Amazon's Best-Selling Album Download of 2008 Was Available for Free
In March 2008, Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails released the first part of Ghosts I-IV via BitTorrent, and released all four albums under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. Even though fans could easily get free versions of the album, Ghosts actually went on to become the best-selling album of 2008 on Amazon's MP3 store.
Radiohead's In Rainbows, another high-profile album which was available for free for a limited time in late 2007, ended the year just outside of Amazon's Top 10 for 2008.
Why Pay for Free Music?
Trent Reznor himself questioned the viability of the 'free' music model earlier this year, but clearly, his own band has been able to make it work. While overall album sales were down last year (even when accounting for digital downloads), bands like the Nine Inch Nails have been able to leverage their fanbase and bypass the traditional music industry channels, while still making a profit.
On the Creative Commons blog, Fred Benenson asks why people chose to pay for the NIN album even though they could have had it for free. While, as he points out, ease of use is surely one reason, most fans probably simply want to support their favorite musicians by actually paying them directly for their music.
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This is the best example that free Music works. Magnatune has been working on the same principles for years ^^
When a band or artist gives away part of the album for free for you to try it's an act of good faith on their part. I as a fan/consumer WANT to help them out because I appreciate their music. I personally bought the Ghosts albums after I downloaded Ghost I for free. It's one of the best digital album purchases I've made- in fact it's the ONLY one I've made. That speaks volumes for tactics.
When the artist shows care and concern for their listeners the listener gives it back. Maybe that's why free unapproved song downloads continue to proliferate as much as they do.
It's the same business logic the music industry has used for many years.
Popular artist = many fans want to pay = charge them full price = a lot of money for the artist and for the label.
Less popular artist = not so many fans want to pay = put it out at nice-price = less money for the artist and, depending on the contract, maybe equally less money for the label.
So - fans pay. Big surprise.
Maybe that's what made the industry so slow to understand and react? There's nothing new. Except the label doesn't own the marketing channel anymore. And since labels since many years are nothing more than marketing businesses - well, someting is happening but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr Jones?
As a fan of both radiohead and NIN, I downloaded it for free AND paid for a CD, directly from each band.
I believe in the honor system, and If an artist makes the work available to me for free, I'll follow through in some manner to fund their work. I don't consider this a matter of convenience -- although that's a reason for having a CD -- I consider this a matter of honor, paying an artist that trusted me enough to give his album a try and If I thought the work was enjoyable, to pay for it.
I believe if you queried a lot of these fans as to why they bought given they could have walked away without paying, you would hear much the same lime of reasoning.
Some people just don't know where else to find music but iTunes. They may hear it online but have no way to capture to songs....therefore - straight to iTunes to buy it.
I do it as well. I know that I can use a media recorder such as Blaze Pro to capture songs online, but what's .99cents when it comes to the ease of using iTunes or other services like those.
So mass ignorance may play a small role in the free-music = more paid music sold equation.
@startmysong
We have all known this for ages, even way back when Napster was the king of music sharing. It is only now the so called "Music Big Wigs" and industry are waking up to this fact.
About time. On rolls the digital revolution.
WOW! NIN beat even Coldplay! Nice to see GOOD music triumph over all the sonic garbage that the music industry tries to force into our ears nowadays. Way to go, Trent!
I bought it from Amazon, mainly for ease of access. I was at work at the time and BitTorrent was not an option. Amazon's downloads are wicked fast. The download off of the NIN site, not so much.
Also, worth noting is the price (disregarding the free avenue for a bit). At $5 for four CD's worth of tracks, it was a ton cheaper than most of the other releases, yet still was the #1 selling album.
I think it's funny how Ghosts I-IV is the #1 best selling, and yet it's no where to be found on the list for "Editor Picks: Best Albums of 2008". Just goes to show you how out of touch these people (editors, and other critics) are.
WICKED!
Another band releasing their music for free on mySpace and last.fm are Hangin Freud. We are currently advertising their latest site on google Adwords and Microsoft Ad Center.
They have released both their albums for free and you can also purchase them directly from the artist if you enquire via e-mail!