As we've all witnessed, yes Trent was upset at Saul's sales. The crazy part though, is that just through the means of the "collectible" edition that Trent was selling for $300, he just made $750,000, basically overnight. Let's say he has 1/3 overhead on the album, he's still pocketing $500,000. That's insane! I don't know of any "majors" that can walk away with those types of sales in the current "physical distribution" model.
Realize this, if a major artist releases an album and sells 300,000 copies (which is an absolute shitload in todays market), that artist will probably be making anywhere from $.40 to a dollar per album.
Do the math, Trent Reznor is NO fool, he's grinding away at innovation, and really he's just a step ahead of everyone else in the biz who hasn't had the balls to drop their major label deal and try to get creative.
On another note, the "Name Your Own Pricing" model that Radiohead released, is now available for artists to use themselves at
INDISTR