Radiohead May Have Made $6-$10 Million on Name-Your Cost Album

mytrip passed us a link to a Wired article indcating that if music industry estimates are correct Radiohead has made as much as $10 million on the 'In Rainbows' album so far. This despite the estimates of widespread piracy of the album as well. "[The estimate assumes] that approximately 1.2 million people downloaded the album from the site, and that the average price paid per album was $8 (we heard that number too, but also heard that a later, more accurate average was $5, which would result in $6 million in revenue instead).

Comments

Finally!

[HartDev]

Now there is proof that artist do not need the record labels to make money, I hope someone in RIAA sees this and trembles as they show it to their higher ups!

Re:Finally!

[larry bagina]

It's proof that well known band can make money without a record label. Which wasn't exactly news.

Re:Finally!

[HartDev]

Well then lets hope a lot of big band ditch their labels and then fund little bands, eh?

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

True, Radiohead doesn't need to promote itself in the same way a smaller band/artist does to make money but this shows what can be done.

Imagine if half a dozen well-known bands/artists created a new music site where any music artist could join. Sell MP3s at a very low price and have a physical product at a reasonable cost where all the profit goes to the artists (less a small admin fee to help run the site).
Allow users to rate/review songs and albums.

It would have the potential to destroy the record industry & possibly iTunes.

Re:Finally!

[Seumas]

Of course they don't need labels.

With a label, if a musician has some decent pull, they might get $2 on a $20 album.

Without a label, a musician gets $2 on a $2 album.

The consumer/fan saves $18. The musician still makes just as much money. And potentially a lot more, since more people would be likely to pay $2 for an album than $20.

Re:Finally!

[p0tat03]

Question: How much money did it take to get the band's publicity to the level they enjoy now? At the risk of being the devil's advocate, is it entirely likely that they are using the publicity someone else (the labels) paid for to generate sales for this album? Perhaps we should subtract such an equivalent cost from the figures and see how much they ACTUALLY made.

Re:Finally!

[McFadden]

At the risk of being the devil's advocate, is it entirely likely that they are using the publicity someone else (the labels) paid for to generate sales for this album?

What a strange suggestion. Presumably the fact that their record label has been paid handsomely with a cut from every one of the last 6 multi-million selling albums isn't enough then? Radiohead have more than paid for their previous distributor's services.

Re:Finally!

[roc97007]

That's a good point. The band's label did provide a marketing service, which has monetary value. But it's equally clear that the labels are charging an unreasonable amount for the service they're providing. For instance, charging mfg and dist for songs sold on itunes, which have no manufacturing costs and microscopic distribution costs.

So now we may be going too far the other way. (Or maybe not -- perhaps other types of marketing (example: viral) will replace traditional marketing.) In any case, artists may now be in a little better position to renegotiate their traditional contracts. I don't expect this development to completely break the chokehold the labels have on the industry, but it might cause some hasty changes.

Re:Finally!

[budgenator]

I used to sing karaoke a lot and our town of 35,000 had 3 or 4 people that were as good as any with record contracts (I was far from being one of them). So assuming that my town isn't special that's about one in a thousand, the USA with over 250 Million people should have 250,000 singers on the bilboard top 100 list!

Re:Finally!

[burris]

uh no, with very few exceptions, the musicians make $0 on a $20 album. That's because all of the costs of production, promotion, packaging, advance, etc... come out of the (in your example) $2 royalty, not out of the $16 wholesale price.

Re:Finally!

[no_opinion]

This is obviously false. If an artist got $2 on a $2 album, that would mean there was no cost to set up the site, no cost to take the credit card, no cost of bandwidth, no cost for PR or marketing, etc., all of which we know is false. What's more realistic is that an artist gets $2 from a $3 or $4 album.

Even without a label, the artist isn't out there doing these things without help. Someone is getting paid to do the distribution, but the splits are much better if it's not a (typical) label.

Re:Finally!

[vux984]

Question: How much money did it take to get the band's publicity to the level they enjoy now?

Good point. The labels promotion certainly helped them get where they are.

is it entirely likely that they are using the publicity someone else (the labels) paid for to generate sales for this album?

Interesting. And if true, a perfectly reasonable assertion. If the labels have paid to promote the NEW album repayment of that should be factored in. But did they?

Have the labels done a lot of promotion of *this* album or is Radiohead just riding off all the publicity/fame/fanbase the labels helped them get off of *previous* albums?

Clearly, the fame / fanbase / publicity Radiohead has enjoyed to get where it is today are immensely valuable to the band and its members, but who owns that? And is it rational to have to "pay" it back? I mean, what if radiohead disbanded and the members formed new indie bands? could the label still argue that because the fans followed the artists to their new bands that the label is owed money for any success the new bands enjoy because at least some of that success is attributable to the publicity the labels generated for Radiohead back when they were Radiohead?

Seems a little nuts to me. Because if you support that, then how long before Harrison Ford has to send back a cut of everything he does over to Lucas and/or 20th Century Fox for 'making him famous' in Star Wars, and thus contributing to his current success.

Re:Finally!

[empaler]

True, Radiohead doesn't need to promote itself in the same way a smaller band/artist does to make money but this shows what can be done.

Imagine if half a dozen well-known bands/artists created a new music site where any music artist could join. Sell MP3s at a very low price and have a physical product at a reasonable cost where all the profit goes to the artists (less a small admin fee to help run the site).
Allow users to rate/review songs and albums. Sounds a smidgeon like Magnatune.

Re:Finally!

[budgenator]

you mean like cdbaby or more like Jamendo or DMusic and of course GarageBand?

Re:Finally!

[Seumas]

Artists already have their own websites. Yes, there is a nominal fee involved in the process of setting up the online music distribution.

Or are you one of those parasites who makes big bucks convincing musicians that they need to hire someone for $150,000 to design a website for them?

Re:Finally!

[smackenzie]

The facts are:

1. Radiohead has been in business for, say, 21 years.

2. Radiohead signed a SIX album recording contract with EMI, that promoted the hell out of them for two decades.

3. Labels were indirectly, but substantially, responsible for changing their name from "On a Friday" to "Radiohead".

4. They recently admitted that working without a label is "both liberating and terrifying"...

Yeah, that will teach those labels! Bands that have been busting their ass for 20+ years don't need them any longer! Somehow, I don't think if I put up my album under the same conditions, that I would make daily front page at Slashdot and spend an afternoon thumbing my nose at the labels.

These guys have paid their dues, toured until exhaustion, and have worked within the system for longer than a lot of people responding here have been alive. People, please, get off of BitTorrent and just pay a nickle, or a quarter or a dollar for every song you really like on their site. At least give the rest of us without the Radiohead exposure the hope that if we earn even a fraction of their commission, we'll be ok...

Re:Finally!

[budgenator]

It's more likely that the band had a small but loyal group of fans enough to insure break-even at resonable expenses before the label would even touch them. Then their contract almost certainly had clauses where the band would cover production and promotional costs out of their take so it cost the record company is zip so far. Also consider that the labee is heavily subsidiarised so they only bid out jobs to companies they own so there is no competion to drive down the costs the artists pay.

Re:Finally!

[Simon Simian]

Now there is proof that artist do not need the record labels to make money

It doesn't really prove that. Radiohead were already famous. They were made famous by two record labels that spotted their talent and invested lots of money in them. Radiohead are pretty fucking good, but talent doesn't always float to the top by itself. We'd probably never have heard of them had money not been spent on them to allow them to buy decent equipment and market their records.

Times have changed since Radiohead started out, but it still doesn't hurt to have a label backing you.

Re:Finally!

[Incongruity]

As far as I am aware, what each of those lack (despite being useful, useable and successful, each, more or less), I think, is the big act/star power that a few bands the caliber of Radiohead would bring to such a venture. Their name recognition would lend a certain authenticity to such a site in the eyes of the mass-market consumer, I think.

Perhaps not, but it'd be interesting to see...

Re:Finally!

[fishbowl]

I will believe a music publisher loses money to "piracy" when they claim it as a specific loss for tax purposes.

Re:Finally!

[TexVex]

It should also be noteworthy that another fairly well-known act sold their latest album online. It was for a fixed price, true, but they offered FLAC files of the song -- DRM-free and of the highest possible quality. I'm talking about the Barenaked Ladies and Barenaked Ladies Are Me . According to this blogger, their gross sales during the first week were close to $1 million.

Re:Finally!

[fishbowl]

>that would mean there was no cost to set up the site

Did you SEE the site? You can't expect anyone to believe they paid for that.

Re:Finally!

[LordSnooty]

Rather a crude estimate though. We are relying on the average price figure being truthful.

Re:Finally!

[fishbowl]

>Good point. The labels promotion certainly helped them get where they are.

This is based on the premise that they were heavily marketed in the first place. But Radiohead is at best, a marginally well-known band. They have received more publicity in the past week than the sum total of their previous career. The song "Creep" got tons of radio play because it was received as a novelty song. And the rat face logo got a lot of eyeshare. But the fact is, Radiohead qualifies still as an underground act, with a cult following drawn from a nontraditional demographic.

It looks to me like their label either did them a disservice by ignoring them, or else the label acceeded to the band's wishes by allowing them to stay under the mainstream radar.

Radiohead is hardly the band to use as an example of the relationship between a mainstream act and its mainstream label.

Re:Finally!

[daBass]

Yes, I am sure that my cousin's garage band, even if they were as good Radiohead, would have been able to generate enough attention to their album to get anywhere near this kind of exposure and sales. Add to that the fact that Radiohead already had the funds to actually record this album working with world-class engineers and producers in world-class facilities. Thanks to being a well-know multi-million selling band doing a novelty promotion that every news outlet in the world picked up on, this became a success.

