Trent Reznor is officially a genius. Not only does he understand how to market his music in the digital age (by of course going viral via USB drives in bathrooms in Europe...and releasing full tracks for fans to edit with GarageBand), but he understands that the best way to combat piracy isn't necessarily to arrest teenagers, its to give them an incentive to buy your music.

Take for example the fact that Nine Inch Nails' new CD 'Year Zero' changes color upon play-through. In a move reminiscent of the old Hypercolor shirts, the CD starts out black, then goes white after you've been playing it, then fades back to black. Yes, it's a relatively minor gimmick, but it's also enough of an incentive to move quite a few discs over say listening to it on your computer or via burned CD.

Not surprisingly, Reznor is firmly on the anti-DRM bandwagon:

"DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it."

He also apparently understands that the single most important part of selling your music is to make the music good - and 'Year Zero' certainly speaks to that.


[UPDATE]: Yep, the thing does change colors, I've seen it with my own two eyes. At one point I took the CD out and my hands were cold so they left blank finger prints on the then white disc - pretty nifty. Here is my own picture montage to show the transition: