What is Digg?118 Comments
- prompel, on 10/26/2008, -17/+87Well, "Most Artists" suck.
- ArthurSucks, on 10/26/2008, -2/+70My band made more money with porno ads on our website.
- Aspire36, on 10/25/2008, -2/+69Big name bands can pretty much do what they want.
- whatthefu, on 10/26/2008, -0/+42Just because a model for selling music doesn't work for them doesn't mean they suck. ***** artists sell tons of albums all the time.
- inactive, on 10/25/2008, -10/+49Ummmm, Duh????
- crashbang, on 10/26/2008, -5/+34Well not everyone is going to be millionaire because of there music. I like the notion of a "middle class" band. They make enough money to play music and pay their bills. If you can do that without having to have a huge infrastructure of labels, promoters, distributors, blahblahblah, sounds pretty effin awesome to me. Then it's like a small business.
- HillerMylife, on 10/26/2008, -0/+26NIИ
- ElAmo, on 10/26/2008, -13/+35We knew this already.
....but thanks anyway for submitting SUCH original content.
/s - kidathinnes, on 10/26/2008, -5/+23Actually Radiohead did it because they wanted to get their music out and they did not have a label. Instead of making their fans wait 3 more months, they allowed them to download it. I seriously doubt Radiohead is concerned about the attention they get. I really like NIN, but for some reason some NIN fans cannot fathom the idea that another band released their music online for free. Get over it, it won't be the last time.
- MaTT2011, on 10/26/2008, -10/+28NIN can do it because NIN has been consistent in their positions concerning this matter, unlike SOME bands *cough* radiohead *cough* who do it for attention, and because they are also consistent in the quality of their work.
NIN is like jesus, but with more awesome. - StuartGibson, on 06/14/2009, -1/+18U2 have Internet credibility? I thought we all hated U2 and, in particular, Bono for being a self absorbed, arrogant prick.
- Lousansano, on 10/26/2008, -2/+18NiN didn't have a donation model, they released the slip for free and different tiers of pay for ghosts (5,10,75,300). Its not any better or worse than radioheads its just different.
- Devotia, on 10/26/2008, -2/+18If you're making $1000 in three years from your music, you should probably stick to your day job.
- algaeturd, on 10/26/2008, -7/+22grass is green, sky is blue, film at 11:00
- shagg187, on 10/26/2008, -0/+14Ahh Jeez. Here we go again and here i am again convincing people how nineinchnails' model was VASTLY different than Radiohead's. Radiohead released In Rainbows for "pay as you go" model to prevent potential Bittorrent leaks. They won by release low quality audio tracks than it is usually available in Bittorrent. That way, even if there IS a potential leak with higher bitrate, people will ignore it for the fact that you can download it off their website, thus NOT beating the system that everyone hopes. Later, they pretty much said "***** you" to all and stopped providing In Rainbows via their website. They will never approach this model again and it was a mere publicity stunt.
Here's where nineinchnails succeed. Trent Reznor provided Volume I of the IV volume album for free in a high bitrate. Not only that, but he released the entire album under CC, which supports sharing and modifying as long as simple credit is given to the original artist. Not only that, but he provided various packaging for people who prefers physical entity (If you are a nineinchnails' fan, you'll know that physical entity weighs more than virtual entity. Even though Ghosts is released in stores, it is STILL available online. The master tracks are also available in your friendly Bittorrent sites (once again, approved by Reznor himself), you can pretty much do whetever you want with it.
"The Slip" was Trent Reznor's gift to his fans for being so enthusiastic about his Ghosts' model. Once again, it will be indefinitely available online at high bitrate (album and master tracks all released via Bittorrent). Once again, to give something to nineinchnails' fans who love physical release, a 2 limited, numbered, CD/DVD package is released in stores for the price of any regular 2 CD/DVD album out there.
Not only that, but he released a 4 disc compilation set entitled "Definitive NIN" which includes almost all of his catalog ranging from singles to deep cuts to quiet tracks. What about the non-album discs i.e. remixes? Well, thats where remix.nin.com comes in, where Trent Reznor himself released all of the tracks from the other 15+ remix/singles discs. Radiohead, on the other hand, charged fans $5+ for their "Nude" master track (same applies for the recently released "Reckoner" master track).
Trent Reznor also released the out-of-print Live album "Closure" on Bittorrent in high quality and amazing audio with alot of extras and unseen footage from other shows and studio (this was suppose to release in 2003 but the record label couldn't get their foot out of their ass so Trent Reznor said ***** it and leaked it). Not only that, but "Broken" DVD was also released on Bittorrent.
As much as i love Radiohead, Trent Reznor is in an entirely different league! He started giving out tracks for free even before Radiohead could think of it. - ZOMGitsRadimus, on 10/26/2008, -3/+15'The Slip' = Best 5 bucks I ever spent on music.
