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...and may be shooting themselves in the foot while they're at it.
Nine Inch Nails adopts an unusual marketing campaign for their latest CD. Using USB drives left in concert hall bathrooms, NIN leaks a few tracks, and as fans will be fans, the tracks are quickly spread all over the net. The campaign itself is interesting, but the RIAA's response to it is... well... Here's what Reuters had to say about it: "Another Web posting alleged that all this activity resulted in entertainment blog Idolator and other sites receiving e-mail from the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA), demanding that they remove the MP3s from their sites. A representative for the RIAA, the lobby group for the major U.S. labels, confirms this seemingly mind-boggling move."
Mind boggling. As in "mind bogglingly stupid." Yep, The RIAA sent cease and desist letters to people who were sharing the leaked tracks, despite the fact that the label had signed off on NIN's innovative campaign!
Most likely in response to this idiotic crackdown, NIN has now released most, if not all, of the album on its website.
Meanwhile NIN musician Trent Reznor is letting everybody know how he feels about the RIAA's policies. Yup, he's telling his fans to go ahead and steal his music. Apparently he was appalled by the way the label took advantage of his dedicated fan base to jack up the prices of his CDs and complained, asking the label to drop the price to that comparable to the amount commanded by other artists. Since they've refused to do so, he's given fans the go ahead to forget about buying the overpriced albums, and just pirate them.
And while he may not technically have the legal right to do so, as one fan says, "The fact that Reznor has no rights to declare that his music be stolen is exactly why it should be stolen."
Nine Inch Nails adopts an unusual marketing campaign for their latest CD. Using USB drives left in concert hall bathrooms, NIN leaks a few tracks, and as fans will be fans, the tracks are quickly spread all over the net. The campaign itself is interesting, but the RIAA's response to it is... well... Here's what Reuters had to say about it: "Another Web posting alleged that all this activity resulted in entertainment blog Idolator and other sites receiving e-mail from the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA), demanding that they remove the MP3s from their sites. A representative for the RIAA, the lobby group for the major U.S. labels, confirms this seemingly mind-boggling move."
Mind boggling. As in "mind bogglingly stupid." Yep, The RIAA sent cease and desist letters to people who were sharing the leaked tracks, despite the fact that the label had signed off on NIN's innovative campaign!
Most likely in response to this idiotic crackdown, NIN has now released most, if not all, of the album on its website.
Meanwhile NIN musician Trent Reznor is letting everybody know how he feels about the RIAA's policies. Yup, he's telling his fans to go ahead and steal his music. Apparently he was appalled by the way the label took advantage of his dedicated fan base to jack up the prices of his CDs and complained, asking the label to drop the price to that comparable to the amount commanded by other artists. Since they've refused to do so, he's given fans the go ahead to forget about buying the overpriced albums, and just pirate them.
And while he may not technically have the legal right to do so, as one fan says, "The fact that Reznor has no rights to declare that his music be stolen is exactly why it should be stolen."