NIN Hauls In Over $750,000 Last Weekend After Giving Album Away For Free

[DudeAsInCool]

Ars Technica reports that Trent Reznor's free downloading experiment is paying off this time:

"Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails made headlines again this week as he released his new, four-part instrumental album Ghosts I-IV, at a variety of price points, including a $300 super-deluxe package. He's also giving away Ghosts I at no charge, even throwing the tracks up on The Pirate Bay for anyone to download. And it appears to be working quite well for Reznor, who has managed to sell all 2,500 copies of his $300 package without major label backing or much in the way of splashy marketing. If Reznor's earlier experiments in digital distribution failed to recoup their costs, he's clearly learned his lesson: grossing $750,000 in the space of three days isn't a bad haul for any businessperson."

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Not a bad haul, when according to Wired, "Trent Reznor May Have Paid Only $56.61 to Distribute 'Ghosts I-IV' to Amazon MP3":

Trent Reznor found a great deal for distributing his comprehensive new Nine Inch Nails album to the Amazon MP3 store: going through TuneCore, while keeping ownership of the master recordings and 100 percent of royalties. Now we can see why he was so eager to leave his record label.

$35.64 ($0.99 per track)

$0.99 to put one album in one online music store

$19.98 charge per album

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$56.61: Total cost to distribute Ghosts I-IV to Amazon MP3

Read more at Wired

[CTC Command]

Looks like the number of viable alternatives to avoiding the record companies to distribute music just went up one.

For all the talk of Reznor "pulling a Radiohead," though, the actual strategy was different. There is no "choose your price" component, and there is no free download of the complete project from the NiN site. Instead, Reznor's strategy is more akin to the "free sample" model. It's also an attempt to move beyond the music biz's long-term fixation with a single product, the CD. Reznor is using five price points to segment his offerings, and the extra work this required appears to have paid off.

[DudeAsInCool]

Based on the success of NINs "Ghosts", The Campus Word asks whether Trent Reznor can "Singlehandedly Fixing the Music Industry":

"Reznor reported that he made over $1.6 million from Ghosts.

While critics have argued over schematics and implementationof Radiohead’s and Reznor’s nascent business models on a mass scale, it is nice to see someone as skilled as the Nine Inch Nail’s frontman trying something new. The record industry here and overseas has been floundering recently and in need of rescue. The question is, will they be able to learn from Reznor’s success?"

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