Music 2.0 - Exploring Chaos in Digital Music

Following his radical statements in China, Trent Reznor returned to his old label-stomping ground in Sydney and volleyed one of the most defiant verbal assaults on a label by a major label artist ever recorded on video. Reznor’s attack dwarfs past anti-label rants by Prince and George Michael.

(Audio transcript)

“Lots and lots and lots of familiar faces..Is there anybody here tonight that wasn’t at Luna Park last night?
I talked a lot last night; tonight I’m not talking so much. I know, I know…
I woke up this morning and I forgot where I was for a minute.

I remember last time I was here, I was doing a lot of complaining about the ridiculous prices of CDs down here. And the story got picked up and got carried all around the world and now my record label all around the world hates me because I yelled back at them - called them out for being greedy fucking assholes

I didn’t get the chance to check – has the price come down at all?
[Crowd yells “NO”]
I see a no, a no, a no, a no…anybody…has anyone seen the price come down?
[Crowd yells “NO” again]
Okay, well, you know what that means - STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’. Because one way or another, these motherfuckers will get it through their head that they’re ripping people off and that’s not right.
Bet we didn’t make any friends by saying that”

On the contrary, Trent Reznor has made an incredible number of friends all over the world with his empathy - and his radical stance is swelling the ranks of his existing legion of fans.

While there have been a few contrarian comments about Reznor’s recent pro-fan statements with the main criticism being that he’s already a big star and can afford to encourage people to download his music for free, it has to be realized that there are many big stars out there who are simply living off the fat of the land, doing nothing to defend fans from labels that demand extortionate prices for legitimate copies of music.

Reznor’s public criticisms of Universal’s pricing policies have drawn attention to the fact that it is not just fans who are frustrated by big labels: many artists have been getting a raw deal too with the lack of control over pricing, marketing or distribution of their work, high cover prices and ‘new media’ sales that translate into tiny royalty payments. In Reznor’s own words in reaction to the overpriced CDs in Australia in May he said:

“That money’s not going into my pocket, I can promise you that. It’s just these guys who have f—ed themselves out of a job essentially, that now take it out on ripping off the public”

If fans are being ripped off and musicians are unhappy, why should anyone support major labels?

Until now, a multitude of faceless John Doe file-sharers has been hiding anonymously behind torrents, like worker bees moving billions of music files around the globe. This faceless swarm now has a rallying cry and a focal point with a sting in its tail– and his name is Trent Reznor.

What we are witnessing now is an all-out war, unprecedented in retail history: consumers feel that it is their right to give major labels a taste of their own medicine, and that it is morally justified to pay them back for years of rip-offs. In turn, in an attempt to preserve their profit margins, some labels have used the moral platform that downloading hurts artists most, but Reznor has now demolished that argument by making it possible for fans to download his music and for them to claim with some credibility that they support musicians, but not support unethical labels. This mass-scale justification of free downloading by erstwhile law-abiding customers perpetuates  and accentuates the global tidal wave: a social phenomenon that the RIAA and IFPI will not be able to stop by brow-beating consumers or threatening them with legal action. Many consumers already feel that the rhetoric of groups such as the RIAA and the MPAA represents little more than an attempt by established interest groups to defend their ability to extort unfair prices from music-lovers.

Reznor’s exhortation to ’steal and steal’ could well be straight from the script of a Wild West movie - and in keeping with that theme, the land-grabbing now taking place in the world of digital distribution will probably have to get worse before it gets better.

Many struggling musicians and smaller labels will inevitably fall victims to the changing landscape of the digital music world, while channels like YouTube, MySpace, last.fm and Baidu in China hide behind and capitalize on safe harbor provisions and grow rich in the same nebulous environment. The Wild West was indeed an unfair, bloody and cruel place – but one famous for the opportunities it represented juxtaposed with the danger and hardship that faced those who ventured there.

The consumer backlash now taking place is part of a broader seismic shift in the copyright landscape that underpins the music industry. Copyright laws were conceived in a world of tangible products where it was easy to accept that taking a physical product that’s not yours is wrong. This legal framework is struggling to deal with the challenges presented by the digital domain.

Digitization and the internet have made copying and sharing music faster, cheaper and easier than ever before. The distribution of music in a digital world does not rely on physical copies and many file-sharers justify their actions by noting that copying someone else’s music does not deprive the original owner of their copy. The first sale doctrine in the United States allows CDs to be given or sold second-hand without royalty payment to the copyright owner. Savvy file-traders have noted that the moral and legal landscape relating to digital sharing of content is far from black and white. The US Copyright Office has counseled a ‘wait and see’ approach in relation to whether the first sale doctrine should be applied to digital products such as music. It is very likely that this ‘wait and see’ position will be resolved one day when enough ‘blood’ has been spilt in courts in legal battles and subsequent precedents and rulings evolve. And in the meantime, we will all have to be guided by our wits, interpreting events and pronouncements for ourselves in the absence of absolute legal or moral guidelines.