For all their faults, record companies do a lot of marketing, do still take risks and get artists out there. Sure, bands can gain traction and even live comfortably the home brew way, but none would explode onto the international stage like, say, Matchbox 20 did with their first album. Like it or not, that requires big multinational record companies.

Re:Finally!

[p0tat03]

Actually I wasn't implying that Radiohead wronged their label in producing this album independently. Rather, I question the notion that this means labels serve no use anymore. Sure, they take an unreasonable cut for their services, but before we claim this as a victory for indie music, think about it: could a not-already-famous band achieve Radiohead's popularity without millions in marketing? Ok, so they made a cool six mill off this album, but how can ANY indie band afford the astronomical cost of pomoting their act on such a scale? Can indie bands sell with Radiohead's model, with marketing that's within their means, and still afford to live?

Re:Finally!

[Kelz]

I believe the question was: "If they never had a label, would they have had a chance in hell at becoming popular enough to sell that many albums online?"

Re:Finally!

[kiddygrinder]

Not quite, bugger all people would know who radiohead are without the previous marketing by record labels. In the future it may be possible to sell millions just on the back of good works, but now it is very difficult indeed. The music industry is designed this way.

Re:Finally!

[ucblockhead]

All bands signed to labels have things called "contracts" that specify exactly how much they owe the record companies for the publicity generated by the label.

Re:Finally!

[irtza]

Most likely not; however, Radiohead grew up in a time of labels. The labels control of the market is still unbelievably strong. This will not change until people start adopting sites like you-tube or something similar as their primary source for new media content.

Essentially, everyone will continue to ask the question "Do we still need the labels?" until we have a band become successful without them. On the flip side, the lack of a successful artist without one will never remove the question of whether they are needed.

Essentially, I think the question posed is pointless. The utility of the labels is being determined now because this is the first attempt of independence by a big name. Smaller names won't get a chance until a means to discover them becomes popular.

Re:Finally!

[ppanon]

I believe the question was: "If they never had a label, would they have had a chance in hell at becoming popular enough to sell that many albums online?"
No, but only because Payola is alive and well, and the labels have understandings with the large media conglomerates that control most of the radio stations and musical airplay.

The point however, is that radio is no longer anywhere near as major a player and bottleneck in the popularization of music that it was in the 90's and prior and that monopoly on airplay isn't as important as it used to be.

Re:Finally!

[PrinceOfStorms]

I suspect that the point being made is that if Radiohead were a new band, they would presumably have needed to generate a great deal of publicity to achieve these sales or needed to have settled for a much lower number of sales and consequent revenue. While Radiohead have, I'm sure, more than adequately recompensed their label, the value of this strategy for a new band is harder to ascertain due to these costs already having been incurred. Not to mention the "neat" and "I want to encourage this" factors. In short, "Internet distribution is a successful strategy for a well-established band when they are among the first of such bands to try it" is, aside from being entirely predictable, not especially informative about how well it would work for an up-and-coming band after it has become normal practice and who has never received the benefit of a label's marketing.

Re:Finally!

[djchristensen]

Using the "pay what you want" model, quite possibly. I'm not what you would call a big music fan. I've collected 100 or so CDs over the years, most of which contain music recorded before CDs were invented. I suspect I would have more if I could freely sample music on my own terms. I mostly avoid music stations on the radio in favor of talk/news these days. Can't stand the shock jocks or the one in ten songs that I find listenable.

I was given a Jethro Tull CD a while back as a gift. I like Tull and have several other CDs, but I wasn't sure I liked this one. It took a couple of weeks listening to it in my car while commuting (run through maybe 10 times) before I came to really like it. A 30 second clip on Amazon isn't going to convince me, nor is a single play on the radio (if I were listening to music stations).

But if a friend said to check out the new Radiohead album (no, I haven't checked it out, but it's a good example), I could stick it on a CD and give it a few run throughs. If I like it, I would be more than willing to pay $5-10 on it, depending on how much. I would be especially likely to pay if I knew that the artist was getting a large chunk of that instead of the wretched RIAA members.

Re:Finally!

[Myopic]

It wasn't? Then why was it news?

I think it was news.

Re:Finally!

[budgenator]

judgeing by the behaviour of Radioheads website for distibuting the new CD, If I was running CDBaby I'd be giving them a call. Radiohead thinks they are HTML experts but they should give up their day job for web development!

Re:Finally!

[mdwh2]

Record labels or not - what it does show is that there's money to be made in legal DRM-free Internet music, even when you can legally download it for nothing. Perhaps one day the labels will finally catch on, if they're still around?

Re:Finally!

[Lemmy Caution]

I applaud Radiohead for what they did here, but I don't think that their approach will scale: ultimately, I think that music fans would give a lot less if they were giving more frequently.

Re:Finally!

[pushing-robot]

Actually, according to Wikipedia and other sources I could find, "Hail to the Thief" never went platinum (=1,000,000 sold) in the US. It went platinum in the UK, but the bar is lower (300,000). "In Rainbows" has now sold 1.2 million in a matter of days.

Compared to the first week of Thief, Rainbows sold at least four times as many copies, and each copy of Rainbows, on average, netted Radiohead more and cost customers less.

However you slice it, this release was an unmitigated success for Radiohead, not to mention their fans.

Re:Finally!

[pipingguy]

"both liberating and terrifying"

Any major change (in any endeavour) should be like this, unless stifling and routine is preferred.

Re:Finally!

[h3llfish]

It's not news that they made money selling their own music online. What's news is how much money. With no record company to take a cut, the artists are getting rich. And the RIAA is not getting any of it. I think that this event is newsworthy simply because of how many people it will convince that digital distribution without DRM can be profitable. Yes, that's already been proven, just not with so many zeros at the end.

Re:Finally!

[Wildclaw]

And they even got a lot of free advertising a.k.a. "news".

That isn't to say that the idea doesn't work. It is just that you can't test it like this and claim to be scientific.

Re:Finally!

[im just cannonfodder]

maybe instead of everyone being constantly obsessed with the instant fame talentless bands that the media companies constantly churn out that's about generating money not giving the world something amazing, the real artists will continue to do what they have always done, play local gigs, do a tour ect to gain fame. there is no need for the record industry vultures, they are there just to steal every penny they can from the talented people of this world. i believe the record industry is failing and destroying peoples faith in music because of the constant din they produce, it is actually driving people away from purchasing records and going to gigs is it so bad their dominance and vice like grip should end?

Re:Finally!

[sugapablo]

Not necessarily true, unfortunately. Can you honestly say they would have been able to sell that many albums online without the exposure brought to them previously by their former record company who got them airtime, video time, international attention, etc.?

New bands won't be able to pull this off NEARLY as easily.

Re:Finally!

[thegnu]

I have not looked over their terms, but my friend who is an audio engineer says that CDBaby's terms are a little grubby on the IP.

Re:Finally!

[foniksonik]

I think the parent forgot to ask the question: "If Radiohead was a no-name band with no budget for publicity, would they be able to get enough attention to garner the sort of numbers we see here?"

The answer to that question is: Yes. Radiohead is a 'good' band. Given the assumption that they would have continued to write new music and produce albums or even simply tour and play at small venues for 15 years or however long they've been around, they would certainly have become a popular band regardless of expensive marketing campaigns. Whether they would have done so or not is the next valid question... which we'll never know the answer to. Could they have continued to work day-jobs to pay for said tours, or albums while waiting to become popular? Would they have simply given up knowing that the only way to make a decent living (at the time) was to sell out to a label? Maybe.

Today is different than yesterday however and Radiohead is setting an example here for even new startup bands, proving that you can make money without a label... good money. A new band doesn't need to make millions... $50,000 for each member plus covering costs of business would be sufficient for a decent lifestyle in the US (much better in some other countries). So ay with an average band having 5 members + 3 staff people (accounting, distribution, marketing/booking/pr) + studio/equipment costs and distribution costs, you might come to $1,000,000 to support your band in a professional manner as a business.

DO that for 5 years or more and consistently produce high quality music, well you could certainly improve your bottom line to the level that Radiohead enjoys.... and if you keep your staffing small each employee could easily see 1-2 hundred thousand a year, with the members themselves receiving twice that. Do some intelligent investing and you've become quite successful in life.

Re:Finally!

[DerangedAlchemist]

1. Radiohead has been in business for, say, 21 years.
Bands that have been busting their ass for 20+ years don't need them any longer!

Internet was slow and available to very few people 20 years ago. File sharing wasn't possible 20 years ago, does that mean it is impossible now? Mp3s did not exist.

Maybe the business has changed some?

Re:Finally!

[Gryle]

The concept of "authentic" products in the United State is somewhat odd. The idea of "you what you pay for" is ingrained into the US culture so much that getting something for nothing is almost a foreign concept to many consumers. American consumers also rely heavily on popular opinion for shopping choices. The more widespread an shop or product is, the more authentic it feels to the US consumer, for example, Starbuck's.

The first time I downloaded an album from Jamendo (Rob Costlow's Woods of Chaos ) it still felt somewhat like piracy. I was getting good music for free, from a site most people had never heard of. However the more I used the site, the more familiar it became and the more authentic it feels. As sites like Jamendo become more popular and a Radiohead's ditribution model becomes more pervasive, authenticity will take root.

Re:Finally!

[Dhalka226]

Well, all of that is true. However, times are changing. iTunes didn't exist 20 years ago, nor did Internet access for the average person. Even if somebody had Internet access, it was so painfully slow that downloading a single mp3, much less an entire album worth, would have been downright painful.

