What is Digg?Sponsored by HowLifeWorks
How to Make Your PC as Fast as the Day You Bought It view!
howlifeworks.com - What's the fastest way to restore a computer to its original blazing glory
274 Comments
- fusen, on 01/10/2008, -9/+119I think the problem Reznor has is how highly he seems to praise Saul's music when clearly not many others feel the same way. Reading the majority of comments from those who downloaded his album, they simply didn't like the songs and so didn't pay. I was just like the rest where I downloaded the album without paying and listened to it once then left it sit in my library ever since unplayed.
- slicenglide, on 01/10/2008, -5/+59I downloaded the album, and it honestly wasn't that great. That's why I didn't pay for it. Don't count it as a loss Trent when the album doesn't sell well but is downloaded a lot. I honestly tried to listen to every track and like it, but when the only song that barely caught the ear was a cover of sunday bloody sunday by U2, not worth a dollar.
- SuperCow1127, on 01/10/2008, -5/+47Why don't submitters describe the article in the description? Copying the first paragraph isn't all that helpful.
- bffoley, on 01/10/2008, -7/+42Wow, nice to see nobody's actually reading the article before posting.
The TLDR version is: Trent thinks that paying $5 a month for access to ALL music is a good idea. I dont think people who use a music subscription or regularly buy off iTunes disagree with that. - joeflynn, on 01/10/2008, -3/+31maybe the flaw in the plan was a lack of good product. I wonder what a Rolling Stones or Springsteen would do with this business plan. I see a up and coming group making it big with this kind of plan. Many groups make money from touring and i see this as a way of promoting a tour by: Splashing the free album web site a week or two before you hit town on the local media.
- Otto, on 01/10/2008, -1/+28I think he's looking at this wrong.
Let's say that nobody's going to buy an album unless:
1. They know the artist and like their previous work.
2. They know the album and like it.
For this case, you have a nobody (I've never heard of the guy), so #1 doesn't help any. For the second case, you're giving them the album for free. So the only reason for them to pay for it is their own generosity, to come back and get it again, to support the artist (or to support the idea, if you prefer to think of it that way).
He says that 5 people downloaded it for every 1 who bought it. That's not bad, actually. That means that 1 in 5 liked it enough to come back and buy it. That's 20%, not bad for an unknown artist. Certainly better than should be expected.
But here's the thing, those other 4 people who didn't buy it might still have the album. They might play it. Their friends might hear it or get a copy from him. If they like it, they may buy his next album without listening to it, or their friends might do the same. And this feeds back to #1, people knowing the artist.
A known artist is going to sell more on the first try than an unknown artist is. But the more music the unknown artist gets out there, the more known he becomes. You cannot become a superstar overnight. - catalysis, on 01/10/2008, -2/+28Regardless of how diggers have presented and even twisted Trent's views to match their own, he still thinks people should pay for music. He has stated it many times so this should not surprise anyone. You can't just take a musician's (and many others') life work, then turn around and tell them to ***** off when they need money to get by.
- bffoley, on 01/10/2008, -6/+32Exactly. I love Nine Inch Nails but I haven't been impressed with anything of Saul's I've heard. Therefore I didn't do the $5 or even the free download. I think Trent just assumed people would take his word for it and try out the album.
- paulg2000, on 01/10/2008, -1/+24I still think the $5 or $0 option wasn't open ended enough. I think there would be people that would easily pay $10 or more once (but wouldn't if they have to jump through two $5 hoops just to have the same effect).
On the other hand, would there be people that choose $2 or $3 instead of $5? Maybe. But I think there would also be as many people (or more) choosing to pay $2 or $3 instead of $0. - inactive, on 01/10/2008, -6/+28Where the ***** is this guy going where his quarter pounder is $5? You can get the whole Value Meal for that.
- Nerfdude, on 01/10/2008, -1/+22right on the money. i downloaded the album not because i'd ever heard of saul williams, but because i was curious of what trent reznor was backing. i didn't pay for it because i didn't know what i was getting. if there was a Nine Inch Nails album released independently on the internet, i'd pay five bucks for it (provided it was at least 320kbps if not FLAC), because i'd know i'd be getting something i like.
- Fatcheeseguy, on 01/10/2008, -4/+23In the morbid future, I might be taxed for saying a company's name or logo.
- inactive, on 01/10/2008, -1/+16You're kinda off with your assessment.
Considering this 2 month old digital release sold ALMOST as much as Saul's last album that's been out for almost 4 years now, that's a pretty ***** amazing thing and says a lot.
I believe Trent is viewing the data from a different perspective in not accounting for return visitors (or maybe he is, I dunno, I don't have the data), but the numbers in visitor traffic directly correlating to downloads/sales aren't always black and white. Especially when it comes to music. There are so many variables to consider when looking at visitor traffic on a site.
