[Korbain]

Originally Posted by TheMissing

Saw this yesterday. Very ammusing indeed.

Note that after this video was filmed, NIN got dropped from their label

LOL thats fucking funny. I think he wanted that reaction though, he's been wanting to be independent for the past few years. Whether you like him/NIN or not, you gotta admire he's sticking it up to the labels. Its good to see a man of his position doing something like this, lets hope it starts a new trend.

[eleven59]

Check out nin.com [the official nine inch nails website]

Looks like he's going about this in a really cool way (even better than Radiohead, IMHO). He's basically telling everyone what each of the formats offers, where to get the best quality in the digital download, and telling people to stop complaining about having to pay for things because they can just steal them anyways.

His biggest concern was always the quality of the content that people were hearing. He didn't care about getting paid, he just wanted people to experience his albums the way he intended them (i.e. high audio quality, packaging, etc.). If he ever cared about album sales, it was because of label pressure pissing him off and stressing him out.

[josh821]

Although I think it's perfectly fine to "steal" music I'm not sure I agree with his statement that we're charged too much for CDs. Have you ever looked at the breakdown of where all the costs and profits go for your average band? I think it was Steve Albini who wrote up a long thing about that back in the late 90s or so when Napster was getting the spotlight. Basically what it came down to was that if you were a new band you were going to be really lucky to be able to pay off the advance your given to record an album. That was before record sales plummeted even, I'm sure it's much more difficult now. It's nice to imagine that the artist gets $.02 a CD and the other $15.98 is complete profit for some fat cats sitting up in their golden towers laughing but I don't think it really works out that way.

EDIT: Just noticed this:

"It also contains a DVD ROM (not a movie) that contains every track from Year Zero in multitrack format for you to do with what you please."

That's insanely cool and the fact that he sounds completely cool with the fact that those multitracks will end up on file sharing programs right away makes it even nicer. I've never heard of someone essentially giving away their masters.

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by josh821

Although I think it's perfectly fine to "steal" music I'm not sure I agree with his statement that we're charged too much for CDs. Have you ever looked at the breakdown of where all the costs and profits go for your average band? I think it was Steve Albini who wrote up a long thing about that back in the late 90s or so when Napster was getting the spotlight. Basically what it came down to was that if you were a new band you were going to be really lucky to be able to pay off the advance your given to record an album. That was before record sales plummeted even, I'm sure it's much more difficult now. It's nice to imagine that the artist gets $.02 a CD and the other $15.98 is complete profit for some fat cats sitting up in their golden towers laughing but I don't think it really works out that way.

EDIT: Just noticed this:

"It also contains a DVD ROM (not a movie) that contains every track from Year Zero in multitrack format for you to do with what you please."

That's insanely cool and the fact that he sounds completely cool with the fact that those multitracks will end up on file sharing programs right away makes it even nicer. I've never heard of someone essentially giving away their masters.

They're not the masters, they're bounced tracks (i.e. a track or two of "guitars" that are all the guitar tracks, already processed, bounced to stereo, etc.).

And actually, until they pay off the recording costs, the band and producer get $0 from each CD. When it's paid off, they get a small percentage (very small, I think it was something like 8% or something, more if they got writing credits, which usually only the singer, or whoever wrote the songs), and the producer gets his percentage, but paid back to the first CD sold, the band gets paid starting with the first CD after the advance is paid off.

[shadowgenesis]

/\ true statement. Do some reading. Bands really do make shit on record sales if they're working with the big four (or was it big five? i forget now). And there's not much money in independent record sales either just because they have far less publicity and marketability without big label backing.


the multi-track thing is very cool. For a production class i took two years ago we remixed a NIN song that was part of a contest they ran. I guess they're fans of remixes cuz it gets fans more involved with the music and it just creates more Nine Inch Nails songs that people might like.

i'm a bit behind the times. i just got The Downward Spiral in the mail last week. But that CD is awesome and i am totally supportive of this move.

