San Francisco - The top-selling album of 2008 on Amazon MP3 (NASD: AMZN) was "Ghosts I-IV," notable in that the instrumental album from Nine Inch Nails was also made available entirely for free by the band on file-sharing networks. The Creative Commons-licensed album also sold over $1.6 million at retail, and garnered two Grammy nominations.

Los Angeles - Nine Inch Nails, the Trent Reznor-fronted industrial rock band that has recently experimented with alternative distribution models of its albums, has partnered with Tapulous, creators of the iPhone game "Tap Tap Revenge," to release a NIN-themed premium version of the game featuring the band's music, TechCrunch reports. Set for release next month, the NIN version of the Guitar Hero-like mobile game will include over a dozen songs from the band's last two albums.

Last week we issued a news release titled Coldplay's Free Single Propels Website to #1 Online Among Bands and Artists. We found that U.S. visits to Coldplay.com increased 19 fold on the back of the band's new single, Violet Hill, being released for free online. On April 29, 2008, the day the single was released on Coldplay.com, the website ranked as the most visited website among the Bands and Artists category. A little more than 1 out of every 40 visits to Bands and Artists category went to Coldplay's website that day.

New York - Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails on Monday released yet another album of new material online for free, this time providing no paid options at all -- but rather a range of DRM-free download options for "The Slip." "Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years -- this one's on me," reads a note on the Nine Inch Nails website.

New York - Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails announced on Monday that the band has secured very limited allotments of "the guaranteed best possible seats" to every headlining show on the band's upcoming tour, and will make them available for sale via NIN.com. Fans must register under their real names for the tickets, which will come personalized with the purchaser's name that matches a photo ID presented at "designated will calls at separate entrances to be used exclusively by NIN.com pre-sale ticket holders."

Los Angeles - Nine Inch Nails pulled in a healthy $1.6 million in revenues during the first week after they released their new album "Ghosts I-IV" Radiohead-style. The release resulted in just under 800,000 transactions and is its first offering since the band's major label contract with Interscope expired last October, including a mix of free and paid downloads, regular CDs and various limited edition versions.

Los Angeles - A $300, limited edition of 2,500 version of Nine Inch Nails' new album "Ghosts I-IV" has sold out from the band's website just a day after the album went on sale in various formats and was made available for limited free download. The band's publicist says that the $5 downloadable version of the album was also propelled to the top spot at the Amazon MP3 store, the only place it was available for purchase other than NIN.com. Frontman Trent Reznor released the first nine tracks off the 36-track instrumental album for free download; other purchase options include a $10, 2 CD set and $75 limited edition deluxe package.

Los Angeles - Nine Inch Nails has launched a Radiohead-type release for its first offering since the band's major label contract with Interscope expired last October, including a mix of free and paid downloads, regular CDs and various limited edition versions. "I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point," Reznor writes on his website. "I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference."

Chicago - Universal Music Group has pulled the plug on a Web-based project offered by recording artist Nine Inch Nails, which let fans create and post remixes from the master tracks used to create the band's recent album, Pitchfork reported on Tuesday.

Santa Monica, Calif. - Universal/Interscope Records artist Nine Inch Nails (aka Trent Reznor) on Wednesday announced plans to release a remix album version of his recent offering, "Year Zero," that will include a DVD-ROM containing all multi-track recordings -- allowing fans create their own remixes. The new release features remixes of "Year Zero" tracks from artists including New Order's Stephen Morris, Kronos Quartet, Bill Laswell, The Knife's Olof Dreijer and The Faint, as well as one remix track created by a fan. The DVD-ROM tracks are pre-formatted for use with popular mixing applications like Apple GarageBand and Ableton Live. A site for posting fan remixes, remix.nin.com, will debut on Nov. 20 alongside the album.