Another Free Album from NIN - Is Free the New Price of Music?
It was just a couple of months ago that Nine Inch Nails released part of their new album for free on BitTorrent and via their web site. The rest of the album, the band sold as a $5 download, a $10 double CD, and pricier "deluxe" packages. Doing this, the band reportedly pulled in $750,000 in the first three days. Yesterday, NIN released a new single free on Facebook with the promise of a "surprise" today on their web site. That surprise? Their entire new album, The Slip, is available as a free download on nin.com and streaming on iLike.
"As a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com," wrote the band on their web site, who said they plan to sell CD and vinyl versions in July.
The new album, which has ten tracks and clocks in at 43:45, is release under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share alike license. The band encourages downloaders to "remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc."
This begs two questions: 1. Just how many new albums does NIN have? and 2. Should all artists give away their music for free?
True Fans Theory at Work
What Reznor has done with Nine Inch Nails over the past two months is confirmation of Kevin Kelly's "true fans" theory, on a much larger scale. The theory basically states that any artist can make a living if he or she can cultivate 1,000 "true fans" -- people who will support anything the artist does. The actual number of true fans necessary to make a living will vary depending on the artist and the economics of what he or she produces.
While it is hard to find examples of this in the long tail, we are beginning to see it play out with more and more major label artists. Because Trent Reznor's true fans came through for him for the Ghosts release in March, he was able to release The Slip for free in May. At this point Reznor doesn't have to make money selling albums en masse -- his true fans will still buy the CD and and vinyl copies even though the download is free, they'll still come to his concerts and buy t-shirts and posters.
As we've pointed out in the past, this is also essentially the same theory employed by music startup Sellaband (our coverage), which asks music acts to generate $50,000 from "believers" -- usually in the form of $10 donations from 5,000 true fans. Any band that reaches that goal gets studio time to record a full album and distribution via the site and other retail channels.
However, it is still not clear whether Reznor's success can be duplicated by long tail artists. Clearly, cultivating enough die hard fans to make a living, especially while giving away your core product for free, is not easy. For Reznor it took 20 years and he had the backing of major labels along the way (Reznor's Nothing Records is owned by Interscope, which is in turn owned by Universal Music Group).
"If success for independent artists requires the cultivation of 'true fans' then awareness is paramount," we said in a March post that argued for the positive effect that putting music out for free into viral distribution channels like social networks can have for artists. But for independent artists who don't have major label backing, free might be a Catch-22. Give away tracks to build awareness and cultivate true fans, but try not to cultivate fans who expect everything to be free forever.
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http://begthequestion.info/ 'nuf said.
1000 true fans, that too on Facebook - check out what Karmafan offers.
@Philip: Eh...
Oh good terminology wars.... /sigh
NIN and Radiohead can give their stuff away because, unless they've been massively screwed by their accountants they're rich. If they never make a dime off of any of the music they do from now until they die... they should be fine. Pointing to this and claiming that it illustrates how musicians should work in the future is silly.
I understand why people want things for free. But, if the music has value to us... why are we so reluctant to pay for it or to see people charge for it? Why do we act like expecting payment for things of value is wrong?
@rickg: I don't think I ever said it is how musicians should work in the future, just that it is becoming increasingly more common for mainstream acts to go down the path toward free distribution.
I don't know if long tail or emerging artists can afford to give out all their music for free. Major labels certainly won't do it (unless they follow the LiveNation model and start getting more into things like concert promotion and merchandising as well).
There is, however, a lot of value in awareness for both small and mainstream acts alike. By giving away music for free on viral distribution channels like MySpace, I know more than one small band who have personally been able to build up a fan base large enough that they can now make a living touring and selling CDs and t-shirts.
@rickg: I cannot speak for everybody, but personally I have no problem with the idea of paying for my music. What I do have a problem with is paying a ridiculous price price to the record labels (of which very little goes to the artist).
If nothing else, I hope that recent releases by Radiohead and NIN demonstrate to bands that there is no need for the big name labels any longer, as the majority of people now just want to put the music on their computer and/or iPod anyway. If they go online and sell their albums for even $5, the artist ends up with more in pocket than they'd get from the label, and the consumer gets a significantly better deal.