John Perry Barlow, former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, addressed this in his famous manifesto ‘Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net’ by describing this digital conundrum as ‘a profoundly new kind of challenge’ – one that straddles complex distribution, legal, moral, and cultural issues that old laws and business models will not be able to overcome.

And in this vacuum, Trent Reznor’s perverse rallying call to fans to steal his own music should be seen as a riposte to major labels’ self-preservation and fan-exploitation actions and not a permanent solution. Indeed, Reznor himself will be doing his part in building an online community for his fans with access to his music at fair prices, once he himself has finished serving his sentence with his label.

(Thanks to Ryan Streat for the awesome video recording and to Dr Lucy M for editorial input)

I managed to catch Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor backstage for a chat on his views on copyright and digital music distribution just before they played at the Beijing Pop Festival on 9 Sep.

In May this year, Reznor famously launched a tirade against his label Universal Music in Australia when he found out that:

“Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne’s record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US). By the way, when I asked a label rep about this, his response was: “It’s because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.” So, I guess as a reward for being a “true fan” you get ripped off. “

And this week in Beijing, he again reiterated his disgust with the labels by stating

“We will put out one last album for Universal and after that we will sell albums directly to fans from our website at (say) $4 an album”.

In full empathy with their fans, he even prepared a Chinese language section on the NIN website in preparation for their first ever concert in China, with a heartfelt message to his Chinese fans which translates as follows:

“As for the special situation in China, it does not seem to be easy to obtain Western music via legal channels, so I have the following suggestion for our fans: If you can find and buy our legal CDs, I express my thanks for your support. If you cannot find it, I think that downloading from the Internet is a more acceptable option than buying pirated CDs. Our music is easy to find on the Internet, and you might not need to spend much effort to find most of our songs. If you like our songs after you’ve heard them, please feel free to share it with your friends. As I have put all my effort and heart into my music, I sincerely hope that more and more people can share the enjoyment with us.”

Reznor is adamant that fans should not have to jump through hoops of fire and pay unreasonable prices simply to get NIN’s music -  least of all in this day and age when every conceivable work of music could be made available a click away online.

As he pointed out, the world is getting smaller but labels are not taking advantage of this opportunity to put this music conveniently in front of fans. As proof of his intent and anger at artificial borders being upheld for profit, Reznor vetoed a label-planned European maxi-single for the song Capital G opting instead to release a Year Zero remix album at some point in the future. This way, fervent U.S. fans would not be forced to have to spend $30+ to import a two-song single that includes one new remix.

Reznor also stated that

“Since the CD came on the market, even with its relatively lower production costs compared to vinyl, labels saw it fit to increase prices exorbitantly while artists’ age-old contracts meant they got the same amount as before - and even granting that the labels invest in marketing and take risks, it is still a great rip-off”.

In his view, true fans are being made to pay to sustain the fat paychecks of label execs. These were the exact same sentiments that have been expressed by Chuck D of Public Enemy before - coincidentally Public Enemy was the other headlining act at the Beijing Pop Festival.

As a point of note, HMV is still selling music at global rate prices of US$18 in a lot of markets with imports going for the ridiculous price of US$25 and more. Makes one wonder if this also falls under the pirate CD category!

Reznor also thinks that DRM infested formats including the ones from iTunes do not serve fans well and he totally understands why they would instead resort to downloading ubiquitous DRM-free mp3s from BT and P2P networks.

Lest the misguided ‘music wants to be free’ movement conveniently hijack Reznor’s stance as an endorsement to free-load, he emphatically states that there has to be a way that musicians are compensated without imposing barriers to fans and abusing their trust by commanding unfair price premiums.. Hence NIN has built up an outstanding website not only to communicate directly with fans but with a view to making it easy to access their music at a fair price once NIN’s label dues are completed.

And what about the music?

Reznor reaffirmed his commitment to carrying on making the kind of music that’s brought them this far and which they still believe in. He also panned label executives who are panicking at the downturn in the music industry and subsequently try to force artists to adopt “flavor of the month Timbaland productions” as the panacea for their self-inflicted afflictions.

Reznor further added,

“We didn’t know what to expect in China as it is our first time here, so we brought all our equipment along. We didn’t want to compromise in any way and wanted to give fans the full Nine Inch Nails experience. I think we might probably have even lost some money on this show”

And what a fantastic show it was -  probably one of the more amazing shows seen in China. Credit to Beijing Pop Festival organizer Jason Magnus who moved mountains in China to put together a radical non-conformist line-up of NIN, Public Enemy, New York Dolls, Ramones (Marky) and rebel Chinese rocker Cui Jian amongst others.

However, in this digital age, the next radical act in the music industry will probably be played out online and Trent Reznor has already set the stage for it.

Also, thanks to Cory Doctorow for featuring this article on Boing Boing :

Next: Trent Reznor to Australia - Steal My Music