The limited edition Nine Inch Nails CD/DVD now in my hands may be brand new, but the music on it isn’t. We reviewed the album, entitled The Slip, when mastermind Trent Reznor first made it available as a free download in May- making a few headlines in the process, and reminding us once again that whether or not he knows where U.S.S. Music Industry is headed, or if it will even stay afloat, he is one of the new captains on board.

There’s no point in talking about music you’ve surely heard for yourself by now, but this release is noteworthy to me at least because it represents the first time I’ve bought a physical CD in a long time.

2008 is rapidly becoming the year of Trent Reznor. In the first six months alone, the nucleus of Nine Inch Nails has already released a full album of brutal new rockers at no cost to fans (The Slip) and a five-dollar, 36-track instrumental album (Ghosts I-IV), the first nine tracks of which were also free. With a dream-team lineup arranged for a big summer tour set to start next month, and word of a Year Zero television series based on his 2007 future dystopia concept album (and you can be sure it won’t be any goddamned reality show), there’s no end in sight for the pioneer of the music industry’s own inevitable industrial revolution. Trent continues to beat the majors to the punch, bringing their most terrifyingly hideous nightmares to reality: the strings have been cut, and some of the puppets are dancing just fine, all on their own.

For years, a heated discussion raged on about the atrocities of ruthless internet pirates and the crippling impact their cruelties had on the music business, the artists, the record stores, and even the music itself.

Finally, that ridiculous discussion is being put to rest, as more and more artists and music listeners are educating themselves beyond label rhetoric, and challenging antiquated business models and distribution paradigms.

The record labels are still trying to charge for a product that others (more and more brave souls each day) are providing for cheaper, or free, as convenient as a couple clicks of a mouse button. Even when the record labels timidly test the water by giving a little bit away for free to “see how it goes,” they do it wrong. They do low quality so as not to devalue CDs. Or they only release samples. Or they make you sign up to a mailing list you don’t want spamming you every Tuesday when they try and cram their brand new garbage down everyone’s throats. Their websites and online tools don’t work right. They don’t understand the internet like the kids do, and they don’t have the passion or vision that artists like Trent Reznor has.