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Just the latest example of why the RIAA sucks
Nine Inch Nails has a highly-anticipated new album coming out later this month, called “Year Zero.” Trent Reznor (technically, he’s the Nine Inch Nails “frontman,” bur realistically, he is Nine Inch Nails) has undertaken a MySpace-generation marketing campaign for the new disc, a concept album a dystopic future. The campaign features a variety of connected websites created by a marketing firm, but the central component of the campaign has actually been leaked version of several “Year Zero” songs. And since the RIAA doesn’t like leaked music, it’s sent cease and desist letters to several websites hosting the tracks.
Trouble is, these “leaks” have been authorized by Reznor and his label. During a European tour in February, several USB harddrives containing the songs were stashed for fans to find (for example, at one concert, a USB key was hidden in the venue’s bathroom stall). The high-quality mp3s on these various drives (I think three or four different album tracks were ultimately “leaked”) quickly made the rounds on the ‘net, where folks found other elements of the marketing campaign embedded within the music files (digital images, phone numbers hidden in static, etc.). And it’s these websites which the RIAA is now going after.
Which is wholly stupid, of course, in light of the fact that the copyright owners want the fans publishing these tracks – that’s the whole purpose of this viral campaign. And all of the Nine Inch Nails fans have known about this for months. So is the RIAA oblivious to the true nature of this whole thing? If so, might I suggest they do at least a little research before throwing out cease and desist letters willy nilly (it literally would take them all of three minutes online to figure all of this out)? Or does the RIAA know about this, but just not care? In either event, the title of this post pretty much sums up my feelings about what is increasingly being seen as a group stuck in its ways and unwilling to take advantage of any of the internet technologies to come around over, you know, the last decade.