This whole music pricing/music downloading/music piracy issue--and make no mistake those are different angles of basically the same issue--is a lesson waiting to be learned. The Internet is changing the game. Unfortunately the record labels see the writing on the wall; they seem that they are less and less relevant, and that is why they have turned to suing people into the ground and trying to buy laws to maintain their relevancy.

Yes, Radiohead had the advantages of a record label that a record label provided 20 years ago, that without a vast reserve of your own money you couldn't have done without them. These days, however, all that is missing is a killer site to discover music with that goes mainstream.

Watch the local news. If yours is anything like mine, you'll probably see at least 3-4 nights a week a story mentioning some video on YouTube. In fact, locally, they even have a "Viral Videos" section for videos that are popular on the 'net at the moment. Most of these are from YouTube, though not all.

Shift locations. Imagine a site with that sort of penetration of the mainstream consciousness for music. Imagine radio stations telling the labels where to stick their payola schemes and their "oh no no no! You can't play the song you think is the best from our album, you have to play the single!" nonsense that is really relatively new even in the radio business. Radio play is really the only major hurdle that the average person has trouble jumping without the help of a record label. The problem, for the record labels, is the reason is really nostalgia and resistance to change. If radio stations really wanted to start featuring random, independent music--alongside or in replacement of music from artists with big label contracts--they can do so. Today.

There is still room in the music industry for agents and record labels; there is a lot for a somewhat successful band to think about and manage. The isn't room for people who take cuts bigger than the people making the music do. Their services aren't worth that price anymore. Whatever it is worth today, it will likely be worth less tomorrow and for many more tomorrows to come.

It's true that even once this sort of label-liberated scheme comes into full effect, the artists probably won't become as filthy rich as they could have if they had hit the music jackpot and became a major artist during the era of big record labels. It does, however, mean that more people will get a piece of the pie, more people will be able to make a living writing and performing the music that they love, and the availability and quality of music will likely increase with this sort of competition.

It's a brave new day. Things that were important 20 years ago aren't anymore.

Re:Finally!

[Relic of the Future]

So can small bands.

From the linked article:

With Radiohead's new business model getting so much attention, we're hearing a bunch of folks start to claim that this kind of business model only works for big, established bands. Funny thing is, when we point to smaller artists doing similar things, people say that such a model may work for no name artists, but couldn't possibly work for big pop stars...

Re:Finally!

[Fozzyuw]

As far as I am aware, what each of those lack (despite being useful, useable and successful, each, more or less), I think, is the big act/star power that a few bands the caliber of Radiohead would bring to such a venture.

Then it might be worth mentioning 10 Years is on Garageband.com. I don't recall their story, but I believe they won a Garageband contest to get a record deal. Though, I didn't know this until later... after I was hearing their music played on the local rock radio stations. The truth is actually exposure. Despite the public availability of Garageband (and other sites), the internet is a haystack that even if you know of a site, you still have to do a lot of digging to find your needle. It's just much easier (and probably a part of human nature) to take the path of least resistance and just turn the radio on and listen to what others think we want to listen too, which usually isn't bad, it's just not always very good.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Finally!

[jra]

It's actually not.

It's the 3rd or 4th outing. TMBG have been offering downloads (in FLAC, as well as MP3; go, TMBG!) for quite some time now, and at least one other sizable artist I can't recall just now has done something like this, if not a couple.

Re:Finally!

[irtza]

you are absolutely correct about that - I vaguely remember hearing about these things before... the fact that I don't remember kinda makes me think this isn't as successful as it should be.

Beastie Boys have offered up free goods and if I'm not mistaken they also have used the creative commons license.

Weird Al has released stuff on his myspace site.

if we want to push the issue, someone should start promoting a band that releases their material on a site like youtube... haven't seen anything of note myself... yet.

its just a matter of time

Re:Finally!

[neonfrog]

I'm sure Radiohead's previous label is just crying over all of the back catalog purchases this is likely to make them.

Oh wait...

This could just be a brilliant strategy to keep an old catalog alive a little longer, too. Oh and Radiohead is releasing this album on CD in a few months. How many will buy it again? If so, why? 'Cause the DL was crappy?

There is as much business strategy here as there is "music to the masses," people.

Re:Finally!

[ThePhilips]

[...] there is proof that artist do not need the record labels to make money [...]

That's pretty big misunderstanding of "how it works" I'd say.

There is still somebody needed to make artist known to public.

Record labels score the contract with artists not because of, say, recording equipment - but mainly by providing access to high profile promotion channels. It's really all connected. Insiders often refer to the system as "mafia" and "cover-up" making sure that you can access particular media only by signing exclusive deals with particular studios. Otherwise whatever artist does - it will not be accepted.

Re:Finally!

[nosferatu1001]

Because they have a larger slice to take it out fro - in this case, $8 instead of $2

so they make $6 not $0....surely that's not difficult to see?

Re:Finally!

[montyzooooma]

ie the Steam approach to music publishing. Remove your reliance upon a publisher by becoming a publisher yourself. Then publish other people. Can you see where this might become a problem?

Re:Finally!

[tungstencoil]

Not really; you own it. Now, if you want them to do digital distro also, you have to sometimes agree to more restrictive terms, if the digital distro has more restrictive licensing. The big controversy of a few years ago was the underground American Idol (I forget exactly what it was called) and some of the viral sharing sites. They often had additional terms that you gave up some form of rights related to their distribution method.

CDBaby always pointed these things out; in the case of the American Idol spin-off, the backlash from what they pointed out caused the promoters to change their terms. CDBaby has always been extremely fair and upfront about things.

For independent distribution, it's not cheap but they're on the up-and-up and very worth the cost. They really are all about the music and the artist first.

One thing's for sure:

[Enlarged to Show Tex]

They probably made more money off their album doing it this way than they ever would have made off the same album going through a record company. By the time you account for all the middlemen, marketing, and so forth, they might even have lost money on the album based on the level of sales, downloads, and so on.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[Ynot_82]

and maybe it's due to the novelty of it.

would artists make the same sort of profits (eclipsing POS sales) if this model was more common place?

dunno
but it's a bit shortsighted to take one positive example and treat it as a working model

Re:One thing's for sure:

[eln]

They probably made more money because the method of distribution was so novel that they got far more press for doing this than they would have gotten if they just released an album the old fashioned way.

Now we know the first band to do this can make money. Let's see if the 20th band to do it can after the novelty has worn off.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[bladesjester]

I may be wrong, but I think that Radiohead went truly indie, much like Nine Inch Nails has again (now that they goaded the record company into cutting them loose)

Re:One thing's for sure:

[wilymage]

Check your history before making off-hand statements:

The band signed a six-album recording contract with EMI in late 1991, following a chance meeting between Colin Greenwood and label representative Keith Wozencroft at the record shop where Greenwood worked. [1]

Off the top of my head, the six albums were:

1. Pablo Honey
2. The Bends
3. OK Computer
4. Kid A
5. Amnesiac
6. Hail to the Thief

The band have no record contract, having fulfilled it in 2004.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[slittle]

If it was culturally encouraged they might. Service people and street performers get tips even when it's not legally required, after all. If society develops around the free exchange of the arts, it may simply be the done thing to pay for what you like.

In the short term though, it's probably going to be more like "w00t, free shit lolz!!!" than the above.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[mr_zorg]

Perhaps, but it certainly warrants further attempts...

Re:One thing's for sure:

[KKlaus]

Agreed. I can't shake the suspicion that the average value paid for the album simply reflects people doing a gut average of the normal amount an album costs and zero. I suspect the price would ultimately bottom out before it hit zero (as successive averages drove it lower and lower), but I'd still be stunned if the current price wasn't inflated by a guilt that proves transient should this practice become common.

Maybe this is still a superior system at 1$, but either way, we're almost certainly not seeing the equilibrium price here.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[fm6]

You're correct. And you're even making optimistic assumptions, such as their distributor not ripping them off. Entertainment companies are notorious for finding ways to shift "costs" to their artists.

Plus they retained ownership of their work. I have a musician brother-in-law who's furious about work he created but isn't allowed to distribute, because he had to sell the copyright in order to get it published. What really drives him (and his fans) up the wall is that the copyright owner is just sitting on the material, with no plans to distribute it.

The fact that Radiohead did so well with this experiment is interesting, but not too surprising. When there's strong "customer" loyalty, it doesn't matter whether payment are voluntary or not. Banks and other money brokers often consider not-for-profit organizations good credit risks, even if most of their money comes from voluntary donations. Giving money when you don't have to shows your loyalty, and that portends a reliable revenue stream.

I'm not a Radiohead fan. But it's true that a good chunk of the software I "buy" is donationware.

Perhaps a new business model has been invented? We can but hope.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[frdmfghtr]

They probably made more money because the method of distribution was so novel that they got far more press for doing this than they would have gotten if they just released an album the old fashioned way.

That is very possible; I'm tempted to buy a copy just for the novelty of it.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

it's a bit shortsighted to take one positive example and treat it as a working model

Precisely. In fact, we've never had a long term pricing model, which has spread throughout an industry, that allows the customer to choose free as an option. Who knows? After a generation, we may see kids who stop believing that artists are entitled any money, and wouldn't pay a cent for their music. It may well be even sooner. Plenty of people paid money in the hope that this would catch on, but would they continue if it became widespread?

Re:One thing's for sure:

[PrinceOfStorms]

One thing's for sure: They probably made more money.... ...they might even have..."

You definitely might have made a good point, possibly better than someone else's.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[Shads]

Here's some interesting numbers:

500k Albums is Gold, 1m Albums is Platinum, 2m is Multi-Platinum (double plat, triple plat, etc), 10m is Diamond.

