I have previously written about the Ghosts I-IV Album by Nine Inch Nails. It was interesting because 9 tracks was released for free and the profit was made from complimentary products.
As noted in the previous post the album generated 1.6 million in revenue within the first week. Yet the success was not short lived. A post at the creative commons bog describes how the album is ranked as the best selling album of 2008. Fred Benenson continues with a great thought about what this means:
“NIN fans could have gone to any file sharing network to download the entire CC-BY-NC-SA album legally. Many did, and thousands will continue to do so. So why would fans bother buying files that were identical to the ones on the file sharing networks? One explanation is the convenience and ease of use of NIN and Amazon’s MP3 stores. But another is that fans understood that purchasing MP3s would directly support the music and career of a musician they liked.
The next time someone tries to convince you that releasing music under CC will cannibalize digital sales, remember that Ghosts I-IV broke that rule, and point them here.”
Did you like this post?
Subscribe to my RSS feed and get a lot more.
Photo: Tim Snell
Related posts:
