SDK news, Wait-a-Thon $100 iTunes Gift Cards, sparkling personalities... can life here at Phonedifferent get any better?? YES!!!
How 'bout some FREE music, compliments of NIN (Nine Inch Nails)?
Following up on Radiohead's release last year, NIN is offering FREE music for download. Titled "Ghosts I - IV", Ghosts I are the first 9 tracks available for free download as high-quality, DRM-free MP3s, including the complete PDF. All you need is a valid email address and presto, you got some free music to carry around with you on your iPhone.
That's not the best part, though, read on...
Here's the sweet part, though: for five bucks you all 36 tracks of Ghosts I - IV in a variety of digital formats including a 40 page PDF. If you splurge and pay $10, you get the afore-mentioned tracks plus two audio CDs in a six panel digipak package with a 16 page booklet. This option still gets you the full digital download today with the promise of the CDs and booklet shipping April 8, 2008.
There are additional packages available, all found here: http://ghosts.nin.com/main/order_options
Why is this so amazing? No record label. Nada. Period. And no whining (
What's more, the music is available for public use! The first 9 tracks are available for sharing and re-mixing under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license.
Getting free music from NIN in a format that you can easily (and legally) remix in Garage Band, then throw on your iPhone as a Ringtone sounds like a nice way to spend a lazy Monday afternoon.
Reader comments
NIN offers free, mixable, mashable, Creative Commons Music
This Week in Media had a great segment on this as well (including that Rezner (sp?) uploaded the first set to Pirate Bay himself.
This is clearly a man who understands how to not only be successful in the new media world, but how to use new media to create success.
On a side note, Lindsey complained that, under current Big Music, there is no way to license music for podcast intro/outro, which hurts music since you could conceivably give lots of exposure and enable "buy now" functionality, adding revenue streams.
Things like creative commons also allow for what's potentially the greatest word-of-mouth marketing ever -- "mix tapes".
It may just take until the next generation to fix Old Music -- by Old Music starving themselves to extinction. (While Jonathan Coltan laughs himself to retirement, no doubt...)
I think that we will look back on this event as a milestone in the music industry. I was waking through a music store the other day and my perspective had change overnight. I felt like I was witnessing a dead man walking. Boo Hoo Metallica. Whine or envision? I pick envision.
It's not a big surprise that the first two major acts to adopt such a new business model are Radiohead and NIN. As a fan of both, I feel appreciated and respected by this approach. Kudos NIN and Radiohead.
Most of our tracks have been released under a non commercial creative commons license and made freely available for radio stations, podcasters and independent filmmakers to use in their shows/films.
We are an independent record label not a big bad corporation out to sue you for file sharing, we WANT you to spread our music around.
With such an overcrowded market place giving away your music is essential in my opinion. The biggest problem for emerging indie artists today is obscurity, not piracy. To find out more listen to The Antiqcool Podcast
http://antiqcool.podbean.com/2010/01/22/the-antiqcool-podcast-episode-1-...