US Sales for Radiohead look this... Pablo Honey - Platinum 1m-2m, The Bends - Gold 500-1m, OK Computer - 2 x Platinum 2m-3m, Kid A - Platinum 1m-2m, Amnesiac - Gold 500-1m, Hail to the Thief - Gold 500k-1m... For a total of ~5.5m-10m albums sold.

If they got 3$ per album sales (they wish) they'd have made ~16.5m-30m on cd sales alone.

If people paid an average of $5-$8 per album downloaded and 1m people downloaded the album that means they made almost 1/3-1/2 of their *total previous combined album sales* in a best case scenario and that doesn't include the boxed set people could have purchased. If you use realistic numbers for what the labels were paying them on each sale and use 1.2m downloads at an average of $5/ea ... they probably made more money than they made from the labels on cd sales total across the board... or at least an equal amount.

The only thing the labels provide that is actually of value is getting your stuff played enough to get you to critical mass... but they rape you doing it.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[Paradise Pete]

Maybe this is still a superior system at 1$, but either way, we're almost certainly not seeing the equilibrium price here.

No doubt about that - the publicity was huge - but they took the risk and reaped the benefit when it worked out. But even at $1 this is a quite profitable way to do it, and is another nail in the coffin of the "big label" system.

They get the money now, not in some slow-motion royalty stream, and they know there's no accounting shenanigans and no waste.

I'm sure Radiohead is already hard at work on a follow-up, and I'm also sure that other artists will soon follow suit. And then when the labels shrivel up and die, what will take over is a distribution system in which the artists get the lion's share.

Re:One thing's for sure:

[Paul_Hindt]

would artists make the same sort of profits (eclipsing POS sales) if this model was more common place?

Uh...why would I want to spend money on a Piece of Shit?

Re:One thing's for sure:

[ErikInterlude]

If it was culturally encouraged they might. Service people and street performers get tips even when it's not legally required, after all. If society develops around the free exchange of the arts, it may simply be the done thing to pay for what you like.

That would be nice. The problem is the sentence "If it was culturally encouraged they might." What seems currently culturally encouraged, however, is the "gimme, gimme" mentality.

Case in point: I was with a group of friends the other night when I made some mention of a song I wanted to buy from the iTunes store. One of my friends looks at me and says "You actually pay for music?". I said "Sure", whereupon he shook his head and said "Man, I don't know you!". Now, he does go to concerts, so I suppose you could say that ticket purchase is a way of giving back, but essentially what's currently culturally encouraged is the idea of "because I can, why not?".

What's more, in the music industry, this mindset seems to have been prevalent for a while. I saw the movie Festival Express a few nights ago, which basically recounted the story of a train carrying the big acts of the '70s across Canada. The problem was, whenever they stopped to play a concert, they encountered people who thought concerts should be free, and would show up without money to pay entry fees. The whole project eventually shut down due to lack of funds.

I think the main issue is that everything seems geared towards an acquisition mentality. Emphasis is placed on how much you pay for what you get, and cheaper is better. So, if people have the option of getting something without compensating for it, they'll generally head in that direction. I'm not sure how a change in attitude could be developed. I suspect it would take a long time and more or less have to develop on its own. (Of course, I'm no sociologist, so I could be totally off here.)

Re:One thing's for sure:

[CopaceticOpus]

The anonymity of the internet is going to seriously reduce the effects of cultural pressure.

When one band releases a "name your own price" album, it's a novelty and many people will consider paying. However, imagine if the average consumer had 30 or more albums they were interested in, all released under that same model. Will they pay $240 for these albums as quickly as they paid $8 to Radiohead, especially when no one is watching?

Re:One thing's for sure:

[m0rph3us0]

Society HAS already developed around the free exchange of the arts. Look at art for sale in coffee shops. Music at various venues, and of course high-brow art galleries selling painting for millions of dollars. Of course I mean free as in freedom and not beer.

Exactly how is "free shit lolz" exchange?

Re:One thing's for sure:

[adamruck]

point of sale dude

Re:One thing's for sure:

[definate]

Here's an idea, how's about everybody stop phrasing the question as...

"Would artists (READ: Businesses) make the same sort of profits if this model was more common place?"

with

"Would customers (READ: The world) receive the greatest amount of benefit if this model was more common place?"

and lets not get into the ludicrous concept of "a lack of incentives" (Such as "But if artists don't make lots of money they wont do it"), since there are enormous incentives both tangible and intangible, even if you free this market.

I remembery trying to pay for this album

[bit trollent]

The website failed and left me frustrated. I went to my bit torrent site of choice and got it there.

Then I decided it was alright but not really worth paying for.

I wonder what Radiohead thinks about all the people who tried to pay for their music, couldn't and downloaded it / got stoned instead.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[caramelcarrot]

Indeed, I was willing to pay £5 for it, except I couldn't work out how the fuck to buy it from their site. So I just got it off the local DC++ instead. Oh well.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded it from their site, but paid $0 as their site was so terrible I didn't feel comfortable entering my card number.

I'd gladly paypal a few dollars to them if they'd put up a link.
(How bad must a store be when paypal seems trustworthy in comparison?)

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[PJ1216]

I had issues with the site while using Firefox. I had to use IE (unfortunately) to purchase it. Every time I used Firefox, i'd never be able to make it to cart, let alone actually confirming the order. It'd always randomly screw up at some different point. IE, it seemed to work every time. I'm hoping its a coding issue that uses some MS pseudo-standard as opposed to an issue with Firefox. The prior seems more likely.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[rgbscan]

Ditto here. I couldn't get the checkout button to appear in firefox either. What I did was click on "edit payment details", reconfirm what I already had, closed it out, and when the window refreshed voila the checkout button had appeared. Dunno what the deal with that was though. I was a mouseclick away from giving up on them. I have to agrewe the website looked terrible and I wasn't sure it was legit at all at first.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[IvanTheNotSoBad]

Funny you mention that. I kept saying to myself that one of the band members themselves must have designed the site. And I was feeling sorry for the developer that had to make it functional. It had some of the worst UI decisions I've seen in a long time.

But someone got paid for this???

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[budgenator]

opera 9.23 on Linux seems to get stuck in some kind of Flash von Nueman loop abomination on the slash screen. Lynx at least let me navigate, but the site was so access uncompliatnt all the links were buttons withoul alt comments.
This page is not Valid (no Doctype found)!Result: Failed validation, 50 Errors w3c.org; so much for being HTML Experts.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[CopaceticOpus]

I wonder what Radiohead thinks about all the people who tried to pay for their music, couldn't and downloaded it / got stoned instead.

Perhaps they're too busy thinking about how to spend the millions of dollars they just made.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[GiMP]

> I find it very hard to believe that a Slashdot reader couldn't work out a simple web site.

Rather, I think this is a testament to how terrible their site is. I ordered (for $0), but found it very difficult to navigate their website and almost gave up myself.

I really don't believe it is a matter of stupidity. If grandmothers can shop on amazon, why can't they at radiohead's website?

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[homesteader]

The site was pretty unresponsive for the first week or so after the downloads were available. I took three tries for me, first two ended out of impatience.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[Hitto]

I don't think they're in a very sad mood right now... If they're smart, they'll just go "psha, who cares? We got rid of the REAL parasites and we're motherfucking millionaires".

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[weg]

Then I decided it was alright but not really worth paying for.


Honestly, I think the album is awesome, definitely worth paying for.
Especially, since you can decide how much you pay all by yourself.
The reason why I'm rarely buying music online is because

1. the labels obviously believe that its ok to charge the same
   amount for downloaded music as for the physical CD
   
2. most of the music you can buy online is still DRMed
   (thus making sure that I can't listen to the music I bought anymore
   once the DRM mechanism is outdated and unsupported).
   

So in the end, you pay the same and get less.
If, however, each song would cost about 50 cent and I'd get a DRM-free MP3
file, then I'd buy all of my music online.

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[Maestro485]

This story reminded me of the album, and after spending the last half hour trying to figure out where the stupid download link is and exactly how the fuck I'm supposed to download and pay for it I said screw it and grabbed the torrent from the pirate bay.

I actually want to pay these guys but this has to be the worst website I've ever seen.

(btw I'm using firefox on linux and there's not a chance in hell I'm entering credit card info on a windows machine).

Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album

[Reziac]

I just went to look, and can't get near the content thanks to the flash crap that links to more flash crap. If there's a store or a download present, I can't see it. If I were a Radiohead fan, I'd be heading for bittorrent myself at this point.

Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[ackthpt]

Six. Million. Dollars!!

Beyond discounting the damage of piracy to RIAA partner profits, the fact a band can raise at least that much money selling their own album suggests the bar is now so low bands need not sell their souls out for a record contract.

So Madonna is considering a fat new contract with some record company, that's their mistake. She's past her use by date anyway.

I think I need to record some of my own music and see how it flies.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

That has been proven for established artists. It has not been proven for new bands that have never signed with a label. Once that happens, it will be the death of the record industry.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Bluesman]

There's one thing that the record companies provide that you can't typically get on your own, and that's publicity.

Radiohead is only able to cause this much of a stir and make this much money because everyone and his brother heard "Creep" on the radio umpteen times in the late 90's. Otherwise nobody would know who the hell Radiohead is and their name-your-price album would sell no better than the thousands of other bands charging $5 for a CD that hardly anybody has ever heard of.

And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think I'd like nothing more than the complete breakdown of the music industry so that you'd actually have to go out to bars to hear people play. I think with national exposure given to a select few by the media companies, great local and regional bands have a much tougher time finding an audience.

