« from the new-found-respect-for-OECD-analysis department | Main | MetaBrainz launches to support MusicBrainz »

NIN's brilliance

April 18, 2005 10:14 PM - comments (7)

splashcover.jpg
As reported at BoingBoing (thanks John), Trent Reznor of NIN has released a GarageBand wrap of a forthcoming song. The 70 meg download opens directly into GarageBand. The terms of the license (which you've got to accept to play) aren't too bad. Not the share-cropper culture (the star owns the remixes) that the lawyers for some icons have insisted upon (Mr. Bowie, e.g.) -- NIN permits sharing of the remixes, though not for commercial purposes. Would be very cool, however, were the expressions of freedom expressible in a machine-readable form, and in a license that others could combine other content with, say, in a friendster-like application made for music.

Posted on April 18, 2005 10:14 PM | | technorati

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://lessig.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1607

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference NIN's brilliance:

» NIN in the garage from Synapse Chronicles
Harmony Central: Nine Inch Nails Single Released in GarageBand Format. This is pretty damn cool - if you've got Garageband and a bit of bandwidth to spare you can add, remix and just generally mess around with a NIN track.... [Read More]

Tracked on April 18, 2005 11:26 PM

» Lessig on NIN GarageBand License from Letters From Exile
Earlier this week I blogged about the new NIN GarageBand track, and wondered whether the license allowed me to modify the track and post my mix. Lessig posted his take on the issue later in the day: The terms of the license (which you've got to accep [Read More]

Tracked on April 20, 2005 8:58 AM

» Nine Inch Nails is offering a GarageBand file with the complete mix of a forthcoming song from kottke.org remaindered links
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002834.shtml... [Read More]

Tracked on April 21, 2005 4:21 AM

» Nine Inch Nails Mixes It Up With GarageBand Track from GarageSpin
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails generated a ton of buzz by offering a free download of their single "The Hand That Feeds" in GarageBand format. In the ReadMe file, Trent explains: "For quite some time I've been interested in... [Read More]

Tracked on April 22, 2005 10:37 AM

Comments (7)

April 19, 2005 12:21 AM Peter Rock:

"Not the share-cropper culture that some icons have imposed (the star owns the remixes) (Mr. Bowie, e.g.)"

As Michael Tiemann would say - Esse Quam Videri Mr. Bowie...

April 19, 2005 4:57 AM adamsj:

The earliest example of something like this I can think of would be Todd Rundgren's The Individualist, which I've never owned or even had a copy of to toy with. Can someone knowledgeable compare the two efforts? I'd be fascinated.

April 19, 2005 7:07 AM Jon:

Moby did something similar in the early nineties with "Everytime You Touch Me". I'm not certain what the license arrangement was however.

I also recall a story about Limp Bizket soliciting "riffs" at an outdoor event a few years ago under the guise of a guitarist search. Without researching the information, I believe that participants waived all rights to their creations in order to take part. I had heard that several of these pieces made it onto the band's next album, gratis of course.

A quick Google search turns up this account of the story.

April 19, 2005 12:32 PM Doug Cutting:

George Clinton's been publishing stuff since 1993 that you're free to remix for non-commercial uses, and that's cheap to use commercially.

Check out the Wired article Hey Man... Smell My Sample. Is Clinton's quote the origin of Lessig's use of "share-cropper"?

April 21, 2005 6:26 AM Natali:

It is totally cool. A lot of people have been asking why nin.com aren't running a fan remix competition - it's because the NIN Hotline are running one instand. We're closely linked with nin.com, and we have a bunch of prizes (vinyl, stickers, etc) up for grabs for the best remix. Seems to be pretty popular, especially now there's a torrent of raw .AIFF files for folks on Windows/*nix/old Mac's to download and convert. I think the last count was 116 remixes. Which, in less than a week, isn't half bad.

It's not the only thing that Trent's doing that's net based. He's well aware of the fanbase on the net, so he's making a PDF file downloadable once the album goes on sale (May 2nd/3rd) with extended artwork inside. The album artwork is pretty minimal - he's said he gets frustrated with the jewel case format - so he decided to take the majority of it out and make it available for everyone to download instead.

Pretty interesting stuff IMO.

April 21, 2005 4:10 PM Adrian Lopez:

A small point with regard the idea that you have to "accept [the license] to play" is that clicking on a button should not be construed as a sign of acceptance. It often is, but it shouldn't.

April 24, 2005 6:34 AM axie:

Jet Charter
Luxury lifestyle Links top portal specializing in Luxury deals, high end product and services, and top of the range items. The Internet has changed the way that we buy online, there are many companies competing for your business and with the reduced costs involved in selling to the consumer over the Internet, these savings can be passed onto you when shopping on through us on the internet. You have come to the right site , we make it our business to find you the consumer, the very best and most Jets available and we provide a constantly updated list of the very best companies that specialize in Luxury Lifestyle goods and merchandize. Why not take a look around and see exactly what is on offer.
We are constantly updating our site and we will be looking to display the very best Jet Rental companies around on the net, we hope that you find this luxury guide useful and return when looking to find the highest quality items available on the Internet.
http://www28.websamba.com/luxury1/luxury-exoticcars-ferrari-rental-ferrari-rental.html

Post a comment

By entering the words in the box, you are also helping to digitize texts that were written before the computer age. The words that you see were taken directly from old texts that are being scanned and stored by the Internet Archive. This CAPTCHA helps proofread the books. If the sample is too hard to read, click the recycle button to get another two. A space between each word is required. And thanks for the comment and help.