Nine Inch Nails Offer Free Album....

Rockers Nine Inch Nails are giving their new album away to fans who visit their website.Ghost I-IV, a 36-track instrumental LP, is available for download and as a physical copy.Fans can download a nine-track version for free; pay $5 (#2.50) for the whole album; $10 (#5) for a two CD set; $75 (#37.50) for a deluxe version; or $300 (#150) for a limited edition album numbered and signed by frontman Trent Reznor.The band made the album available on Monday (3Mar08) and Nin.com has been bombarded with hits, grinding it to a virtual halt.The move follows in the footsteps of Radiohead, who last year (07) allowed fans to chose how much they paid to download their latest album In Rainbows.It also comes just four months after Nine Inch Nails were forced to scrap plans for an official website to showcase fans' remixes of their songs, because the band's former record company refused to have any involvement in the project.Reznor hoped to create a site where their devotees could listen to new tracks from the band's forthcoming remix album - but his plans had to be halted as Universal Records are currently locked in a legal battle with video-sharing sites YouTube and MySpace for breach of copyright.Universal, which owns the rights to Nine Inch Nails' material, is suing internet giants Google - owners of YouTube - and MySpace's parent company News Corp. for allegedly allowing copyrighted videos and music to be uploaded onto their sites.

The ongoing legal wrangling means Reznor has been banned from creating his own site to share songs with fans because it could prove to be detrimental to the case.

Tagged in