Nine Inch Nails
The Slip
(hear it)

Bands are now marketing their products by copyrighting them the cool way. Good or inventive business practices are also sufficiently interesting to the general public that they become a marketing model unto themselves.

So, Trent Reznor has made a "LIMITED" 250,000 copy edition of his new album. But don't worry, the 180-gram vinyl edition is not in a limited run. At this point vinyl exists primarily as an imprimatur of hipness so that kids know which album to download, and those women at the coffee shop I heard convincing each other that Bjork was important (I think she is) know which CD to buy.

I like LPs because you have to stand up in the middle of the music, upon penalty of the needle flying into the label.

On copyright, Nine Inch Nails, or NIN, is clear: "the slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license." Version 3.0, nonetheless. What does this mean, beyond "we're using some of that copyright terminology that people dig these days"? It's good to be clear about things, but in the manifest world, as a practical matter 'creative commons by-nc-sa' is no different from '© 2008'. The main distinction is that it explicitly permits Joe Download to play the music backwards for his friends, and prohibits Evilcorp using it as background music for puppy-poison commercials. But in fact, it is a weaker protection against illegal DoggiDie ® Brand Canine Termination Capsules ads, precisely because it explicitly permits people to have a go at it. Should a legal question arise, wouldn't you want to say you never gave anyone permission to take it, rather than getting messed over in a discussion of what the definition of "commercial use" is? On the other hand, regular folks already do whatever they want with music.

Really I guess this all just makes people more aware of property rights. Between Adam Smith and Karl Marx we sure figured out physical property rights good, didn't we...

The music is fine, in a "oh hey Trent, what are you up to these days?" kind of way. A little too synthy. And did he grow up and then regress or has he not grown up yet?

bb, 1 Aug 08