Talking of Nine Inch Nails, NIN man Trent Reznor has admitted he used OiNK, the controversial BitTorrent tracker that was closed down by UK authorities with the support of the BPI and IFPI last week.
Asked about OiNK and its closure in an interview with New York Entertainment last week he said: "I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now".
Continuing, Reznor said that illegal services like OiNK thrive because legit digital music platforms, iTunes included, just don't cut it with some music fans - and not just because of the fact they have to pay. Reznor: "iTunes kind of feels like [US record shop chain] Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc".
Admitting that Amazon's recently launched MP3 download service is better, he added that another problem for legit download platforms is that people want music as soon as it is available, not when labels allow it to be released. He said: "If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want".
It's not the first time Reznor has spoken up for the P2Pers of the world, of course. Recently he told an audience in Australia that if they objected to the high CD prices in their country they should just steal their music via P2P.