Nine Inch Nails, who are proving themselves one of the most daring and forward-looking artists on a major label today, have released three tracks from their brand new album, Year Zero via BiTorrent, and more astoundingly, have done so via the controversial giant BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate Bay, a wildly popular BitTorrent site, has earned the scorn and more than one lawsuit from law enforcement worldwide, but has proven to be astoundingly successful. The planned leaking of music by a major label artist on a site which exists in - at best - a legal grey area is truly remarkable. In this case, Nine Inch Nails released full multi-track versions of three songs from the album for users to remix or listen to at extremely high sound quality. They are promising that the entire album will be available over the next few weeks.

In the lead up to the release of the album, the band undertook unorthodox tactics like leaking their music via online scavenger hunts, USB keys and more. The campaign has proven incredibly successful with both the music industry press and fans. The record itself has proven quite successful as well, moving 187,000 copies in it's first week and lending credence to arguments that perhaps providing a direct connection to music fans is more useful than suing them.