[leviathant]

NIN had a messy breakup with their original manager about 15 years into things. Once Trent Reznor emerged as more or less a free agent, he embraced radical approaches to distributing music and other media.

The instrumental album "Ghosts I-IV" was released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license, and the music went everywhere - and you can draw a line directly from that choice to the Oscar for the score for The Social Network.

Concert photos, wallpapers, and other photos are still up on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nineinchnails/albums

And the NIN camp utilized Vimeo alongside YouTube: https://vimeo.com/ninofficial

Rumor has it that Trent Reznor himself uploaded material to The Pirate Bay, because he didn't like the audio quality of the rips that were already floating around. There are three compilations that appeared, with custom artwork, including at least one exclusive version of a track that hasn't appeared anywhere else.

(p.s. wot up volk)

[progmetaldev]

I can't remember which album it was, perhaps "With Teeth," or the mentioned "Ghosts I-IV," when Trent Reznor offered the GarageBand files for the album. I thought it was amazing for an artist to offer their work up for people to remix and view, as long as they weren't profiting off of it. I've done the same with my artwork over the years, hoping that someone would come along and collab or "remix" my art into something new and interesting. I don't do promotion, so it hasn't occurred, but the idea was inspired by NIN and I think it's an amazing idea that can really build a community.

As an early teen when Broken came out, and I happened to be connected to some people into the 90's emerging industrial scene (not to take away from earlier scenes), NIN has always been a huge inspiration and got me into the grittier side of metal music.

[janfoeh]

> I've done the same with my artwork over the years, hoping that someone would come along and collab or "remix" my art into something new and interesting. I don't do promotion, so it hasn't occurred, but the idea was inspired by NIN and I think it's an amazing idea that can really build a community.

You know, right this second I am listening to a MIDI recreation of the soundtrack to a very obscure German Atari ST puzzle game from '84. Something somebody recreated where I would be surprised if more than 500 people in the world ever heard the original.

Even though you might never learn of it, given the vast number of people out there, it is entirely likely that what you did already touched somebody out there. You do not need to have built a community in order to have done something of significance.

[progmetaldev]

Sorry to get back to you so long after you posted, but I really appreciate your comment! Also a huge fan of Atari computers (I learned my first programming on my dad's Atari 130XE 8-bit around 1990, quite a while after it went out of popularity).

[volkl48]

Oh hey, I certainly know that username!

And you're not going to plug yourself I certainly will: Appreciate your work on the NIN Hotline all these years and everything else you've done/added to the community.

> Rumor has it that Trent Reznor himself uploaded material to The Pirate Bay,

You'd certainly know better than I would but I feel like I recall Rob Sheridan confirming that in one of his interviews years later (not that there was really any doubt).

[pimlottc]

Trent also famously mourned the closing of Oink.fm, at one time the world largest largest music torrent tracker

https://www.wired.com/2007/10/trent-reznor-on/

[leviathant]

I was exposed to a lot of really interesting music from Trent's what.cd profile back in the day.

[PokemonNoGo]

I thought he uploaded to Oink as the rumor went. Maybe there's rumors about both :D

[volkl48]

I only know The Pirate Bay history part well.

In 2006 there was a message posted by him in the forums that was: "This one is a guilt-free download. (shhhh - I didn’t say that out loud). If you know what I’m talking about, cool."

At the same time a user on TPB named "seed0" uploaded:

- A previously unreleased, professionally produced, expanded DVD version of Closure

- The full Broken movie in DVD quality (which had never leaked - the low-quality leaked versions that had circulated for yeas were missing part of it)

- 3 "The Definitive NIN" collections - which included some things that were difficult to find otherwise. (And today there are official playlists/collections by the same "Definitive NIN" name on the streaming platforms).

Maybe more but those are the most notable things I recall until all the pro-shot concert footage from the Lights in the Sky Tour got released to the fans to play with a few years later - most prominently turned into the "Another Version of the Truth - The Gift".

Not that there was any doubt, and while I don't feel like digging through all the interviews/AMAs I am almost certain that Rob Sheridan (creative director at the time) confirmed years later that the "leaks" were directly from the NIN camp.