Nine Inch Nails have been forced to scrap plans for an official website to showcase fans' remixes of their songs, because the band's record company refuse to have any involvement in the project.

Frontman Trent Reznor hoped to create a site where their devotees could listen to new tracks from the band's forthcoming remix album - but his plans had to be halted as Universal Records are currently locked in a legal battle with video-sharing sites YouTube and MySpace for breach of copyright.

Universal, which owns the rights to Nine Inch Nails' material, is suing Internet giants Google - owners of YouTube - and MySpace's parent company - News Corp, for allowing copyrighted videos and music to be uploaded onto their sites. The ongoing legal wrangling means Reznor has been banned from creating his own site to share songs with fans because it could prove to be detrimental to the case.

Nine Inch Nails' new album includes remixes created by fans after the 'master' recordings were posted on their official website, and Reznor wanted to create a separate site to showcase supporters' work and encourage them to post their own versions of their favorite tracks.

In a statement on the band's website, he writes, "Their premise is that if any fan decides to remix one of my masters with material Universal doesn't own - a 'mash-up,' a sample, whatever - and upload it to the site, they will be doing exactly what MySpace and YouTube are doing. If they were to do such a thing, everybody sues everybody and the world abruptly ends.

"I am profoundly perturbed with this stance as content owners continue to stifle all innovation in the face of the digital revolution. So we are challenged at the last second to find a way of bringing this idea to life without getting splashed by the urine as these media companies piss all over each other's feet."

The band's last album, Year Zero, has been remixed track-by-track to create Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D which was released in the U.S. on Tuesday.

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)