- eminn3m, on 10/26/2008, -2/+13I think this article simply shows that TF is a balanced news source seeking to accurately document Piracy and not slant it to make piracy/the free model look better than it is. That said this article isn't taking into account the publicity artists get from releasing their album free and which inevitably leads to concert sales if timed properly.
- SpeedSteamBoat, on 10/26/2008, -0/+10Only Ghosts I was available for free. The other 3 CDs you had to pay for.
- HillerMylife, on 10/26/2008, -3/+12$1000 in three years is hardly enough to pay the bills.
- ZOMGitsRadimus, on 10/26/2008, -0/+9Err sorry, Ghosts I-IV... you get the idea.
- inactive, on 10/26/2008, -0/+9this model fails because part of NINs model is to have 20 years of awesome label promotion and support leading up to the moment where they can pull this off.
- 12angrynuns, on 10/26/2008, -0/+9yeah yeah yeah yeah.......
- cassaffousth, on 10/26/2008, -0/+8I'll say it loud: MUSICIANS PROFIT FROM CONCERTS!
- HyperJack, on 10/26/2008, -1/+8Rubbish comment is rubbish
- Jones82, on 10/26/2008, -1/+8The sarcasm tag was totally necessary
/s - qwertyxuiop, on 10/26/2008, -0/+7My last band tried this model
we got about 1000 downloads of the full record and made 0$
We also sold 500 actual cds... needless to say we were disappointed
Onthe other hand we did get a ton of otherwise impossible exposure in places that we never could have toured to.. so there are ups and downs
I still think that it is a model with some potential - BradGroux, on 10/26/2008, -0/+7First of all, it's NIN not NiN. Secondly, NIN did NOT use a donation model... they used a tiered pay model, $5 for digital download, $10 for download + CD, $75 for deluxe edition and $300 for signed collector's edition. Get the facts straight Mr. Blog man.
- SpeedSteamBoat, on 10/26/2008, -7/+13No.
- BradGroux, on 10/26/2008, -0/+5There were 250,000 limited edition CDs printed... and people who like to support artists finally sticking up for themselves put down $12 bucks for it to support Trent & Co.
- 1ShotJake, on 10/26/2008, -1/+6I would just like to simply point out two things....
its NIN not NiN (Inch is capitalized as it is a name....)
and NIN did not have a donation level (already stated above) - Tonamel, on 10/26/2008, -0/+5See also: Johnathan Coulton
- MaTT2011, on 10/26/2008, -2/+7They released it without a label and then promptly released it WITH a label.....so yah.
Using something novel to get attention is great, just dont go around saying you dont need a label to get your music out and then a little while later getting a label to, thats right, get your music out.
So theres nothing to get over aside from the hypocrisy some bands have no problem exhibiting. Im a radiohead fan, as most NIN fans are so dont try turning this into some lame fanboy war, and appreciate their attempt but they need to commit. - SpeedSteamBoat, on 10/26/2008, -1/+6Buried for lumping in DMB and U2 with Radiohead and NiN... buried HARD.
- whataSAMF, on 11/28/2008, -1/+5if they didnt care, trent reznor wouldnt of given out his last entire album for free.
- unitedkronos, on 10/27/2008, -0/+4Your band makes porn with each other?
- vpshockwave, on 10/26/2008, -0/+3be stupid up in this bitch*
- bat-21, on 10/26/2008, -0/+3Maybe the artists at Jamendo would have better luck if Jamendo redesigned their site. Right now there are 5 buttons on an artist's page: Favorite, Share, Support This Artist, Seen Live and Forum. At most other band and music sites, Support This Artist means joining their street team or friending them on MySpace or Twitter. Changing it to a Donate button would probably yield better results.
- crashbang, on 10/26/2008, -4/+7*their music*
- sleepwalkers, on 10/26/2008, -0/+3@kidathinnes: I don't have any issues with what Radiohead, nor am I one of those crazy fanboys that you're referring to, but I do want to point one thing out: I think the reason that some people are railing against Radiohead for what they did is that it could be construed as disingenuous. They put the album up for free/donation for a few months, got tons of press, and then when the album was released in stores it was pulled offline.
The argument is that if a band just wants their music to get out or there's a delay, why not put it up and leave it up instead of pulling it down once the physical copy is released? - sheik, on 10/26/2008, -1/+4Way to have a matching description with your title
- doshindude, on 10/26/2008, -0/+3living under a rock or something?
Nine Inch Nails. - noticedneutrino, on 10/26/2008, -1/+4That's because MOST artist make ***** music
- alvinrod, on 10/26/2008, -1/+4A band could just decide not to sign with a label at all. If they're moderately good and have at least one single that performs moderately well it could probably see around 200k sales from online music stores. After that store takes a $.25 cut or so, the artist would be left with nearly $.70 for each single sold. That's over $100,000 for just having one song that a fairly small percentage of people liked enough to spend a dollar to buy it.