I think NIN is showing us the way of the future for music, at least for established musicians. However, I still think there is an important role for traditional conglomerate music companies to play in this whole evolution, which is that they still have the unique set of resources to launch an unknown artist into stardom. For example, TV is still an incredibly powerful medium, just look at the stars made by American Idol so far.
We are starting to slowly see starving musicians using American Idol to launch their careers, singers like David Cook and Chris Daughtry are obviously talented but struggled for years to break out on their own and stays relatively unknown until American Idol. It is this control or influence that music companies should nourish instead of fighting the futile battles of suing bit torrent users and further alienating their customer base.
So music companies, wake up and hear the music and tune it to your advantage instead of fighting the inevitable and you might just have a chance to stay relevant in the evolution of the internet.
I believe in old sayings. And this one seems to have held quite a bit of water during my lifetime: There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Anything can work once. Anything might work for you or it might work for me. None of this guarentes that it will work more than once or for more than one person.
If it is such a good theory then all companies would be doing it. Which is great news becasue I will be needing a new car in a few months. I wonder if BMW has a waiting list for fee cars?
Live From Las Vegas
The Masked Millionaire
I was just wondering this too - if giving away music for free works for independent artists as well. Ultraviolet Sound, who gives away their music for free because each song has a "sponsored by" message read by the band itself at the start, is an example of a smaller band pursuing alternative distribution methods. I think there are a number of methods that the smaller bands can use, but it'll be interesting to see which ones work.
@josh - And to be clear I'm not saying that they shouldn't work that way. But we need to be clear that what works for established acts might not work for less established or unknown acts. The publicity that NIN or Radiohead gets when they do this tilts the conversation to "this this the future for music" vs "is this what established bands should do?" Look at thetitle of this post - "Is Free the New Price of Music" certainly implies all music.
Of course this is not an all or nothing proposition - an act could give away their first album or a couple of songs from an album or 128k MP3s but not all of their stuff.
@ken - well this is why some artists are starting to launch their own social networks where they can control the experience, build a commuity tied to them, and to sell their music directly. But in 2008 I don't have any sympathy for bands that have signed with a label and then complain about the crappy percentage that they get. In 1998? Yeah, valid issue. In 2008? Um... wake the heck up guys. iTunes and selling songs vs whole albums was a move in the right direction. Selling those direct from the band to the fan is, I think, the next logical step.
If someone wants to control their own IP... they can do it now. If they don't, well...
@rickg Actually, Reznor was screwed several million by his then manager John Malm. Although he won a multi-million settlement in court, I doubt he'll see much of that.
Reznor said in an interview here in Australia that he accepted a band without the profile of NIN would not have been as successful as he was with 'Ghosts'. However, that's not to say that the band couldn't achieve a level of success that allowed them to be comfortable and continue doing what they love - write and perform music. Not everyone wants (nor needs) to be mega rich or mega famous to be successful.
As for the question of how many new albums does NIN have? Look at this timeline of major album releases:
1989 Pretty Hate Machine
1994 The Downward Spiral
1999 The Fragile
Late 2004, Reznor finally gets sober
2005 With Teeth
2007 Year Zero
2008 Ghosts I-IV
2008 The Slip
Sobriety seems to have conincided with renewed creativity. I think there's still quite a few new albums left in him :)
Anyway, NIN have a big tour coming up in July. Publicity from The Slip can only be a good thing for tickets and merch sales, no?
I happened to (re)start a blog at the time when free became a topic by Kevin Kelly and Chris Anderson. So 80% of my posts are related to free. There is nothing magical about free. Free is just another business model choice.
No more fad.
There is another thing to consider: that perhaps Trent Reznor is doing this for purely selfish reasons.
When you give to a charity, how does it make you feel? How about when you help out a friend? It feels pretty great to give of yourself.
Reznor seems genuine in his love for music and his fans. I believe that he decided to give away his music, at least in part, because it made him feel great to do it.
And that, I'm sure, was a much better payoff than money could ever be.
How selfish of you, Trent Reznor. And by the way, thanks.