If it no longer paid to spend the millions promoting those few bands, they'd have to compete with the people who didn't win the record contract lottery, and we'd all be better off.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Sloppy]

Beyond discounting the damage of piracy to RIAA partner profits, the fact a band can raise at least that much money selling their own album suggests the bar is now so low bands need not sell their souls out for a record contract.

Maybe. I have to wonder, though: if not for earlier record deals, would anyone have ever heard of this band? Prior to this, did their earlier CDs have "shelf space" in retail stores? Were they written up in magazines that have connections to the record companies? Were their earlier sales on the "charts?"

Lots of great bands languish in obscurity. There's something to be said for having your name pushed by expert publicists for a few years.

Still, yeah, it's a hopeful sign.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[N7DR]

And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think I'd like nothing more than the complete breakdown of the music industry so that you'd actually have to go out to bars to hear people play.

I've never been one for going out to hear local musicians -- but in the past year I have been to several local concerts in bars and small theatres, and almost without exception I have immediately purchased one or more CDs (indie, of course -- often they're just burned CD-ROMs) from the artist. I have been frankly amazed at how good some of the these unknown local artists are. So the whole "having to go out to bars" thing has certainly worked for me.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Escogido]

> And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think I'd like nothing more than the complete breakdown of the music industry so that you'd actually have to go out to bars to hear people play

Why would _you_ have to? There would always be a lot of those who are eager to try new stuff and tell the world of it. If you're none of these, no problem - you will know their opinion, and the opinion of the masses.. and given that you usually know what kind of music you like, something like http://last.fm/ would easily let you keep up with time.

The other good part is that most of the 'promotion' crap that involves sticking bad songs into our ears would be gone. Part of the problem with the today's music industry is that bands and performers being hyped are often outright sub par, because they somehow can afford 'promotion', and the better ones that are out there often just can't compete. This way, overall music quality available would improve as well.

That Radiohead decision along with things like http://www.sellaband.com/ are hopefully signs of the new musical industry. Die evil eMpTyV.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Skreems]

You're asking if RADIOHEAD had shelf space for earlier CDs? Radiohead. The band whose albums typically place in those "top 25 albums of all time" lists you find from various sources. The band who has been copied ridiculously many times in the last decade. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they got a lot of press just for making damn fine music. Not everyone successful gets that way by buying face time. Some of them genuinely deserve it.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[fishbowl]

>You think Radiohead is famous because of Creep? God you're a fucking philistine.

I know about them because I'm heavily into electronic music and synthesizers.

But I can recognize that 100 out of 100 people out there in the mainstream, if they know anything about Radiohead,
know the song Creep, maybe recognize the rat logo, and that's all. They are famous in what amounts to an underground scene in a nontraditional genre.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[motank]

yea, it's really hard to make a myspace page......

(that's all the record companies do these days)

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[siobHan]

Uh no, Madonna signed with a touring/promotion company, not a record label. So it's another non-traditional move, although not the same as what Radiohead did.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[gemada]

ummm....no. Creep came out in the early 90's. Radiohead is famous because OK Computer is regularly cited as one of the top 10 albums of all time. Not to mention "The Bends" is one of the great Rock Albums of all time.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[houghi]

I am going to a local band tonight in Leuven. A sample is here

Although not bad, none of them make enough to make a living. Yes, the sample is a bit bigger the normal, but that was because of a special occasion.

Addmision to the concert tonight is free. They get their money from the pubowner who gets more people and thus sells more beer. Everybody happy.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Lord Flipper]

That has been proven for established artists. It has not been proven for new bands that have never signed with a label. Once that happens, it will be the death of the record industry.

It's just a matter of time.

The precedent exists, and earlier than this Radiohead venture. Back in the mid to late 70s there was a band that had been playing seedy clubs in the Hollywood/LA area (Madame Wong's, etc), that went into the studio and came out, with a record that cost $17,000 in recording/mastering costs. At the same time, roughly, Fleetwood Mac was in a variety of big studios spending an estimated $2 Million on a record that was a huge flop (Tusk). The 'little band' was The Knack, and they sold millions of copies of that record.

At the time, in the LA music industry, the major labels were floored, and being the clueless types that they've always been (with notable exceptions of legendary stature) they went out and signed 'everybody.' It was the beginning of the end of disco, and really made everyone in the business take a hard look at recording budgets. After most of the newly-signed bands didn't pan out there were major layoff/firings at the Big Labels.

The Knack did a series of small shows in the months leading up to the release of this record. There was no radio airplay, no advance at all. Even at the shows, whose tickets/passes had been given out to the 'little people' in the industry (record store clerks and indie shop owners, clerks, etc), the band came out and did nothing but 'covers' of British Invasion hits.

I saw a few of the shows, and they were absolutely great. Pure and simple. The 'buzz' was contagious, and when the first single, "My Sharona" debuted, it was on the charts in the #1 spot for weeks... They sold the first 500,000 records in 13 days.

I mention this, partly because it was one of those periods where it was great to be in LA, and because all of the current 'models' and conjectures about 'can it be done?', etc, have this clear precedent, which involved low budgets, 'viral' marketing, and of course, at the root of it all: talent, and a passion for the work at hand.

Like I said, just a matter of time before the next one hits, from out of nowhere, and hopefully this time many more will follow along, and things will evolve. But the labels are entrenched, scared, and influential. As a longtime (retired) pro musician, I know that the industry is corrupt. The Musician's Union (AFM) has been a mob entity for its entire history, and the labels and studios look at the performers as necessary 'evils' in their money-making thing. But the time will come, bank on it.

Note:
I have seen the budget for the Knack's first record as being $18,000, not 17, but I stand by my numbers. They sold 5 million copies of the album, and faded rather quickly... Assuming $1.50-1.65 as the band's 'share' of each record sold, the return on investment was fabulous for the group, and rather not-too-shabby for their label, either. They rode the top (#1) of the charts for 5 weeks, knocking Donna Summer's album Bad Girls out of the Number 1 spot, and being displaced, six weeks later, by Led Zeppelin's "In Through the Out Door".

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Mikelikus]

I find it deeply amusing that while you try to make a point based on music history, you fail completely.

Radiohead are one of the greatest bands ever. They revolutionized rock music throughout these last 15 years in ways I can only compare to The Beatles and still you only remember them for a song they released in 1992.

I'm sorry but if I had mod points I could only mod you either funny or troll.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[Cally]

Minor niggle, but I think that probably having recorded one of the all-time classic albums of the last 30 years got them a bit more PR than 'Creep'.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[fishbowl]

Are you trying to claim that being popular in markets outside the USA qualifies something as "mainstream?"

Unlikely.

Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA

[fishbowl]

>Your tone of voice isn't coming across. Are you joking?

Not really. If you can make the case you're trying to make for Radiohead, you can make it for, say, Haibib Koité as well.
The point is well taken, of course. Radiohead isn't exactly an unsigned garage band and can leverage their popularity to create a direct sales market. Others have done it before; consider Ani DiFranco's approach (give the labels the middle finger by becoming a label), or the Grateful Dead with the whole self-produced "Dick's Picks" thing (taking never-licensed material that was already in open distribution, but packaging it for sale.) I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm sure someone could name the top 25 acts in Korea or Indonesia, point out that their fanbase is larger than the populations of the US and Europe combined, and that's not going to make them mainstream, but you'll probably find in converse, Koreans generally recognize US and UK and European pop artists. To my mind "mainstream" is when people on every continent recognize your brand...

Grammar Nazie Alert

[davebarnes]

Shouldn't it read "Radiohead have..." as they are British.

Re:Grammar Nazie Alert

[Justus]

Radiohead is British, but Slashdot is written in American English. Considering that you typically follow the grammar rules of your own nationality rather than the nationality of the subject, I would say there's no error here.

Pure profit?

[pwizard2]

Does the band get to keep the entire $6M-$10M or does the label expect a large cut?

Re:Pure profit?

[Volante3192]

Yes, the label does expect a large cut.

But as the label and the band are one in the same, it doesn't matter as much.

Re:Pure profit?

[FridayBob]

I heard the contract with their record company expired, which left them free to experiment in this manner. No label was involved in this part of equation, so after paying for the necessary website modifications and extra bandwidth, I guess it's all profit for them. Later, when the album appears as a CD in the stores, then I'm sure somebody else will be taking a cut (unless the band is now also into manufacturing and distribution, which I doubt).

Re:Pure profit?

[PixelSmack]

RTFA - Radiohead are now out of contract with their label, once they have covered all the server and bandwidth overheads all the profits are theres.

There is only one way to find out the truth.

[Funkcikle]

If you downloaded the Radiohead album please reply here and say how much you paid, so that we can send a bill for our rightful share to Radiohead.

Sincerely yours,
The RIAA

Re:There is only one way to find out the truth.

[Korveck]

Negative one hundred and two million Euro. Now go get your share.

Re:There is only one way to find out the truth.

[Funkcikle]

Negative one hundred and two million Euro. Now go get your share.

Our accountants have put this into our Excel spreadsheet and apparently we are in for a LOT of money.

Re:There is only one way to find out the truth.

[brianb0032]

I paid $10, that went straight to the band. If it was released through a RIAA label, I would need to pay $179 if I wanted $10 to go to the band. I'm glad I could give $10 the actual producers and innovators behind the product I was purchasing without having to give the cartel $169.

Re:There is only one way to find out the truth.

[JonathanR]

#REF!

Re:There is only one way to find out the truth.

[Cally]

Forty quid, FWIW. I bt'd it, decided I liked it enough to plonk down real money, and as I'm single, mortgage wife & kids-less in my late 30s, I can fork out forty quid for the boxset more or less on a whim. Arpeggi / Weird Fish is worth the cost of admission alone. Seriously, sit down and listen to that one track three or four times, mebbe give it a day or two to fester in your subconscious, come back to it. Now tell me that's not godlike genius.

