- Apple announces all songs in the iTunes store will be free of Digital Rights Management (DRM) limitations.
- Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV was the top-selling album on Amazon for 2008, even though it was available for free all over the internet. Creative Commons is touting the success.
Additional point:
I remember reading an interview with David Bowie years ago in which he complained that he had a ton of material recorded and mixed that no major record label would release. Why? ‘Brand dilution’ — the fear that it was too different from Bowie’s more mainstream material, and that releasing too much music would diminish overall sales. (I’ve never quite understand why this should bother a man who is already a billionaire…)
It is unlikely that any traditional record company would have ‘allowed’ Trent Reznor to release this kind of work under the Nine Inch Nails name. Nearly two hours of instrumentals from a band whose hits have been pop-industrial? Not the kind of risk the majors would likely take. But Mr. Reznor is smart enough to let fans make their own decisions — and they have.