I'm REALLY happy to see some well established artists still have their hearts in music for the right reasons and are doing something about it.

[forelander]

Originally Posted by josh821

Although I think it's perfectly fine to "steal" music I'm not sure I agree with his statement that we're charged too much for CDs.

All else aside, in that vid he is referring to the cost of cd's in australia, and the fact that year zero was more expensive than other cd's for the sole reason that it could be. I dunno what you pay for cd's but here they're around 30 AUS which is pretty close to 30 US these days.

[josh821]

Originally Posted by forelander

All else aside, in that vid he is referring to the cost of cd's in australia, and the fact that year zero was more expensive than other cd's for the sole reason that it could be. I dunno what you pay for cd's but here they're around 30 AUS which is pretty close to 30 US these days.

Ah, that context helps clarify exactly why he was saying that then. Thanks.

And I wasn't saying that bands make great money off of CD sales at all, I was saying that it's not necessarily anyone who makes great money off of CD sales. It's the big if in "if they pay off the advance" that's the problem. Obviously if the band doesn't sell well enough to pay that off then neither they nor the record company get a dime from those CDs and from the sounds of it this has always been a pretty common occurance outside of established bands.

[Metal Ken]

Originally Posted by Henry Rollins

Why would you want to pay 22.50 in a strip mall for a fucking J-Lo Record? THATS CRIME. So, some people steal. And while i wouldn't really advocate thievery... I wouldn't say "Hey, go shoplift!" -- you can get in trouble! ... But, when you see the tiny indie bands, selling the record in the van, buy it at the show, buy it when you can. Anything bigger than that? STEAL THAT SHIT, I SAY!

[amonb]

Yeah the Australian prices for Year Zero were ridiculous.... they were charging $36 in Brisbane cause the fucking thing was in a digipack. It was ridiculous.

Someone of Trent's size does not need a label. Someone of Radiohead's size does not need a label. But they both needed labels to get to that point.

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by josh821

Ah, that context helps clarify exactly why he was saying that then. Thanks.

And I wasn't saying that bands make great money off of CD sales at all, I was saying that it's not necessarily anyone who makes great money off of CD sales. It's the big if in "if they pay off the advance" that's the problem. Obviously if the band doesn't sell well enough to pay that off then neither they nor the record company get a dime from those CDs and from the sounds of it this has always been a pretty common occurance outside of established bands.

Wrong-o. The record company gets their percentage no matter what. They make up the recording advance by not giving the artist their % of sales until it's all paid off. They still take the same amount, whether the advance is paid off or not.

Obviously the cost of a CD is broken up into:
-artist's percentage
-producer's percentage
-writer's percentage
-packaging costs
-distribution costs
-any other royalties (i.e. licensing for samples/cover songs/etc)
-the record store's percentage
-whatever the record company's keeping for themselves.

If they weren't getting their own percentage of album sales while the advance was being paid back, they wouldn't get any money when everything was paid off either. Obviously they're making money, otherwise why would they be doing it?

Originally Posted by amonb

Yeah the Australian prices for Year Zero were ridiculous.... they were charging $36 in Brisbane cause the fucking thing was in a digipack. It was ridiculous.

Someone of Trent's size does not need a label. Someone of Radiohead's size does not need a label. But they both needed labels to get to that point.

Actually, the label reps kept giving Trent those lame excuses like "Because it's a digipack" or "Because of the heat sensitive coating on the CDs" until he finally got a straight answer: The CDs cost that much because he's got a dedicated fan base that is willing to pay anything for his CDs.

They charged that much because they knew they could. They were deliberately gouging the fans, simply because they were fans, and that was the last straw for him.

They knew no one would pay $36 for the new Kanye West or Britney Spears album, but they knew people would pay ridiculous prices for Nine Inch Nails CDs, so they charged them that much. Kinda sad when even the record companies are admitting they're putting out crap that no one really wants.