There aren't many other bands I'd shell out for like that, though I did buy a wacked-out small-run CD of J Spaceman (of Spiritualized) noodling on the guitar for 40 mins (and I mean noodling with a capital NOOD) for £12, but that's more by way of tithe for the enormous pleasure he's given me over the last 20 years.

They don't have a label anymore

[MichaelCrawford]

they are completely independent, or perhaps you could say they are their own label.

I doubt many record labels would have permitted them to do this.

Re:It's not piracy, idiots

[dsanfte]

'How about we lay off that word now?'

(fixed for weirdness)

Hopefully others follow...

[appleguru]

Here's to hoping other bands get the hint and start ditching record labels.. Even though I doubt it will happen, as record labels do provide a valuable function (distribution, marketing and loss-leading acts)... So I guess I'm saying I hope some of the bigger names that can afford to, ditch their label contracts as soon as they can and force the labels to change their ways (Yes, I know this would suck for the little guy during that time, but it looks like just about the only thing that can be done to bring about change)... Not to mention the artist gets 100% pay for album sales this way... as opposed to the paltry ~5-10% they get from labels.

Figure for comparison?

[Burnhard]

I would be interested to know what kind of gross they could expect from a label promotion and distribution in the "old way". The figure given here is a bit useless without that piece of information ;).

Re:Figure for comparison?

[metrometro]

Use this:

Number of album sales * Average Retail price * 0.1 = artist's take.

Labels, retailers middlemen and RIAA lawers generally take a 90% cut. Traditionally, the label pays for production and advertising, which was considerable pre-internet. Those costs have plunged now that the internet can hype anything and production costs can be trimmed to 2 or 3 good mics, some software and a laptop.

But all you really need to know is that the old way got them ~$2 an album, and this way got them $5 or more (estimated), while building considerable goodwill with fans. Sounds like a pretty good model to me.

Re:Figure for comparison?

[kebes]

Well, according to this article:

The buzz generated by the band's pay-what-you-want publicity stunt may also boost sales. Radiohead's previous album sold only 300,000 copies in the first week--about one-sixth the number of copies of In Rainbows now in circulation.

Given that their current album, without label advertising, managed 1.2 million sales in a similar time period, it would seem that they are doing just fine. The fact that they get a much higher revenue-per-sale ($8 instead of perhaps $3 per sale) translates into much bigger profits from Radiohead's point of view. As another point of comparison, assuming that the "platinum" and "gold" ratings here are correct (and using this to translate into numbers), their albums seem to sell hundreds-of-thousands to millions of copies over the years. So, again, 1.2 million within weeks of launch seems pretty impressive.

Re:Figure for comparison?

[geekoid]

Why don't you write them and ask?

Many people would be interested in knowing the outcome of that comparison.

Re:Figure for comparison?

[Burnhard]

I'm sure they wouldn't have the time or inclination to respond to a pleb like me! I guess when the promotion period is over they will publish the results in any case. I'm not sure how many hard copies OK Computer or The Bends sold, but knowing this you could I suppose make an educated guess at a similar volume. I would expect (and this is just an intuition) that the sales curve for this kind of promotion will fall steeply (all those who want to pay will have already done so), whereas hard-copy sales would spike again around xmas (for example). So the comparison might not be so straight forward.

Re:Figure for comparison?

[Apotsy]

production costs can be trimmed to 2 or 3 good mics, some software and a laptop

If you want it to sound like complete ass, sure. Digital technology has helped to somewhat reduce a few of costs associated with recording, but a controlled acoustic environment is still necessary to capture a clear record of the sound.

Re:Figure for comparison?

[WhiteWolf666]

production costs can be trimmed to 2 or 3 good mics, some software and a laptop.

I don't think you can (or should) make it *that* simple, but even accounting for "real" production costs, the cost is not that high.

A few good mics, good sound hardware in a PC/Mac, an (acoustically) excellent room, and a proper monitor system should do it. No more then ten's of thousands of dollars, and something you could squeeze into a few thousand dollars with a great deal of sweat and tear (not to mention knowledge).

Either way, nothing beyond any other sort of small business; and easily within reach of anyone with some dedication.

Re:Figure for comparison?

[metrometro]

> a controlled acoustic environment is still necessary to capture a clear record of the sound. Like suburban basement full of mattresses and carpet samples? Check. What else you got?

Re:Figure for comparison?

[jswalter9]

Actually, the record companies typically front the money for costs and take 100% of the artists' share until it's paid back. You have to be a very big act to get the record company to absorb any cost - even marketing.

Re:Figure for comparison?

[metrometro]

Well right. Point is, if you're strapped for cash and reasonably clever, you can make it work. Laptops can be borrowed, monitors can be rigged from PAs, etc. Bottom line is the studios don't provide nearly as much value as they did even ten years ago.

I always think of David Gray's Babylon album. Nice album is you like the singer songwriter thing, did pretty well. He recorded the entire album in a friend's living room. I saw a picture of the setup - looked like everything fit on a coffee table. Which, to me, is how music aught to work.

I'm impressed.

[pushing-robot]

Not bad earnings, considering that this means (a) the album went platinum with no marketing help from a major label, and (b) even letting consumers name their own price (and pirate the album freely), Radiohead is making better royalties than they would through a label.

Destroys both of the arguments the labels make in their own defense. Other artists would be fools not to learn from Radiohead.

Re:I'm impressed.

[MozeeToby]

As much as I want to agree with you I just can't. Radiohead had a huge following long before they tried this and that following was generated, at least in part, by the record companies marketing and pr.

I imagine it would be pretty hard (if not borderline impossible) for a new band, no matter how good, to do this kind of thing and turn a profit this easily.

Re:I'm impressed.

[metrometro]

A new band wouldn't turn this profit, but that doesn't mean the model can't scale down. I played in several bands for years, got put on a couple of ska complilations and our total record industry provided cut was under $500 bucks. Never got signed to a full album contract. If we'd skipped all that, put our music on a website and pushed a fan base to chip in, I suspect we'd have done more. Could we get 100 people to chip in $5 for a free download? I think so - we played show to that many people twice a month for years.

In the process, we would have gotten our music in front of more people and generated goodwill in the fan base. So there's a better growth potential, as buyers become, in a way, backers.

Re:I'm impressed.

[suv4x4]

Not bad earnings, considering that this means (a) the album went platinum with no marketing help from a major label, and (b) even letting consumers name their own price (and pirate the album freely), Radiohead is making better royalties than they would through a label.

Destroys both of the arguments the labels make in their own defense. Other artists would be fools not to learn from Radiohead.

Keep in mind even though Radiohead's album did incredibly without the help of the labels, the labels have already invested millions in their marking, videoclips, airtime and so on. And the fact they made the news because they are among the first to go independent in this way.

I'm all for artists independence, in fact I'm quite excited by this news, I hope more and more popular artists follow their lead.

BUT, we should be careful in our analysis, since bias may ruin our arguments. The model will be proven to work only when a group which started online, grew to those dimensions by themselves. I know it'll happen personally, but we need to see the proof, and let it be the norm rather than the exception (for great artists).

Re:I'm impressed.

[Attila]

As my enjoyment of the album increases with each listen I may buy it again to reflect it's true worth to me. I think this could be a viable business model for a lot of other established artists.

But your statement that Radiohead achieved this with no marketing help from a major label is misleading. True, no label was involved in the marketing of this album, but Radiohead is an established act thanks to the marketing efforts of their former label. I purchased In Rainbows because I developed a taste for Radiohead after they were forced on me via radio, TV, and movies. I'm pretty happy that happened, but while looking forward to the demise of the current music industry I pause to wonder who's going to weed through the millions of mundane acts to find the real gems and direct me to their websites? I can't possibly listen to them all.

Re:I'm impressed.

[RonnyJ]

this means (a) the album went platinum with no marketing help from a major label

You have to consider that Radiohead were already hugely successful (partly down to previous marketing from a major label), and also that their new album got huge publicity from many news sites due to the way it was being released.

It's extremely hard to imagine that a small band (let alone an unknown) could have got anywhere near the amount of publicity this has had. Even if another band as big as Radiohead released an album in the same way, it wouldn't get as much publicity as this one has (being the first major release done in this way).

Re:I'm impressed.

[Dunbal]

It's extremely hard to imagine that a small band (let alone an unknown) could have got anywhere near the amount of publicity this has had.

      Gee I guess you've never head about Chris Crocker and his "Leave Britney Alone" video have you? I'm in the fucking Costa Rican jungle and I've heard of him. I assure you, if a decent band posts some decent music, the fame will come. No RIAA required.

Re:I'm impressed.

[fodi]

Hey Metro,

I have to agree that you'd have gotten the money, especially after people visited your shows.

Furthermore, I think the sales dynamic will shift inline with other business ventures. Let me explain...

What I've commonly observed is:
1. A new (start-up) artist records a single.
2. Industry bodies (the venture capitalists) pump millions of dollars worth of advertising into promoting the single, which inevitably reaches a "Top 20" billboard and becomes popular.
3. The industry body needs a major cut of the profits to get an ROI.
4. The artist got this opportunity due to the quality of their looks, voice (a skill not an art), marketability; a single 'talent' that doesn't mean they'll be a long-term player in the industry.
5. The following singles start to flop... the artist ends up failing.

