Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has said he wishes to "utilise new technologies" rather than fight them and has uploaded the band's new content to BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay.

NIN has taken the decision to put the digital files of music from the first part of a four-volume work, Ghosts, online after splitting with its record label.

"Now that we're no longer constrained by a record label, we've decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilise new technologies instead of fighting them," a message from Reznor on The Pirate Bay said.

The Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent websites have long been home to file sharing, some of it illegal, and are often under attack from record labels and musicians. Reznor is likely to incur the wrath of the music industry for allowing fans to share the new music.

"We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects," he said.

However, it seems that Reznor isn't completely prepared to give the album away for free, as he encourages fans to visit the official site and pay $5 (around £2.50) to download the music.

"If you're interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats for only $5," Reznor wrote.

The Pirate Bay has hit the headlines a number of times recently. Last month, The Village People announced plans to sue the site for alleged copyright offences.

In January, four individuals involved in The Pirate Bay faced a lawsuit from Swedish prosecutors, who filed charges of preparing and participating in copyright infringement.

The Pirate Bay hit back by accusing Swedish police of a smear campaign against them.

Last year, The Pirate Bay even attempted to buy Sealand, a disused defence platform off the Essex coast, from which to conduct its activities.

http://ghosts.nin.com
http://ghosts.nin.com/main/pdf
http://thepiratebay.org

Back to index