Trent Reznor: OiNK Was Better Than ITunes

Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor recently bailed on his record label and said he plans to go the Radiohead route for his next album, releasing it digitally without label involvement. It turns out that Reznor is also a big fan of the OiNK private BitTorrent tracker, which -- until it was shut down by the copyright authorities -- offered even the most obscure, and in some cases unreleased, range of indie music said to be available anywhere.

In an interview with New York Magazine, Reznor explained why he (and a lot of other people) preferred OiNK to the iTunes music store:

** I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quiteoften. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that itwas like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything youcould ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format youwanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but thereisn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kindof feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'mtired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustledwhen I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM,
low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get aroundthe issue of pre-release leaks. And that's what's such a difficultpuzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leakedrecord out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People onthose boards, they're grateful for the person that uploaded it —
they're the hero. They're not stealing it because they're going to makemoney off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band. I'mnot saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that itexisted because it filled a void of what people want.

Well said.

(As an aside, Reznor also mentioned that he paid $80 for the full physical version of Radiohead's In Rainbows album.)

(via techdirt)