Trent Reznor Says...

Videos by American Songwriter

Whether it’s another publicity stunt or a sincere gesture to his fans, Trent Reznor wrote the following on his website right before releasing his new full-length album for absolutely, completely, totally nothing—that’s right, free. “Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years—this one’s on me.” The Slip brings Trent to the head of the pack of major label artists bucking the suits and taking it all into their own hands.

The album operates under a Creative Commons License allowing fans to share, reuse, and even remix any of the songs (as long as there are no commercial intentions). Such a move shows how artists are pushing their creative business savvy as well as their sound, indicating a much slippier notion of rights and ownership for the future. Similar to other independent operators like Radiohead, Reznor’s motivation seems to be purely devoted in interacting with fans. Trent called the planned business model “a complete rip-off” to “loyal fans” and measured it against the large-scale failure of the industry. “As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more.” And so at show after show after show, Reznor summoned fans to “steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’.” And with that you should probably know the hard copy and vinyl release drops in July.

Several years ago, Reznor railed against his label’s parent company, Universal Music Group, after they inflated retail prices and rationalized it by stating that true fans would pay anything for NIN’s work. In a vitriolic rant on his website,