Trent Reznor helps give away fan made concert video

Imagine you've gone to see a major musical act live and somehow managed to record several concerts with your HDV camcorder. Hoping to share your footage with other fans you make it available via BitTorrent, but how can you let people know how to get it. If the band happens to be Nine Inch Nails you might contact Trent Reznor and let him publicize it for you.

In fact that's exactly what happened, And keeping with his recent history of innovative promotions he passed the news on to NIN fans via the band's website.

The footage comes from shows in Victoria, British Columbia, Portland, Oregon, and Sacramento, California. Being high definition (1080i) MPEG-2 video they total more than 400GB between them. If you'd like to download them for yourself you can use the links below.

In addition to a lot of free hard drive space, you'll need a BitTorrent client to download and some skill at working with high definition MPEG-2 files. Unless you have a Mac you'll also need to learn how to demux HDV2 files to a standard elementary MPEG-2 video stream.

If you're wondering why Trent Reznor is promoting what amounts to bootleg video that he can't sell and won't profit from, think about this. It gives him free publicity in many places (like Afterdawn) where he wouldn't normally get mentioned.

Victoria, BC
Portland, OR
Sacramento, CA

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 15 Jan 2009 4:04

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11 comments

Hopium

thats my boy trent. now release your discography as public domain

"nothing quite like the feel of something new"

15.1.2009 06:02 #1

Matt898

I think thats badass, between this and the album they released over torrent files this past year. Good proof that for NIN its about the music not the dollar.

15.1.2009 09:19 #2

mike.m

Trent is one of the few artist who are not greedy. Thats what I like about this band besides that they make great music, even though he does most of the recordings for a album himself.

15.1.2009 16:41 #3

Edgewise

You gotta think about this though.
He's not necessarily NOT about the money, it's just he understands where it comes from: CONCERTS AND MERCH.

Give away the music. The more people that hear your music, the more fans you get and the more people buy your concert tickets and t-shirts.
More artists need to understand that. =]

15.1.2009 17:43 #4

atomicxl

Originally posted by Edgewise: You gotta think about this though.
He's not necessarily NOT about the money, it's just he understands where it comes from: CONCERTS AND MERCH.

Give away the music. The more people that hear your music, the more fans you get and the more people buy your concert tickets and t-shirts.
More artists need to understand that. =]I think the critical flaw is that like 100% of the people at these shows like NIN enough to buy their albums. If someobody thinks 99 cents to download one of your songs is a rip-off, I highly doubt they're going to rush out to buy a $30 ticket to hear music that they think is worthless.

Groups like Radiohead and NIN who have already made millions and don't have any problem going to a promoter and getting a venue or getting an advance from a record label can easily afford to do that.

The small town band thats struggles to even get a club date is going to have alot of issues. Especially when they goto a club promoter and the only proof they have of their "fame" is their friend list on Myspace.

15.1.2009 18:25 #5

jugbugs

The Sacramento, CA link does not work...

15.1.2009 18:42 #6

ZippyDSM

Copyright needs to change in this age you can not protect every instance of "distribution" you can however protect instances of profit. Copyright needs to be less about distribution and more about profit made from distribution.

15.1.2009 20:57 #7

16Nikki02

Originally posted by Hopium: thats my boy trent. now release your discography as public domain
Very useful files search. Indexoffiles.com is a best search engine designed to search files in various file sharing and uploading sites

"nothing quite like the feel of something new"

16.1.2009 10:52 #8

emugamer

Quote:Originally posted by Edgewise: You gotta think about this though.
He's not necessarily NOT about the money, it's just he understands where it comes from: CONCERTS AND MERCH.

Give away the music. The more people that hear your music, the more fans you get and the more people buy your concert tickets and t-shirts.
More artists need to understand that. =]I think the critical flaw is that like 100% of the people at these shows like NIN enough to buy their albums. If someobody thinks 99 cents to download one of your songs is a rip-off, I highly doubt they're going to rush out to buy a $30 ticket to hear music that they think is worthless.I think $0.99 is a ripoff for what is being sold. A single instance of a low quality copy. It's not about thinking that the artist is producing worthless music. Sell me the wav, or FLAC for $0.99 and then we can talk business. Don't charge me $0.99 for a low bitrate song and then ask for more money for a each bitrate tier. Radiohead is one of my favorite bands. But I would never buy an mp3 from them unless it was what I thought was a fair price. Sorry, blind loyalty is for sports fans. I would first either buy the CD used (yes used, so the band wouldn't get a profit - sorry Thom Yorke) or rip it from a friend. But I would pay $50 or more to see them live. Wouldn't even bat an eye. And I would bring extra money to buy merchandise. I can see myself dropping some decent coin for a Radiohead concert.

I agree with Zippy, the "Critical Flaw" you speak of is in the copyright laws themselves.

16.1.2009 12:09 #9

ZippyDSM

Quote:Quote:Originally posted by Edgewise: You gotta think about this though.
He's not necessarily NOT about the money, it's just he understands where it comes from: CONCERTS AND MERCH.

Give away the music. The more people that hear your music, the more fans you get and the more people buy your concert tickets and t-shirts.
More artists need to understand that. =]I think the critical flaw is that like 100% of the people at these shows like NIN enough to buy their albums. If someobody thinks 99 cents to download one of your songs is a rip-off, I highly doubt they're going to rush out to buy a $30 ticket to hear music that they think is worthless.I think $0.99 is a ripoff for what is being sold. A single instance of a low quality copy. It's not about thinking that the artist is producing worthless music. Sell me the wav, or FLAC for $0.99 and then we can talk business. Don't charge me $0.99 for a low bitrate song and then ask for more money for a each bitrate tier. Radiohead is one of my favorite bands. But I would never buy an mp3 from them unless it was what I thought was a fair price. Sorry, blind loyalty is for sports fans. I would first either buy the CD used (yes used, so the band wouldn't get a profit - sorry Thom Yorke) or rip it from a friend. But I would pay $50 or more to see them live. Wouldn't even bat an eye. And I would bring extra money to buy merchandise. I can see myself dropping some decent coin for a Radiohead concert.

I agree with Zippy, the "Critical Flaw" you speak of is in the copyright laws themselves.
Modern media works better on ramping up the fan base with free distribution of stuff and then they will buy the retail goods because they are hooked, let the fans deal with advertising screw the middle man hes unneeded all he should worry about is pressing out CDs based on profit ratios of the indevendaul product.

By forcing limited distribution schemes you cap and limit profit made, and if you are a middle man which has a large powerful industry you control the process not the content creator.

The Middle man RIAA founded by the big labels and the big labels need to go they are stifling and stagnating the industry.

16.1.2009 17:12 #10

ANTIQCOOL

spam edited by ddp

31.1.2010 23:16 #11

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