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I'd like to half-correct myself now that I see that the "In Rainbows" album, which is not part of the EMI-owned back catalogue, is also available for unbundled digital download. Without being able to do more research (lacking iTunes for one thing), it seems that what's happened is that EMI's now doing the same for all of their older albums. Sort of in the same vein as the greatest hits compilation and the $160 flash drive 'deal'.

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/03/radiohead-on-itunes-yup/ --- This happened for In Rainbows back in January
http://www.ateaseweb.com/2008/06/03/full-radiohead-catalogue-available-on-itunes/ --- for the rest of the albums this June, with accompanying EMI representative commentary

This is the way I felt too, but you have to consider that their new non-EMI album "In Rainbows" has also been made available on iTunes. This could only have been done by the band itself.

EMI made the rest of Radiohead's back catalogue available on iTunes in response, see this article:

http://www.ateaseweb.com/2008/06/03/full-radiohead-catalogue-available-on-itunes/

Lets see, the collectors will buy the box set for £40 and everyone else will pay 50p for the new album on download come Wednesday. It will shoot to #1 in the download charts and everyone will go oooohh! In the end Radiohead will sign to another label and the record will come out on CD.

Here's Thom Yorke (you know the leader of pretty much the most influencial and powerful pop band of the last ten years - also label-less at the moment) take on the matter:

"vee shall make zem PAY for zer mistake. ha ha ha. they vill never get avay viz ziss. vee are verrry verrry precious about are little KID A yu know and also zee others and you mr job jobs are no exception ya?

unbundle zis KID A record anda vee vill unbundle yor face.

H HA HA ha HA ha HA ha ha

(cough)"

http://www.ateaseweb.com/news/archive/2005/06/inde x.php

Insightful hey?

Here's Thom Yorke (you know the leader of pretty much the most influencial and powerful pop band of the last decade - also label-less at the moment) take on the matter:

"vee shall make zem PAY for zer mistake. ha ha ha. they vill never get avay viz ziss. vee are verrry verrry precious about are little KID A yu know and also zee others and you mr job jobs are no exception ya?

unbundle zis KID A record anda vee vill unbundle yor face.

H HA HA ha HA ha HA ha ha

(cough)"

http://www.ateaseweb.com/news/archive/2005/06/inde x.php

If you can't support your site you should do either one of three things -

shut down the site
change to a different plan that is cheaper
beg off your readers for money

Sites that don't have ads and provide good content to their readers tend to be quite successful at the third. a radiohead site had to raise money recently to pay server costs, and this was successful. Why? Because the site provides an enormous amount of value to its readers.

Um, yeah, probably time for a new one! The movie and record industries have a business model that hasn't changed since it's inception. They basically made money off of the fact that people couldn't get their hands on content in an efficient and reliable way. Anything that was obtained had to come fro them. Now that this has changed they cry about it. "How are we gonna make our millions now? Now that we can't rely on the disparity of people?" boo-hoo. I say fuck that! If content is good then the people who made it will receive everything they deserve! Take a band like Radiohead - they give their stuff away for free! They are a content provider that is confidant in the fact that they will get what they deserve because they make a quality product. People will buy their album for its artistic value if not anything else. The record industry makes most of its money by tricking people into buying crap and hoping they won't return it cuz all but one of the songs on the album suck ass! Just my two bucks worth.