Next up at MidemNet is a presentation from Mike Masnick from Techdirt and Floor 64, talking about what Trent Reznor / Nine Inch Nails did last year, in terms of putting together a new business model for music.It all starts with CwF – connecting with fans, and then RtB – reason to buy. “What’s amazing is how difficult it has been for others to combine these two elements in a way that allows them to make money,” says Masnick.It started when he was signed to a major, even, in 2007 with the album Year Zero’s alternative reality game / internet scavenger hunt. “It made the fans more energised and engaged and excited, but it upset Reznor’s own record label,” says Masnick, referring to Reznor’s habit of dropping USB keys in venue toilets with new music on, during the tour around Year Zero.When the album came out, the CD changed colour as you put it into the CD player and it got warm – “a little bit of a gimmick, but also a reason to buy the physical CD” says Masnick.But chapter two came when NIN wasn’t signed to a major label any more. So he started with the album Ghosts (I-IV), with a number of different ways for fans to buy it. “It started with a free download of the first nine tracks of the album, but all 36 were put on a Creative Commons licence so people could share them legally,” says Masnick.People could pay $5 for all 36 songs, and for $10 they got a two-CD set and 16-page booklet. And then they could buy the $75 deluxe edition package, with a DVD and a Blu-ray disc, a booklet and a nice box. And then there was the $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition Package, with 2,500 units. It incuded all the deluxe stuff and a bunch of other things, with each personally signed by Reznor.”It was special, it was unique, and it added value to the music,” says Masnick. “It took less than 30 hours for these to sell out: that’s $750,000 gross. In the first week alone if you include the other parts, it brought in $1.6 million for music that was being given away for free with no record label.”And now Masnick points out last week’s stat that Ghosts I-IV was also last year’s top-selling digital album on Amazon’s MP3 Store. “At this point, you should realise that price is not the issue, and the fact that an album is available for free is not the end of the business model,” he says.Now onto The Slip, the follow-up (free) album, where fans could choose to get MP3 or lossless versions of the files, and then Reznor got the data from Topspin (which handled the back-end) and put together that famous Google Earth map to see where people were downloading it from.Tickets for the NIN tour were put on sale at the same time, so people could get the music for free and then buy tickets. ANd he also put together a sampler download package of songs from the supporting bands on the tour, to complement all this. And then The Slip was put out on CD and vinyl with additional content and a limited-edition format.And then… (he speaks very fast, I’m trying to get it down) – the Nine Inch Nails website was relaunched, with music to listen to, community stuff, forums, chat, but also “less obvious stuff”. It aggregates photos from Flickr, a bunch of official wallpapers under a Creative Commons licence. There’s a video section, aggregating videos from YouTube – e.g. fans with mobile phones at gigs. “It’s about using these videos to connect with fans and give them a reason to buy,” says Masnick.Plus there was encouraging fans to remix songs by the band. There are contests for hidden tickets to gigs, a long 10-page survey that created a full profile of his fans, with an email sent out from Reznor himself asking fans if they wouldn’t mind completing it. “It made him human, which is rare in the music industry,” says Masnick.ANd then last week Reznor put up a blog post on his site about the 400GB of raw HD footage of the last NIN tour that had mysteriously appeared online, for fans to do what they wanted with.CwF could also mean Compete with Free, says Masnick, while RtB could mean Return to Business. “You don’t need lawsuits, you don’t even need copyright for this to work,” he says. “It works for musicians both big and small. We’re seeing lots of small bands using the same type of model. Reznor is leading the way for plenty of others. They’re not doing the exact same thing, but using this basic formula.”And there you go. Phew.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools :: We Are Giant
With “fan communities” being on every artist’s team’s mind, we’re fans of the fact that…