AfterDawn: News

NIN torrent album is up for Grammy

The Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV has been nominated for a Grammy award for Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package.

Making this notable is the fact that the album was licensed under a Creative Commons license meaning anyone can legally download it for free from torrent sites and other P2P. For its release, the band even published the first disc on the infamous public torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, where it remains highly seeded, even today.



The band released the album for free, but did ask for voluntary donations of $5 USD for the CD. They also sold a few CD packages including a $300 "Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition." Despite offering the album for free, the band still made a large amount of money, proving a record label is not necessary to be successful.

NIN's publicist said in March:

"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."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 14 Dec 2008 3:20

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• 12 comments

• hikaricor

  I know there's quite a bit of cost in studio recording/mastering/artwork production/media hosting, but just say for the sake of arguement that it cost them even half of the profit to do all this. That's still a 800k gain without RIAA ever edited by ddp touching it. Quite impressive and hopefully a major sign of things to come.

  14.12.2008 04:36 #1

• Ghostdog

  Correction: the 5 dollar price wasn´t voluntary - that´s how much the download cost when buying it from the Ghosts website. Of course you could have just gotten it from Pirate Bay, but that was the price of the download.

  14.12.2008 05:39 #2

• bomber991

  Originally posted by Ghostdog: Correction: the 5 dollar price wasn´t voluntary - that´s how much the download cost when buying it from the Ghosts website. Of course you could have just gotten it from Pirate Bay, but that was the price of the download.Well now that changes everything.

  14.12.2008 14:26 #3

• ddp

  hikaricor, post edited due to language.

  14.12.2008 15:31 #4

• mogofwar

  Woot! go trent!
  that album was the shit. i donated some money, just cause im a big ass fan of nin in generall. hope the slip gets an award.

  14.12.2008 19:41 #5

• pirkster

  They took in $1.6M in revenues.
  
  However, I'd like to see what was their actual profit (if any.)

  15.12.2008 10:45 #6

• hikaricor

  Originally posted by ddp: hikaricor, post edited due to language.thanks, i appreciate the two day ban mom

  16.12.2008 09:19 #7

• trainmstr

  Originally posted by pirkster: They took in $1.6M in revenues.
  
  However, I'd like to see what was their actual profit (if any.)dood ... how could you even say "if any" profit was made? what do you think? a compact disc sells for 20usd roughly at stores... musicians make a buck from it ... if they are lucky.
  
  if they pulled in that much money and have relatively no cost in supply other than the bandwidth (no shipping, no manufacturing, ect) and after 1.6 mil or whatever it says they still didnt make money ... there is a HUGE problem... and in that case ... something else is to blame for money loss.
  
  To make it easier for you to contemplate ... lets say it costs 3 dollars for every 100meg download for an average 320kbs album (3 dollars is grossly overpriced for 100meg download)... so at 3 bucks overhead ..they charge 4 dollars ... even 5 dollars per album ... thats a HUGE profit ... so at 4 dollars per album ..the band is making as much if not more than archaic cd media from record companies ... at 5 dollars they have essentially doubled their profits from each album.
  
  Good for NIN ... record companies are broke ass old dinosaurs looking to hold on to an outdated and cumbersome meaningless expensive business model leeching money from real artists like a cancer.
  
  Now ... if only ALL artists could band together ..we all could ditch record companies ... itunes ...and stop driving to Wal-Mart to buy cd's ... download them with our ever-increasing speeds on the net.
  
  Lastly ... this could bring a huge change in everything ... down to almost every argument the RIAA has thrown down our throats ... especially when the artist themselves can say ... hey were making money ..were happy ... wtf do we need the RIAA for?
  
  The NIN approach has really excited me... this really is the first time an artist has shown definite profitability (that im aware of) outside the grasp of the RIAA ... and a true testiment to what can happen when a solid artist releases quality stuff ... and is supported by fans.... you can bet your ass the record companies and the RIAA have taken notice ... and im sure the artists have too...
  
  damn ..can you imagine the possibility ... think about tv shows .. movies ... everyone and everything could theoretically go outside the box and publish on the net... (kinda what podcasts are i guess) but much better.

  16.12.2008 13:39 #8

• chrissd

  NiN is huge so they can afford to take the risk that no-one pays for their music. But being huge they don't even have all that much of a risk, given ppls opinion of them. While most smaller artists will take a guaranteed $ over potentially less. Still a long time off all artists doing that.

  16.12.2008 21:54 #9

• trainmstr

  Originally posted by chrissd: NiN is huge so they can afford to take the risk that no-one pays for their music. But being huge they don't even have all that much of a risk, given ppls opinion of them. While most smaller artists will take a guaranteed $ over potentially less. Still a long time off all artists doing that.maybe not... a big name could bundle downloads with up and coming artists ...
  
  the issue is decentralizing the control and distribution of artistic media ...
  
  it could work somewhat like a co-op for musicians ... a union ..much like the playwrights and actors guild.

  16.12.2008 22:00 #10

• ugc

  I am glad to see this doing well. Can you say, "New business model". Hopefully, this is the start of the power shift going toward the artist. This proves that the artist does not need the RIAA to be a success.

  18.12.2008 08:58 #11

• qazwiz

  Originally posted by pirkster: They took in $1.6M in revenues.
  
  However, I'd like to see what was their actual profit (if any.)that gross was first week only
  
  as for expenses, after the release expenses are nominal, a web site, publicity agent, for distribution, free except bandwidth costs and burn and mail for the CD's
  
  before release, the cost of studio time and living expenses for the band members, hire fees if other musicians were needed. that (and assorted other minutia) certainly couldn't have come anywhere near their gross for that first week
  
  in fact, I doubt they netted less than a million in their first week

  2.1.2009 03:48 #12