That doesn't even take into account concert and merchandise revenue either. A band could make a decent living just from having one or two good songs every few years. You don't need to sell millions of albums to make it either. You might not be flying in private jets or doing lines of blow off a hooker's ass, but it's a living.
Whether you want to give your music away free, or charge some small amount for it, the best way to make a living as an artist is to get rid of the parasitic middlemen that are the record companies and the RIAA. They only thing they do is grow fat on the work of others and harass potential customers with scare tactics. They're trying to hold on to a dead business model and dragging down the entire industry while they do it.
Giving away music for free or charging for it may or may not be a viable business model, but the RIAA and big record companies are far worse for musicians than copyright infringement or piracy (yes, there is a difference between the two) has ever been.
In short, ***** the RIAA. - dafragsta, on 10/26/2008, -0/+3I totally disagree. I'm working on my very first album and honestly, I don't expect to make a dime off of it. Don't get me wrong. It would be nice to make money for the effort and great expense, but I hope I can just get people to listen to by offering it for free. The problem with most bands is that they expect that there is money waiting to be made off album sales. That is true if the fans are waiting on it and WILLING to pay, but giving the album away isn't going to change how willing they are to pay for it.
I'd rather put the album up for free download an a paypal tip jar of sorts than set a price and alienate the honesty in people to pay what they think it's worth. In the vast collective music consciousness of the internet, you are far more likely to make fans and money than by being an IP miser and only distributing your music at your live shows, which in the beginning, are probably going to be indifferent to your work in addition to being small, and unless you plan on touring, you aren't going to get much broad exposure.
I can see some middle of the road bands who have some radio success getting screwed because they have a lukewarm fanbase and are really only known for one or two songs, but unless the rest of their music is good, why should anyone be forced to buy their entire album anyway? If you are more of a one hit wonder like that though, you can still make your money on iTunes and give your new albums away with the same tip jar principle. This is a good way to show potential fans that you have some depth beyond the single radio hit, without making them buy a potentially ***** album.
The thing people are complaining about is that when they put an album out, they expect you to pay $10 no matter what, even if there's really only 2 good songs on it. - cubicledrone, on 10/26/2008, -2/+5The entire recording industry was built by popularizing music on the radio...
...where people could hear it for free. This was a non-issue 60 years ago. It's still a non-issue. - Ratteler, on 10/26/2008, -0/+3This is like saying Radio ads would never make money in mid 1920's.
Actually... that's a little generous. It's like saying Radio Ads would never make money in the 1920's if Radio's were illegal to own!
This is a new form of distribution. Unlike Radio which had GE and Westinghouse pushing it, the Internet distribution model is under endless, and constant, attack from Big Media whose sole control of the industry relies on controlling the distribution system.
Before you can even judge when/if this will be profitable you'll need to retrain the public on hows to find music in this new system.
Then, you still have to find an audience that is interested in your music.
I think new bands that grant licenses to YouTube people could gain the popularity they are missing.
But without some kind of centralized distribution system... it's like trying to tune to your favorite radio station with out numbers or a dial. - mingusmingus, on 10/26/2008, -0/+3as a canadian musician who supports himself primarily through touring revenue, i can tell you straight up that i really don't care who pirates my music. the people who want to buy the album are going to buy the album. the people who want to download it for free are going to do so. and hey, the people who download it will hopefully come to your show, bring a friend, and buy a t-shirt.
unless your band has some highly marketable kings of leon-eque looks, there's absolutely no need to sign a record deal, in this musical climate.
finance your own album with hard work, tour often, be an amazing live band, and don't have any higher hopes than making a tour profitable.
a career in music should be the last thing you expect. - Ratteler, on 10/26/2008, -0/+2Also look at special cause licensing for YouTube and other not for profit distribution channels. I can't count the amount of new music I found because I dugg a soundtrack I heard on YouTube.
Radio in general is a failing medium. 80% of the people I know who drive now put on their iPod's as soon as they get in the car and change playlists instead of channels. That means their only lisinged to music they know, and never discovering anything new.
They only time they check the radio is if there is traffic or weather.
This insulates them from what was the most common source of new music.
Radio at home has the same issue. The MTV empire rarely puts on music at all these days. When they do it's basically Payolla based music from Big Media.
When Napster was destroyed, big media lost their greatest chance at some control over this system. I would find new bands that I never heard of and music from shared playlists . Then if I liked them, I went out and bought the CD.
Until we get back to such a system, everyone is screwed. - brownspank, on 10/27/2008, -0/+2Actually, it's NiИ. (Or is it ИiN?)
- cfuse, on 10/27/2008, -0/+2Well, the alternative, putting your music out with the labels - how does that work out better for most artists? At least you get to keep your own copyright if you self publish.
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