In recent months there have been buzz around Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor putting his music online and allowing it to be freely downloaded. As it turns out, and pay attention to this RIAA, he made a TON of money doing it. How you ask? He allowed the music to be downloaded for free and then offered premiums with the purchase of hard copies and other mediums for the album. Turns out, that if you allow people to download the music, they actually also want to pay the artist, and get extras..

Now, I am personally not a NIN fan, but I have to give props for the online stuff. Radiohead has also done this in the past and they have also made a grip of money doing it.

Now, R.E.M. is providing the newest single “Supernatural Superserious” as a free stream from [ remhq.com ] . They also are encouraging their listener to mash the video and make their own music video… very cool.

Unlike Reznor and Radiohead, R.E.M. is still under contract with their label Warner Bros. and therefore are limited in what they can offer, but it is exciting to see that they are being backed by the label to do this. Maybe they [the labels] have been paying attention and are learning that they are way behind and have been on the wrong side of the DRM war. Well, that may be wishful thinking, but one can hope.

In the end, props to you R.E.M. for pushing the limits with Accelerate, and you have earned a sale here.