I hope the new model works like this:
1. An new (start-up) artist records a single.
2. The artist promotes the single within their budgetary constraints and makes it available for sale online.
3. Initial sales are low and people pay a low price for the album. This is inline with most start-up businesses which rarely turn a profit in the first 6 - 12 months.
4. The artist tours and gets airtime and more people buy the album. People go to the site to buy the latest album they've heard and also decide to buy the back-catalogue. As the artist builds a reputation, people choose to pay more for the album and there are more sales overall. ie. the artists profits rise with their reputation, just like traditional business models.

In summary, I think this business model is more stable and offers long-term potential.

Any thoughts??

-fodi

Re:I'm impressed.

[pushing-robot]

But new bands, no matter how good, don't turn a profit easily - even with a record label. Most first contracts are absolutely horrible for the artist, and most artists - no matter how good - never get much attention from the label. Labels are like lotteries - great for a few lucky ones, a burden for the rest.

And popularity doesn't need a record label. I can name more artists (whose music I listen to) that I heard about through word of mouth than through labels' PR campaigns. Did Slashdot, YouTube, Pandora, Penny Arcade, or a thousand other sites need an advertising behemoth to make them popular? No, they just needed free content - some of which is good.

And, if it hadn't been proved already, Radiohead just showed that plenty of people will pay for content even if you let them have it for free.

I think that the one thing that would sink the labels would be an entire free music service similar in design to iTunes + the iTunes store. Have a huge online database of only indie artists. Let people rate music, and search by popularity, other user's ratings, genre, and a "people who like your song also liked..." system akin to Pandora. Don't put any DRM or other restrictions on the service - let users play whatever songs they want as often as they want, assemble their own libraries, download songs, burn CDs, sync with their iPods, set up their own internet radio channels and share them with friends.

But allow users to easily pay artists. Let users see at a glance which artists they rated the highest or listened to the most, and let them pay the artists by simply typing in an amount and clicking a button. Possibly even use a little shame, by using the faintest of red highlights on unpurchased songs in users' libraries, or by pointing out artists that are highly rated yet poorly compensated.

Of course, running such a service would cost money, primarily in bandwidth costs. But there are quite a few ways of paying that - one, with unobtrusive ads like most popular sites. Two, by letting users contribute bandwidth. Three, by putting a slight surcharge on payments. If sites like Slashdot and Pandora can stay afloat, there's no reason to believe a media portal like this couldn't either.

Re:I'm impressed.

[Lemming42]

Not to mention that in the small scale model the piracy percentage would be much lower, as it would be less likely that an unknown compilation album would show up on the major torrent sites.

Re:wtf

[Martin Blank]

Piracy is unauthorized replication and distribution. A copyright holder can require that those who get something for free get it from a specific source. In this case, downloading it for free from Radiohead is not piracy, while downloading it via eDonkey is piracy.

good, but....

[illicit7118]

This is a first step (if true) however doesn't solve a bigger issue. Radiohead can do this because they are an established band, who became established because of the current industry infrastructure mind you. This modeal does NOTHING for an unknown band. How do you complete the bridge to the future?

Re:good, but....

[anagama]

Internet radio with only non-riaa bands to avoid the whole ludicrous licensing fee issue?

Re:good, but....

[Eberlin]

You can go viral on youtube similar to the way Ok Go became well-known. Be creative, come up with something different...it doesn't even really have to be good (but that helps for longevity). You might not make umpteen million dollars like Radiohead but I'm sure there'll be some money there.

Between the amount of control you'll have with your own music and not having to pay a record label, it really might not be a bad idea.

Then again, I'm not in the music biz.

Re:good, but....

[nmelo.cu]

Anybody heard of Jonathan Coulton? I have, and he did the same thing, go freelance. It's called Thing a Week. Check it out.

Re:good, but....

[AeroIllini]

This modeal does NOTHING for an unknown band. How do you complete the bridge to the future? You let the music industry do what it was supposed to do in the first place: scout and promote talent, book gigs, and front costs, for a small fee.

This whole "oligopoly with armies of lawyers demanding 90% royalties and suing old ladies" is not part of the record industry service model. Now that lots of bands will be leaving the established companies in droves, I expect to see many more smaller, artist-oriented companies springing up, who will do everything the old players did minus the litigation and ass-raping.

Call it the democratization of the service side of the music industry.

Re:good, but....

[Dunbal]

You let the music industry do what it was supposed to do in the first place: scout and promote talent,

      You mean "talent", because frankly I think they've lost themselves nowadays, considering all the shit I hear on the radio.

Re:good, but....

[Kasis]

My thoughts also. Why do we need international superstars who are so big they can afford to effectively BE their own multinational companies complete with offices, private jets and personnel departments?

With the internet, it is still possible to rise to stardom but it will be the masses who choose the stars, not marketing graduates and fat execs.

Re:good, but....

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

I don't think that is necessarily true.... a good unknown band could pass out business cards with a link to their website with the offer of an album download and probably wouldn't do any worse than selling the cds at the concert; minus the hassle of keeping track of money and product while on tour.

Re:It's not piracy, idiots

[tiocsti]

If you accept that piracy is copyright infringement (and not stealing) then you can certainly pirate free things. There's many cases of free software being pirated, for example. This is little different, the price may have been zero, but nothing gave anyone rights to redistribute that free material. Ergo, it was pirated.

So what's the control?

[the_skywise]

What's the usual amount for Radiohead's sales?

If they successfully cut out the publisher they'd probably be getting about 30% of the sales at $15 pop or ~15 million or about 5 million back to Radiohead. So at even the lower estimate, they came out the same as if they had sold them through the normal channels or BETTER if sales were higher.

If not and downloads were about the same number as regular sales...they didn't do so hot...

But it's really hard to judge that from this article.

Re:So what's the control?

[imsabbel]

Do you really think they get 30% of the retail album sales price?
I think 10% might be a realistic value, and just because they are a big-name group.

I mean, the retail chain alone eats up maybe half of the retail price, disregarding the whole MAFIAA.

Re:So what's the control?

[l2718]

Actually, even if Radiohead lost some, it would still a mean that a lot more people got to enjoy the music. In other words, the benefit to society was orders of magnitude bigger than the alternative (where most of the benefit would go to the record label). I think I'm beginning to believe Ray Beckerman's insistence that the record labels are history.

Re:It's not piracy, idiots

[6031769]

Sure you can. Read the GPL sometime.

Bravo for RadioHead!

[Elementalor]

I bought the album for GBP2.5 and I'm very pleased with the result. They deserve the money for distributing their music in a universal format like MP3, without any kind of DRM and directly to the listener. It's my first RadioHead album that I have bought, but I may buy more if they keep this attitude for their fans and casual listeners alike.

Re:Bravo for RadioHead!

[Draped Crusader]

a universal format like MP3 Wait, you mean OGG or something right?

Re:Bravo for RadioHead!

[Elementalor]

No, I meant a format playable in all devices and programs ;) Ogg Vorbis is very far from being a universal format, it's "just" an open format, but very limited to be played in the millions of devices and programs available today.

If you wanted to say open, yes, Ogg Vorbis is an open format and that's the format I will rip the CD when my boyfriend receives his "In Rainbows" box, to be played in my iRiver H340 and clix2 ;)

Re:Bravo for RadioHead!

[Draped Crusader]

I actually meant universal format as in "not a patent nightmare", but that'll work.

No intermediaries!

[iOsiris]

Overall revenue may be less but this revenue goes DIRECTLY to them and not intermediaries.

Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[GnarlyDoug]

I was going to buy their box set to support them until I found that they album download was only 160 kbps. I thought that was a cheesy move so I gave it a pass and I know two other people who did as well for the same reason. So that's three boxed sets they didn't sell that I know of. Hard to extraplate from that of course, but I think if they had not dorked around with a low bitrate download, they would have done even better. Still, I'm glad that it looks like they've proved this business model and I think many more artists will follow suit.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[fliptout]

What is good enough for you, reel tape? :P

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[Volante3192]

I don't really see this as a reasonable reason. First, if you got the box set, you could've made your own copy at whatever bitrate you wanted. Second, it's not like the downloaded copy was to appease the hardcore demographic, but rather the masses. 160k is a good tradeoff between size and quality, IMHO.

Furthermore, you can still pick how much you want to purchase the downloaded track for. If you feel 320k is the only bitrate, and that it'd be worth $12 (cause I'm too lazy to look up the code for the pound, just divide by 2.5, cause I'm thinking in pounds for this), then adjust the value as such to like, $4 or $5.

But saying "because it's only 160k" is just a copout, I think.

I'll be honest, I downloaded it off the site at $0, but I've never heard them before so I don't even know if I'd like it. (Still haven't gotten around to it yet...so maybe next Radiohead article I'll comment on if I liked it or not.)

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[stuffman64]

Well, I don't know where to go with this.

I own some pretty nice headphones, but I sure wouldn't call myself an audiophile. Even though I don't have the best equiptment, it still *is* possible to tell the difference between a 160kbps MP3 and a CD... though the difference is, in fact, quite tiny at best.

Here's the thing: how can this guy fault a 160kbps MP3 if he's never heard the CD version to compare it to? It's like looking at a photo of a painting and discrediting the work without having seen the original. Who says the original is that much better? But yeah, the OP needs to stop complaining... it's free for crying out loud.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[the_arrow]

But if you buy the box, don't you get the CD with that? And if you have the CD, can't you rip it your self in whatever bitrate you want?

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[GnarlyDoug]

Better an asshole than a coward, AC.

