The Zohar Class

Yesterday, while strolling through one of the torrent sites, I came across a new album by NIN, called Ghosts I.

I normally buy the Nine Inch Nails albums, but I thought I’ll download it to check it out first. When Ghost I was downloaded I discovered a readme.txt file in it:

This torrent is an official upload from Nine Inch Nails.

We’re very proud to present a new collection of instrumental music, Ghosts I-IV. Â Almost two hours of music recorded over an intense ten week period last fall, Ghosts I-IV sprawls Nine Inch Nails across a variety of new terrain.

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 utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.

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, etc. Â It’s licensed for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons.

We’ve also made a 40 page PDF book to accompany the album. Â If you’d like to download it for free, visit http://ghosts.nin.com/main/pdf

Ghosts I is the first part of the 36 track collection Ghosts I-IV. Â Undoubtedly you’ll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file, but 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, including FLAC lossless, for only $5. Â You can also order it on CD, or as a deluxe package with multitrack audio files, high definition audio on Blu-ray disc, and a large hard-bound book.

We genuinely appreciate your support, and hope you enjoy the new music. Â Thanks for listening.

http://ghosts.nin.com

Hence, what started as the illegal act of downloading an album over a torrent site, ended up as a totally legal act, approved by the creators of the content.

Maybe BitTorrent is not a bad word after all…