Nine Inch Nails released a new record today. It is free (as in beer and speech) and is licensed under a Creative Commons license, according to the liner notes.
Trent is answering all those questions we’ve had for years with his actions. What if artists released their work directly and retained their rights? What if their releases were free and remixable? Would it matter? We will find out shortly, thank you Trent.
I still think the more important question is: “What if an artist that hasn’t already built a career on the label system released their work directly, gave it away for free, retained their rights, etc. Would it matter?”
The answer, sadly, to that one is “no, it doesn’t matter.” Myriad small unheard-of bands are out there posting their albums for free every day, but there’s still no good way for them to get heard.
For all the chatter about how new technology/Music 2.0/viral marketing etc. has the power to “break” new artists, there are precious few examples of this actually occurring.
As Coolfer pointed out today, most of the names that get thrown around as examples (Taylor Swift, Ingrid Michaelson, Feist, etc) are in fact not “indies.”
And Pitchfork* doesn’t “make” bands; they really just simply reinforce what’s already happening.
(*Ok, maybe I’ll give you Broken Social Scene— they really did “break” them. But heck, that was 2002)