NIN releases The Slip completely digitally, completely free

Nine Inch Nailers (Rezinators?), now is the time you’ve been waiting for! Since 12:01 yesterday morning, Pacific time, the new Nine Inch Nails album, The Slip has been available for free download at NIN.com.

You may have heard the single “Discipline” on a radio station or “Echoplex” on iLike, but now you can get the entire album for free. You couldn’t even pay for it if you wanted to, because there are no retail partners involved yet. However, if you absolutely insist, the album should be released on CD and vinyl sometime in July, and surely someone will let you exchange money for it then.

Nine Inch Nails is breaking new ground, as The Slip is the first album that a major artist has distributed exclusively as a download and completely for free. Yup, those crazy guys did this with their last album, too, but that time it was only partially free . The songs are available in many formats, including a high-quality MP3, and all downloads include a PDF with credits and artwork.

Part of the reason NIN is releasing their songs this way is to encourage fans to create remixes of their tracks. If that’s not enough encouragement for you, the Remix.NIN.com community actually provides a place for reinterpreters to share and download each others’ mixes, also free of charge.

Most importantly, fans can do all of this without worries of The Man knocking on their doors and slapping them with infringement lawsuits. The Slip, like NIN’s other most recent releases, is under a Creative Commons license.

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