The type of scenario where someone bought it, later went to a friend's house and for whatever reason downloaded it again (this time without paying) isn't too far fetched in this situation.
Guarantee you in 4 years AFTER all the touring, this digital release will most definitely have sold and made more than the previous one. - naonao, on 01/10/2008, -0/+15Deep down, it isn't about a cause, it's just about good music, which Trent's little side project lacked. Why would we pay $5 for something that we don't like?
- Noods, on 01/10/2008, -2/+16I favor Trent Reznor paying the tax himself.
- offspring06, on 01/10/2008, -1/+14I think Trent overestimated the star power of a relatively unknown muscian. I never even heard of Saul Williams so why would I pay $5 for an album that I may not even like. I think the fact that more people are listening to this album than his last one is a victory in itself. Rome wasn't built in a day so he can't expect Saul to have a massive fanbase yet. Maybe the next album he releases will sell better. I think if Nine Inch Nails releases their next album in a similar fashion than they can expect a far better outcome than what Saul has experienced.
- inactive, on 01/10/2008, -4/+16Hmm, it's weird how he is into "forcing" a tax on people now. I still think he is missing the bigger reason for lackluster "sales" of Saul's music. He thinks that the 150K people downloaded it for free and are listening to it on their computer/burned Cd'/MP3 player still. What he doesn't seem to want to acknowledge, is that maybe a lot of people simply didn't LIKE the music, and decided against purchasing a FLAC copy. I don't see why he would want to force people to go back and pay for something that they tried, but legitimately didn't enjoy... If so, he's just as bad as the big record labels.
- gharding, on 01/10/2008, -2/+13Now, if Trent released some of his own ***** this way, I'd pay for it. But Saul Williams? Sorry, it just wasn't that good. I wouldn't mark that as a failure of the distribution method, I'd say it's a musical failure.
- 0xbaadf00d, on 01/10/2008, -21/+32Can I opt out of this tax? If not, ***** you Trent Reznor.
- diggumjonez, on 01/10/2008, -0/+11I've liked Saul William's stuff for a long time. This album was a pretty big departure from his previous albums, but it was still very good. Trent got a lot of things right with the marketing on this, but missed the boat on a few crucial aspects. Instead of, or in addition to, the downloadable free version, stream the songs through the website. Let users listen to them in any order, jumping around the songs any way they like. If the goal was to expose people to the music, this method gives immediate feedback and significantly better marketing results. (Instead of having 1,000 people who downloaded the whole album without paying, you'd find maybe 900 who listened to one or two songs and left, and only 100 people who listened to the entire thing.) Maybe after listening to the whole album, offer them a chance to download it for free.
The artwork/documents included with the pay version was excellent, and a great example to other bands - we love additional material with our media, whether it's deleted scenes, well-written liner notes, comic books, or just good artwork. Perhaps offering a means of acquiring professional hard copies of the artwork would help to sell more. $5 for the download only, or $8 to receive a mailing that is a CD envelope with a copy of the poster.
Anyways, I paid my $5. Listened to the release a few times at work and on the bus ride home. Haven't dug it out since about a week after the release.
sincerely,
diggum - inactive, on 01/10/2008, -5/+16Seriously that album sucks. But I'm not going to buy music just because it's dirt cheap. I even commented to this effect on nin.com. $5 is insultingly cheap, but I'm going to listen to the album for free given the chance and only if I find the music to be awesome will I want it to be in high quality, which I would gladly pay $10-$20 for depending on the length and quality.
- gizmo12688, on 01/10/2008, -2/+12If you read the article, he was just spouting suggestions to please the free-music downloaders. The ISP music tax is optional, and if you do decide to pay the $5 tax, then you get an unlimited amount of free legal songs with great quality. He isn't really serious though, just an idea.
- BoneheadFarker, on 01/10/2008, -3/+13You want me to spend money of something I've never heard??? Not ***** likely. However, if I heard it first, got the feel of it, and it was good, then I might consider kicking over a few dollars for it. But not before that...
- signal15, on 01/10/2008, -0/+9Because he generally has some great ideas, and is one of the only people with any pull trying to come up with alternatives to evil record companies. Eventually he, or others building on his work, will find a business model that works without screwing the artists or fans.
I wish Radiohead would release their numbers, or at least collaborate with Trent privately to compare results and use that to do some tweaking. - skullfckr, on 01/10/2008, -1/+10I think Trent's idea is great. And I'm glad he's acknowledging that SauI's work is not as 'popular' as Radiohead - that's a key point. The better, unspoken truth is that Saul's music is just not as good. I downloaded the music with the mind set that I'd be happy to pay $5 for a higher quality if I liked the music. I don't like it. Just not my cup o' tea. So, no $ - it's simple really. Better music, better artists will help this system to work.
