Chris Anderson has done the math on Trent Reznor's and Saul Williams' digital download experiment.

Trent is disappointed that only 18.3% (28,322) chose to pay for Niggy Tardust, especially when the price was only 5 bucks. Saul's previous album had sold 33,897 copies.

Chris thinks they should be happy. He points out that since they had no label deal, they got all the proceeds, which means they actually made more money than on Saul's previous record.

I think Trent would argue that they still didn't make any money once you have musician, production, and bandwidth costs included. Trent admits that he may have spent too much money on production.

I really hope Trent and Saul try something like this again, but I hope they mix it up a bit.

Trent notes 3 times as many people now have Saul's music than before. That's good! Those are potential new fans. Chances are people not familiar with Saul's music would have a tendency NOT to pay this time 'round. That may change next time. He's growing a fan base.

I would also suggest they try a different poster:

If you are advertising something for FREE, people tend to expect free. Why not advertise it for $5.00 with smaller text saying if your not sure, take it for free. Maybe even mention during the download process that a friendly follow up e-mail will be sent to the free downloaders asking if they liked it, and would they consider paying for it, if they did.

Also, perhaps give buyers access to a special fan area of the site as an added bonus.

I also wonder about the price point. Fans are price insensitive to music - record labels should be catching on to that just about now. $15.00 is fine if I like something, If I don't like it, selling it for $5.00 or $1.00 won't make me buy it.

A NIN release, could definitely experiment with a higher price point.

My 2 cents.

And Kudos to Trent and Saul for their open exploration of this issue. er... Thom, can you shed any light on this issue as well?

I would like to introduce MIXXMAKER.com, a new service from my company Project Opus.

Originally this was a simple prototype we made in July 2007 for a much larger project still in development, but when we played with it at the office we REALLY liked it as a separate product. So we decided to "tune it up" and explore making it a service.

It's pretty simple after you install the MIXX Maker application on Facebook:

1. You theme your MIXX by completing the sentence:

"I want music that..."

2. You then send a MIXX request to your friends with impeccable music taste.
3. They upload a song that suits the theme of your MIXX with a comment or two on why they are suggesting that song

Upload a song? Yes. Upload a song.
We had thought about providing URL linking or a search function to some free libraries, but when you want to suggest a song, chances are you have it on your hard drive, iPod or CD and you do not want to go hunting for it on the web. That's why you are suggesting the song after all isn't it? So, to make this possible MIXX Maker is tied presently only to Facebook. We use the friends API to legally (our lawyers said we were good) make digital MIXX Tapes (MIXXs) that you can share with your friends. We hope to add the service to other Social Networks with good friends APIs.

Hosting all the files and providing all that bandwidth is actually a costly enterprise to maintain. Our objectives is to explore ways to make money around this service assuming people like it and use it. So in the end for this product to be successful, people need to buy music or money needs to flow toward copyright holders. It's that simple, really.

To that end we have shown it to a number of major labels and industry partners. Everyone seems to like it. Most are taking a wait and see attitude. Though the good people at Nettwerk Music Group are giving it an endorsement right out of the gate, which we appreciate and they are setting us up with some interested parties to help monetize the service. Still, we are open to any and all introductions.

Please give Mixx Maker a try, and let us know what you think.

UPDATE (January 6):
We got some good coverage already (and we were hacked, too, but we're back up.)
Mashable: Get Your Lazy Friends to Make Mix Tapes For You
Tech Vibes: Project Opus Brings Back the “Mixx” Tape
Mathew Ingram: MixxMaker: Facebook meets the mix tape

David Byrne's Wired article is a couple of weeks old, but worth a blog for those following the recorded music industry or ven other industries faced with the digitization of IP. I think it's interesting to note that some of the most insightful articles around the music business in the last 2 years has come from Wired magazine, and not the more obvious publications like Billboard.

In the article David Byrne rehashes a brief history of the recorded music industry and the distribution of money in the sale of a song (Which mirrors some posts I made on the topic). The major thesis of the article points out that today musicians have choice in how their music is distributed and that this represents a great opportunity for today's artists.

These include:

1. The 360 deal, or equity deal, where every aspect of the artist's career is handled by producers, promoters, marketing people, and managers. The label or management company gets a piece from of everything produced by the artist. Artists with this type of deal include: Robbie Williams, Korn, and Madonna
2. The standard distribution deal, where the label The record company advances artists funds for the recording of an album and manages the manufacturing, distribution, and promotion of the album. In return the artist is paid a royalty after the entire advance is repaid to the label. David, makes special note to remind artists that in this scenario, the label owns the copyright to the recording forever.
3. The license deal which is similar to the standard deal except the artist retains the copyrights and ownership of the master recording. Labels are granted rights to promote, sell, and sub-license the recording for a limited time. Artists with this type of deal include Arcade Fire.
4. The profit-sharing deal, where there may be some small upfront payment by the label to cover recording costs, but all sales are split on a profit sharing basis with the artist. In this scenario copyright remains continually with the artist. David Byrne did a deal like this for one of his albums.
5. The manufacturing and distribution deal, where the M&D company only manufactures and distributes the album. The artist gets absolute creative control and maintains all rights. earning potential for the M&D company is very limited so major labels generally do not sign these type of deals. Artists with this type of deal include Aimee Mann.
6. The Do-it-yourself model (since it is DYI it's technically not a deal) where the music is self-produced, self-written, self-played, and self-marketed. Artist doing this include Issa (formerly known as Jane Siberry) and obviously Radio Head.

I found the article very interesting, but I wonder about the value of any of these distribution models/deals when the value of recorded music sales are in a complete free fall. Intriguingly David points out that "in the past, music was something you heard and experienced — it was as much a social event as a purely musical one. Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context. " He should expand upon this thought, and I think explore how that social aspect of music can be captured in a recorded music context.