No money for new Nails

Following in the footsteps of the likes of Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails have offered their latest album as a free download and also deliberately leaked it onto file sharing networks. The album, entitled Ghosts I-V, is available as a free download with an extended high-quality version available for US$5. On top of that, fans can also order the CD for US$10 or get tow "deluxe" versions with photography and a blu-ray disk for $US75 and $US300.

On his blog, lead singer Trent Reznor said “We believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them."

MyTake - Not all content is created equal and the recording industry needs to understand this. By offering a number of different variants, the value of the content becomes clearer, you get why you are paying 5 bucks for the high-quality version, you get why you need to pay for the Blu-ray dick - because the content is worth more.

iTunes kept from No 1 spot by the Wall

It may seem like it’s been around for ever, but in only five short years iTunes has become the second-biggest music retailer in the US. According to a new survey by NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey, the only retailer to out-muscle iTunes in 2007 was Wall-Mart, aka HD DVD killer.

Apple’s journey into the top three US retailers has come of the back of worldwide take-up of the service, mainly due to the phenomenal success of the iPod. But this is not to downplay what has been achieved in terms of brokering deals with the major record house – not an easy thing to do.

MyTake – iTunes is everywhere and if you think about the power of what is a solid distribution model, Apple are in a pretty sweet spot. In addition, not only do they have a great distribution model, it’s a model that gives you what you want, when you want AND it’s customisable. Thinking about the true nature of content sharing, iTunes is the perfect personal content aggregator, only it’s not run by a (ro)bot, it’s run by you.

Let it be.....heard in space

When the Beatles wrote Across the Universe, I wonder if they thought that someday, someone would take that literarily. To mark NASA's 50th anniversary, the Beatles classic, Across the Universe, will be the first song ever to be directly beamed into space. The song will be beamed out via the Deep Space Network and will be aimed at the North Star, Polaris - 431 light-years from Earth. Sir Paul gave the project two thumbs up sending the following message to the boys at NASA: "Well done, Nasa," he added. "Send my love to the aliens. All the best, Paul."

My Take - I don't think we're going to see any major scientific breakthroughs here, but hey, it's a pretty cool thing to do. And who knows, maybe the Deep Space Network will become the universe's first social network - we share Beatles music and someone sends us back the secret of immortality.

At Last.FM, some sense

Last.fm, the Social music network has agreed deals with both major and indie record labels to let fans listen to the music they want, when they want - without payment. The Deals Will allow fans in the US, Britain and German to stream music for free or pay to download MP3s via Amazon.com.

The new steaming scheme is entirely funded by ad revenue and fans get to listen to each song on the website up to three times before being urged to purchase a copy.

It's been six years since Lat.fm started trying to broker deal with music companies, Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel remarked "They wouldn't even take our calls back then"

My take - another win for the consumer, it appears that the music industry is waking up and modernising. MC Lars had a point.