Micheal Masnick's presentation on the Formula for Future Music Business Models using Trent Reznor as a Case Study

'Mike' Masnick is CEO and founder of Techdirt, a weblog that concentrates on technology news and other tech-related issues. he is also the CEO and founder of Floor64 which aid people to understand new media, social medias and how to connect with other communities.

January 2012 in Cannes, France he gave a powerful presentation on how artists can make money in the music industry with the rising issues of piracy, using Trent Reznor as a case study. Trent is an American singer-songwriter, 
composer and record producer. Being both a vocalist and a multi-instrumentalist he has lead the industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails from 1988.






The presentation evolves around the formula :
    
Connect with Fans+Reason to Buy=The Business model
     CwF                 RtB             $$$$

Mike believes that artist struggle to make money through selling records because of their lack of either one of the two elements to the formula. 
Trent is an easy case study as he proves on many occasions that if used properly the formula is very successful.

Examples of Trent's ways of connecting with him audiences:

• Year Zero Alternate Reality Game - CwF by involving them in an online scavenger hunt enhances the fans experience of following the band, it also gets them very excited for the music and whats next.
• Year Zero - although he had already leaked music he gave the fans a reason to buy by adding an effect on the CD which made it change colours, therefor people wanted the physical copy.
• Leaking music - which got the fans very excited, free high quality maps on google showing where other people had downloaded the music too, links to buy tickets immediately after downloading the music, he would leave USBs in the loos of gigs for people to find but this made RIAA just unhappy.

He made the record label so unhappy that they dropped him, this enabled him to go out produce and sell in his own successful way.

For his 36 track album he began by giving 9 Free available to download, 36 were only $5, and for $10 you got a two disc CD set and a 16 page booklet.

Next came a $75 Deluxe Package followed by a $300 Ultra-Deluxe limited addition package, and the 2500 personally signed packages were sold out in just 30 hours!

The song 'Wish' won them a Grammy Award in 1993 for 'Best Heavy Metal Performance'!

'The Downward Spiral' entered at number two on the Billboard 200 chart in 1994, and still remains the highest selling Nine Inch /nails release in America.

He next released 'The Slip' entirely FREE, high quality downloads and the option for MP3. this was the album you could use the map on google to show you who else was downloading it which meant the fans could connect with each other.

The live shows he put on were not just live performances but completely entertaining shows.

Trent also new how to use the internet well to CwF as he did through the use of his website where he put up music, pictures, chats, forums, etc. 

There are many other artist/producers that could be used as examples but Trent is a very easy obvious one as he does both and uses many different was to CwF and gives them RtB.

The great thing about the formula is that it works for any style or size of band ranging from all levels of popularity.