available directly from us (in case you didn’t know that already). We’ve felt this is the way to go for a while now and it’s good to see some major artists going down a similar path.
Amazon just launched the “public beta” of their new “Amazon MP3” digital download store.
This is pretty big news. Besides EMusic, all of the other digital stores are using some form of DRM, effectively locking out users of certain hardware and/or operating systems. iTunes sells some stuff in unprotected AAC format but it costs more and from what I have seen the selection is somewhat limited.
“Amazon MP3 is an all-MP3, DRM-free catalog of a la carte music from major labels and independent labels, playable on any device, in high-quality audio, at low prices,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music. “This new digital music service has already been through an extensive private beta, and today we’re excited to offer it to our customers as a fully functional public beta. We look forward to receiving feedback from our customers and using their input to refine the service.”
Amazon claims to have 2,000,000 songs available and with most songs priced at $0.89 (10 cents less than iTunes and most others), I’m sure I’ll be buying a few albums, if only to test out the service.
Whether or not they can compete with iTunes, I think this is important in that (if people use it) it will be a great example of how giving people what they want (in this case, unprotected music files) can actually be a more successful business model than trying to have control over the content after it’s purchased. EMusic has been doing this for a while, and been quite successful, but they don’t sell a lot of major label stuff. The fact that a lot of the major labels are on board with Amazon is what makes this interesting.
If you want to see more stores selling mp3s and other unprotected formats, I would recommend giving some serious thought to supporting this new venture. The rest of the industry is no doubt keeping their eye on how this all goes down. And you now have the power to send them a message by only spending your money with companies that respect their customers instead of treating them like potential criminals.
Apparently Jim Morrison and Michael Hutchence talked to a psychic about their "controversial deaths" and the "many myths that surround them" and she put all of it into this book.
