Trendsetters: Nine Inch Nails Go Digital w/ Album Release and Touring Plans

[Mumbo Sauce]

Nine Inch Nails Gives Fans 'The Slip'
Trent Reznor introduces his latest album, The Slip, with a note that reads, "thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me."
(Excerpts)

He means it. The album is available for free in what could be the perfect array of digital formats: MP3, Lossless (FLAC or Apple) or 24-bit, 96 Kbps WAV files that sound better than the CD would have, if Reznor had bothered to release one yet. Vinyl and CD versions will go on sale in July, according to the site.
You can stream all of The Slip starting today on iLike or download it for free with a valid email address.

Note from Trent Reznor's Site:
Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.

Official Publicist's Comments

Nine Inch Nails' 36-track instrumental opus Ghosts I-IV, released
March 2 via NIN.com, has amassed a first week total of 781,917
transactions (including free and paid downloads as well as orders for
physical product), resulting in a take of $1,619,420 USD.
"These figures represent the most relevant and contemporary metric for
measuring how Nine Inch Nails' music is reaching its fans," said NIN
manager Jim Guerinot. NIN's label The Null Corporation will not be
releasing traditional sale figures to soundscan.

As previously reported, the $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition of
Ghosts I-IV immediately sold out its run of 2500. The $5 Download, $10
2XCD set and $75 Limited Edition Deluxe versions are still available at
NIN.com. The $10 2XCD SET will be released to retail April 5 in
Australia and Japan, April 8 in North America, and April 7 in the UK and
most European territories. A $39 4X vinyl version will be available at
retail April 8. Ghosts I-IV has been released under the Creative Commons
license.

Not only is The Slip available for free, but it was released under the Creative Commons "attribution non-commercial share-alike" license. A note on the site says "we encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc."

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/nine-inch-nails.html
By Eliot Van Buskirk