- dafragsta, on 01/10/2008, -2/+11Agreed. I seriously hope Trent reads Digg and knows how to filter unconstructive comments from constructive ones enough to see the forest for the trees. I know he's a bit peeved at Radiohead for giving fans a substandard product (160kbps instead of 320kbps) in the form of their digital download, but they DID make a killing and have repeatedly said that they made more money off of In Rainbows than they have any other Radiohead album.
I bought the Saul Williams album and I think it was worth $5, but I can be honest enough with myself to admit that I've listened to it like 3 times and it's just not sticking. Trent is pissed because he spent a ***** producing the album which is clouding his judgement. He should look at it from another standpoint. Niggy Tardust DID sell like 30K copies (I could be off) and it was a decent amount for an artist that probably never really got a lot of exposure. If Trent hadn't spent so much money on it, I think he'd see things more optimistically. If he releases the next NIN album the same way Niggy Tardust was released, I think he'll change his mind about this new method of digital distribution.
Saul's stuff was good but it doesn't bear repeated listening. You can't sing along to it and It doesn't speak to me as personally as NIN does. Trent should be wary of saying things like this, lest he piss off his fans who are very much against this sort of thing. - juicebag, on 01/10/2008, -2/+11I liked the album.
- paulg2000, on 01/10/2008, -0/+8Also, an "ISP tax" at least the way I'm thinking about it, doesn't seem like it would work at all. And you think the artist doesn't make much off a sale now?... talk about having too many people's hands in the money pot.
- McKay, on 01/10/2008, -0/+8I didn't download the music before paying for it. I figured it was just $5 and I really liked the idea behind it and wanted to try and help in whatever way I could (that being pay the $5). I understand that you didn't have to pay for the music if you didn't want to, but in order for this idea to really catch on with others it needed to make a decent amount in my opinion (what that amount is, who knows). Everyone bitches about the music industry/RIAA and this was a way to really show that a model like this works and there is no need for the RIAA, etc. anymore. Again...just in my opinion it was worth a measly $5 even though I didn't care for the music much.
- Davolo, on 01/10/2008, -0/+8Didn't like what I heard so I didn't buy it.
While I partially agree on a tax, instead of record labels we would face greedy ISP's as they find ways to siphon the revenue / get in on the action and again the money would not be going anywhere near the people who created the music. - BoneheadFarker, on 01/10/2008, -0/+8In Canada, we don't have the option to opt out of the CD tax, and now we have an MP3 player tax introduce on Jan. 1. I take both as an open invitation to download every song and album I can, seeing as I've already paid for the music...
- dogstar0125, on 01/10/2008, -1/+9Adding a surcharge to your ISP bill for music is an idiotic idea. Then you'll need a surcharge for movies, television shows, and every other form of copyrighted content. I agree that the music and film industries need to figure out how to distribute content in the digital age, but this isn't it.
- ethon, on 01/10/2008, -2/+9Or get paid every time you do...
Brought to you by Carls Jr. - aliengoods, on 01/10/2008, -0/+7I downloaded one album online in the last year: In Rainbows. And I paid for it afterwards because I liked it. There is no way in hell my internet bill should jump because others want to download music for free. Why don't we tax batteries that can be used in MP3 players too! Or how about adding a $50 surcharge to all MP3 players. And computers.
It only makes sense if you use the internet to pirate music. And to top it off, how would you feel if the bandwidth (and resulting money from the tax) you used browsing Digg went to the music industry instead of to Digg, a great site that is free? Are the Digg admins going to have to pay extra for their bandwidth, or are servers going to be exempt. And what qualifies a server? This is far from a good idea. Free beer and plentiful sex, now that's a good idea. - dustinmacdonald, on 01/10/2008, -1/+8The $0 option right next to the $5 option, in my mind, hurt the sale. It degraded the value of the music, effectively saying "this music is free, pay $5 if you want." I think Radiohead's was much more effective- you had to literally put in $0.00 at checkout, which left a bit of moral scarring on your conscience.
There was also the problem of trial downloads ***** up the statistics. But if there was a streaming option, similar to the one on NIN's site for Year Zero when it came out, in addition to a simple "Pay $5", it would have worked much better. - Bodhidharmazen, on 01/10/2008, -0/+6Doing the numbers... they sold 28,322 albums at 5 bucks each. That means they made $141, 610 on it. For a basically unknown artist (meaning, he is not in mainstream) I would say numbers are good. Sure, they are not getting millions, but since when more than $100,000 is not good? Maybe the expectations are the fault here, they EXPECTED to get millions out of it? Maybe he should produce some b. spears crap and they will get millions. Who knows.. Besides, what they are doing is pioneering something new, as the years pass they would be able to tell if it works or not. But not now.
