I'm listening to Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I, which they offered for free on their website a few months ago (the rest of the album, Ghosts II-IV, costs money). I was getting ready to write a short post on NIN's price discrimination scheme when I came across this article pointing out that their next album will also be available online for a price of $0.00. It's available now. I'd speculate on the economics of it all but Tyler Cowen already did it last year when Radiohead offered an album online for free. Cowen points out that free music online is a good strategy for artists that get a large share of their income from live performances--Wikipedia says that "on stage, NIN often employs spectacular visual elements to accompany its performances, which frequently culminate with the band destroying their instruments"--and for artists that want to expand their fan bases. I for one have never really been an NIN fan, but I will certainly take them up on their offer of free stuff, and the probability with which I will buy some of their earlier material is now substantially higher.

Afternoon Update: I downloaded "The Slip" (NIN's new album). After one listen, it's certainly worth the price. I enjoyed it, but I think "Ghosts I" is better with a probability of about 0.6 or 0.7, if for no other reason than that it's instrumental and provides decent background music for writing.