Uploads to torrent sites, claiming to be from the owners of the material are not unheard of, but are also not common. When it has happened, it’s been to public sites, and generally a hoax, which makes people all the more wary when accounts appear, claiming to be ‘official’ or from the people behind it.

However, TorrentFreak has verified that the accounts in question, ‘NIN’ on both waffles and what, and ‘NINOfficial’ on The Pirate Bay, are indeed accounts belonging to the band’s representatives.

“last night our website had to go down for maintenance for a little while due to the incredible amount of traffic and downloads, and we linked directly to our Pirate Bay torrent as a way for people to get the music while we were offline.” Rob Sheridan, Art Director for NIN told TorrentFreak, adding “I noticed our official torrent of Ghosts I was in the top 10 of all torrents on The Pirate Bay last night.”

“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Rob Sheridan added. Many sites, too are willing to work with artists with programs such as Mininova’s content distribution platform and What.cd’s ‘Vanity House’.

It is not sure how NIN got invited to both OiNK replacements what.cd and waffles.fm, however, since Trent Reznor himself admitted to be a frequent user of OiNK, he probably signed up at the trackers from the start, and invited the official NIN user.

Of course, not everyone gets this, some news sites have been reporting that the accounts are bogus, or that the torrents, including the official ones, are stealing. An admin of one of the private tracker did have a sobering comment though “It doesn’t help that the full version is available as well on music torrent sites in general.”

screenshot of the official NIN profile at what.cd

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In the release notes the band writes: “Now that we’re no longer constrained by a record label, we’ve decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.”

This sounds is music to our ears, in more ways than one. For now, only the first volume has been uploaded onto BitTorrent sites, but the entire collection is available for download on the official website for only $5

“Ghosts I is the first part of the 36 track collection Ghosts I-IV. Undoubtedly you’ll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file”. They further write in the release notes “But if you’re interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5.”

Trent Reznor, the frontman of Nine Inch Nails has always been a supporter of sharing music via BitTorrent, even when it’s copyrighted. He isn’t frightened of talking about file-sharing. Back in May 2007 he admitted to sharing himself: “I steal music too, I’m not gonna say I don’t” he said. Later that year, when OiNK was pulled offline he admitted that he was a member there ,and said , : “If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now.”

The new Nine Inch Nails album including artwork is available for download on the official site, as well as on The Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.