Nine Inch Nails creeps out music labels with free 'Ghosts'
In the latest sign the music distribution business continues to be roiled by change, Nine Inch Nails has released its new album in a variety of formats, including giving part of it away on file-sharing technologies such as BitTorrent.
The musical act fronted by Trent Reznor has released part of its latest recording, a two-hour collection of instrumental music known as "Ghosts I-IV," under a noncommercial Creative Commons license, meaning that once they download the music, users are free to share it as widely as they want.
In a post to its Web site, where it also offers the entire four-volume set of "Ghosts" for US$5, Nine Inch Nails calls BitTorrent "a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.
"We encourage you to share the music of 'Ghosts I' with your friends, post it on your Web site, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc.," the band writes.
"Ghosts I" is part of the 36-track collection in "Ghosts I-IV." The rest of the collection is being sold without digital rights management restrictions through Amazon and other download sites as well as from the Nine Inch Nails site. It can also be purchased on compact disc and Blu-ray DVD.
"Undoubtedly, you'll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file," the band writes, acknowledging the music would be swapped freely once it began to be downloaded.