- secrity, on 01/10/2008, -2/+8I am not sure what he meant about the ISP "tax". If it is indeed a "tax", that would be a Bad Thing. If the ISP had a contract with the artist or record company to collect payment for the music downloads, that would be fine.
- Pr0phet, on 01/10/2008, -4/+10Ding, ding, ding!
I paid the $5 and listened to the album with sheer regret that I had wasted the money. - inactive, on 01/10/2008, -2/+8The problem is, you are a ***** idiot if you think that everybody should subsidize YOUR music collection.
- lazyfisherman, on 01/10/2008, -1/+7Some problems with an ISP tax:
#1 -- there's no guarantee the label musicians will see a single cent of this money, it will first go to pay the same fat cat label executives that screw up the music industry.
#2 -- If I'm an independent musician, how am I going to get my share of this tax money? There's so many people making music out there and now way to get everyone paid.
#3 -- The tax might start out small but the MAFIAA will lobby and work to increase it until it becomes very cumbersome and unfair.
#4 -- Not everyone gives a damn about music or listening to music and it's not fair for them to have to pay this tax. Some people use the Internet for, you know, business that has nothing to do with music.
#5 -- Music isn't the only thing digital commodity traded on the internet. If the music industry can basically extract money from everyone, why can't the software companies, the music companies and so on.
#6 -- For many reasons, the music industry as a whole has failed to adapt to the times, music as a product HAS lost value and the industry should die a horrible death... to be reborn in some other form.
#7 -- You can't force people to like music and pay for it. Niggy Tardust was interesting but not necessarily something a large number of people are going to like and feel the need to pay for. The release was not a new NIN or eagerly anticipated Radiohead album. People also don't know Saul and don't necessarily feel a connection to him. Some of the most successful independent "Internet" musicians right now work hard to develop their fan base. They don't expect people to just hear their music and give them money for no reason. They develop their own little support systems of fans. - gharding, on 01/10/2008, -0/+6He's an incredibly popular artist and actually looking for new ways to revive the music industry. If someone has a powerful voice about this stuff and CAN impact the industry, I say let him talk. Obviously the labels aren't doing much.
- Klowner, on 01/10/2008, -3/+9Or it'll be a great way to make money... Carl's Junior
- negrojim, on 01/10/2008, -1/+72 months /=/ 48 months (4 years)
it isn't quite case closed yet smart guy - Marc39, on 01/10/2008, -3/+9The tax assumes EVERYONE downloads music and taxes everyone. I can guarantee my parents, like many others, have never downloaded any music. Taking $5 from every household that's connected to the net is BS.
Radiohead did it right. Pay a lil' , none, or full-price. If you put out quality music, the revenue from the downloads, T-shirts, concert tickets, etc WILL pay your bills. - Marc39, on 01/10/2008, -0/+5Fees or charges can be optional while TAXES are not. Maybe Trent misspoke but as it is, he said TAX.
- spyrochaete, on 01/10/2008, -1/+6Amen. Pirate all digital data first and buy it second if it meets your needs.
- dafragsta, on 01/10/2008, -1/+6I don't see how that detracts at all. There will be a new onus upon music fans to pay for their music. There will no longer be the overarching excuse that the record company gets most of the money anyway. I don't buy music now, but I did buy both In Rainbows and Niggy Tardust, and if music became a "pay for what you like" structure, I'd feel very dishonest if I didn't kick my favorite bands a few bucks every once and a while. It's still cheaper. Artificially inflated record prices have been the biggest turnoff to music fans among all issues, I'd bet.
- norman619, on 01/10/2008, -0/+5He obviously thinks the music is better than what it actually is. It's to be expected but he should learn to accept crits. I'm a CG artist and often ask for crits from people. What I think is a good piece and others think is a good piece doesn't always line up. That is life. Since I sell my art I put more weight in their opinions.
- omelette, on 01/10/2008, -2/+7Agreed. And this is why the "tax" in the article is a bad idea. It doesn't reward the good artist or punish the bad. I don't want to contribute to a musician I don't like. I like the tip jar idea that Radiohead used (and they got as much out of my wallet as they would have at the record shop). But please, some scrub not getting paid is not a sign that the system doesn't work. It is in fact, the opposite. Its working like a charm. Its weeding out folks who SHOULDN'T be getting paid. The old, failing system just wants us to have to pay up front - before we know if its something we WANT to pay for.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 275 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is