Trent Reznor, music and concert promotion

 
1)     I think Trent Reznor needs to clarify his statement when he said to an Australian concert audience, regarding
his recorded music on the Interscope Records label: "So you know what you need to do. Steal it!"
     When Reznor said steal it, he meant that the Australians fans should swap and trade the Year Zero album. Only the Australians fans should do this, not the rest of the millions of fans in the rest of the world, unless they too are suffering the pain of purchasing an album that was outrageously priced at over $30 dollars for a single disc of 16 songs.

     Apparently, Interscope felt this was a fair price for Australia because his fan base has such a strong demand that the album should be priced as high as the market will allow, simply because they could. He did not say, as many people have been reporting, that fans of his music who happen to live anywhere in the world should go right out and steal all of the albums that have been released by Nine Inch Nails over the past eighteen years and feel free to trade them with anyone and everyone they choose. He has asked people in the past to respect artists by legally paying for an album, even if that means you've test driven a track or two to get a feel for it beforehand. He does not mean that you should feel free to file share everything until pigs can fly. I think Reznor should clarify this quickly because when the day comes that he distributes his new album via his website, directly to the public as many have surmised that he will, he will likely face a serious piracy of his music that many of his misinformed fans will think he not merely condoned, but advocated.

Further, Reznor has shown a deep affection for new and interesting artists who likely will never have the kind of rabid fan base that he has. If he really cares about the future of those bands, as well as the rest of the artists who are to come after him, he would be wise to encourage people to pay for the recorded music they own because many artists, no matter how many shows they play, no matter how talented they are, will never be able to make a comfortable living by just touring and selling merchandise. Touring is a very difficult way to earn money as a musician. I don't think the average music fan understands they expense of putting on a quality show and how small of a profit, if a profit at all,  is often generated by the indie band who is only able to play clubs that have a capacity of fewer than 1000 people.