Forget “pay what you want.” The new model for the music industry may be “pay it forward.” While up-and-coming artists have been giving away their music to get attention for years, it’s becoming an increasingly common strategy for veteran acts these days. Bands such as Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay have discovered that giving away your music — even a little bit for a little time — may, in the long run, end up being worth more than the conventional model of only selling it.
Coldplay
coldplay.com
To drum up publicity for its single, “Violet Hill,” the band (with lead singer Chris Martin, left) decided to give it away for a week on its Web site. On the first day it was available earlier this month, the song was downloaded more than 600,000 times, according to Billboard magazine. Hitwise said traffic to the Coldplay site jumped 1,800 percent the day of the release over its traffic two days earlier. It moved from No. 305 to No. 1 on the company’s chart of musician Web sites.
Nine Inch Nails
nin.com
Trent Reznor (left) offered a limited version of his experimental double album of instrumentals, “Ghosts,” for free and then more elaborate versions for increasingly higher prices — up to a $300 package that included special artwork and packaging. Though it wasn’t his most commercial work, his distribution model still turned it into a financial hit. He was so pleased by the results, he recently released the band’s “The Slip” for free.
Jill Sobule
jillsnextrecord.com
The singer-songwriter (left) launched a Web site to raise enough money to record her next album — with pledge levels ranging from $10, which gets a fan a copy of the album when it’s done, to $5,000, which gets a Sobule concert in your house, and $10,000, which buys you a vocal appearance on the album. Sobule surpassed her goal of $75,000 earlier this month.
Pennywise
pennywisdom.com
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The veteran punk band (with singer Jim Lindberg, left) offered its album “Reason to Believe” as a free download for two weeks last month before its release through MySpace, which also released the album in the U.S. The extra attention, not to mention new fans, has turned the band’s single “The Western World” into its biggest hit ever, resulting in strong continuing sales for the album.
Prince
Though it’s kind of old-fashioned — and behind the scenes he still got paid — Prince gave away his “Planet Earth” CD last year in England with copies of The Mail on Sunday newspaper. All the hoo-haw helped him publicize his 21-concert run in England, as well as the CD’s release around the rest of the world.