Better smart than stupid as well. You didn't even read my post. I never said anything about MY tastes. I'm not an audiophile. Actually I have moderate hearing loss in one ear. That being said, even I can usually tell if something is encoded in less than 192 kpbs if it is delicate enough. I'm not a huge fan of Radiohead either. I and the other two wanted to support what Radiohead was doing and what we thought they stood for. I was willing to shell out $100 or so and wear their t-shirt to help promote destroying the cartels that are destroying so many artists. By releasing a sub-par product for the download, which was the rallying point over the whole thing, they showed that they weren't actually making a stand for enlightened self interest like I thought they were. They were just making a stand for self interest. Also, they said the "THE ALBUM" was free for download. They lied by omission as far as I am concerned when they did not clarify that. Without any other information, most people will assume that "THE ALBUM" means you get something IDENTICAL to what you would get if you bought the CD, minus the plastic disc part. And while I may not be able to tell the difference, I presume many people can, and I don't think they're assholes because they can hear the finer points that I cannot.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[GnarlyDoug]

*sigh* I guess I wasn't very clear in my first post. I'm not even a huge Radiohead fan. Their music is OK. I didn't and won't download their album for free either. I and my friends were going to buy their boxed sets to support what they were doing. Only one of us is even a fan of theirs. I was going to wear their t-shirt everywhere to show my support for their awesomeness as pioneers, helping to promote freedom for artists everywhere. However by saying they were going to offer 'the album' for free download and allowing people to even pre-pay if they wanted, I feel they duped their fans. News stories abounded about how 'the album' was going to be available for free download. That term, 'the album', without any other qualifications, really leads you to think you can get the music in an identical manner at least in terms of quality, to the CD. That is new and could change how music is sold.

What they really did was allow you to download a lower-quality version. If they had said, "you can download a lower quality version of the music for free to see if you want to buy the CD", they would not have gotten much press at all. Others have done that already. They might not have inteded to dupe everybody at first, but after the news firestorm started they sure didn't run out and try to fix the misconeptions. They took lots of money, including pre-orders, waited until it was discovered and then claimed innocence over the whole thing. That not decent behavior IMO.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[hasbeard]

But how long would it have taken 1.2 million people to download this about as FLAC files?

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[Volante3192]

If it was lacking the 'idiot' part i'd have believed it to be just an argument...

However, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to an audiophile (yea, i know the stigmatism of the term) that he'd know how to record at a higher bitrate.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[Volante3192]

Ok, so the kbps rate wasn't known until after someone downloaded it? That's what I'm gathering and I'm too knackered to bother verifying. If that IS the case, that's somewhat unfortunate. Quality of the source should be available somewhere, (well, in retrospect. I'll admit this isn't anything I've been following with a passion. Gotta pick my battles), so people know what they're getting.

I'd wager this is still a learning process though, so I'm gonna play the naive optimist a bit longer when it comes to bands and online dispursment.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[BitZtream]

To put it simply, You're full of shit. If you REALLY wanted to support them you would have done it anyway and made the suggestion that they encode in a higher bitrate. All your doing is trying to claim you 'would buy it for the common good' but didn't because of some retarded technicality that wouldn't have affected you if you did what you claim you were going to do.

Second, I'd put a months pay on the line that I could encode a 320kbs mp3 and a 128kbs mp3 and play them both on your hardware and you wouldn't know the difference. I hate when people are all high and mighty about high bitrate mp3s ... and you play them through you $15 over amp'd speakers connected to your onboard soundcard via a frayed headphone cable

You know the original MP3 encoders were designed so that at 128kbps most people could not tell the difference right? Yet you are one of the many people who claim 'OMG LOW BITRATE SUCKS'

Seriously, shut the fuck up and stop acting like you were all out to buy the album but this stupid little bitrate issue is what stopped you from buying it.

Okay, so that was just a mean spewing rant, but I really hate people that talk like this and act like bitrates like this are the end of the world ... cause you can tell a difference on your shitty ass PC sound card. /me waits to here how he has an ASUS board with tube amp onboard, monster cables feeding a harmon kardon amp with bose speakers ...

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[GnarlyDoug]

It was a mean spewing rant. Lots of fuck, shit, shut up, and other name calling spewing from you. I'll say it again. I was never going to download the album. I was going to buy the boxed set. The only reasons I cared about the bitrate of the album download is because Radiohead told people that they could download the album and took money and pre-orders. They didn't let people know, even those who had paid, that the bitrate was 160 kbps until AFTER Radiohead got their money. They knew that this was a little too low in quality and that people would be expecting a higher bitrate if they actually paid for 'the album'. Their own manager stated that the download was only a promotion to sell the CD. They put it out at 160 kbps because they WANTED it to be just a hair off from being good enough. THAT is what annoyed me and made me change my mind. Want to put out a lower quality mp3 of the album for free to sell the CD? I got no problem wit that, it's a good strategy. Want to offer the album at high or full quality for free download and say 'pay what you feel is fair'? Fabulous, I'm ready to support those artists on principle if they're any good, which Radiohead is. Combine the two approaches and let people pay for 'the album' and don't let them know you consider it just a promotion and that the bitrate is a little low? Not cool.

Also, it's not like I'm all that upset about it. I just decided to not give them $80 bucks or so of my money, as did a couple of friends. I didn't pirate or even download for free their music. I didn't take a single thing away from Radiohead. I just chose not to support them because I feel they weren't totally on the up and up about the whole thing. I'm also saying that only doing 160 kbps cost them money. That was just low enough to piss off some of their fans, and it accomplished nothing. A higher quality version was bound to be pirated and it was. So Radiohead not only did something a little shady, they did it for no purpose because they still have enough of the old mindset to think that they had something to gain by doing this.

Well, I'm sure a lot more people will flame me now with vitriol and four letter words rather than merely disagreeing with me and saying why. To them I say ahead of time that there are many decaffeinated coffees on the market and they taste just as good as the regular ones. Cheers.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[JeremyBanks]

I don't think they're duping their fans if 99% of them don't know or care about the difference.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[pcardno]

I don't understand:

"most people will assume that "THE ALBUM" means you get something IDENTICAL to what you would get if you bought the CD"

So would you have wanted it to be downloaded in a lossless format, like WAVs? Could Radiohead really have potentially given 1.2 million 600Mb+ downloads away in a cost effective manner, purely from a bandwidth perspective? And from a consumer point of view, it's hardly fair on those with tiny broadband connections, or even dialup, which is still a large proportion in the UK. A 48Mb download is do-able overnight on dialup, but 600Mb? If I'd have found out it was 600Mb or so after paying, I would have been gutted, as I "technically" have a 4Gb a month transfer limit on my 8Mb BT line here in the UK, and that would have cut into it fairly considerably.

Oh, and those "most people" who would assume you'd get something identical? They won't even notice this. I've been a musician for over 15 years now and am a huge Radiohead fan, yet I haven't felt my enjoyment of their new product to be in any way held back by the bitrate.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[iRegister]

I'm a little confused as well as some other users. You didn't like the 160 kbps quality of the download, so that made you decide NOT to get the higher audio quality box set? I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish by boycotting this first step in a novel business method. Although 160 kbps MP3 wasn't my preferred format either. (I would've preferred AAC for the smaller size.)

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[iRegister]

What about P2P? Like as if it's not going to be uploaded to a bittorrent tracker anyway, why bother avoiding it if it could cut costs.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[Lord Flipper]

Nobody can hear the difference between a 160kbps MP3 and a CD - at least, not if you're actually listening to the MUSIC...

I'm with AC, on this one. I played as a musician, was a huge 'fan' and collector of records, and worked in studios and had friends and relatives with all sorts of playback systems, and what I found out was: If you're after the music itself, the playback system and bit-rates (etc) don't mean a fucking thing.

Was I ever spoiled, and capable of 'quoting' audio theory in support of utopian audio playback prejudice? Sure, I was. And what a miserable place it was to be, because when the crunch came, and I wanted to just hear it all, it really didn't matter if I was sitting in front of a $25 thousand system, or using some little portable, God-forsaken, scratchy, dull-needled, pull-down cheapie... The music ruled. Period.

Do I go after the VBRs with high bit-rate 'floors'? Sure, and why not? But, when all is said and done, it's the music that matters, and these days it's trivial to tweak a bit of software to pull down whatever's being over-emphasized, and 'bring out' what was 'neglected' in the sample rates, etc. Piece o' cake, really.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[bodrell]

I think if they had not dorked around with a low bitrate download, they would have done even better. Still, I'm glad that it looks like they've proved this business model and I think many more artists will follow suit.

Ditto.

I did pay for the download (although if I hadn't it would NOT be piracy, contrary to what many people here have implied). I paid 5 pounds for the album, but that is definitely inflated compared to the fair market value, in my opinion. A full-length CD (not mp3s) is worth $7-10 to me at most (though I sometimes pay more). I always rip my CDs at 256 kbps (128 kbps per stereo channel) and that's good enough quality for me. I would routinely pay $7 for a 256 kbps mp3 album. But 160 kbps? On any other day, when I wasn't trying to support the band and this new distribution model, I'd pay $3-5, tops.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[GnarlyDoug]

Hmmm. So if you needed a part for your Toyota and I sold you a replacement part and installed it for you and told you it was a genuine, new part when it was in reality a after-market used part then I didn't dupe you so long as you never found out or cared? I'll have to disagree with you that duping someone doesn't count if they can't tell that they were duped.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[JeremyBanks]

They never specified that it was a lossless track, though, did they? To most people, 160Kbps is the same as CD quality, and if they got lossless files, they'd be irritated that the files were so large or that (depending on the format) they didn't know how to play them. Yes, they probably should have specified beforehand, but when the bitrate isn't specified, you shouldn't be expecting lossless.

Re:Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps

[GnarlyDoug]

I would agree with you except for two things.

First, This articlepoints out that "First and foremost, all of Radiohead's previous albums were already available as MP3s encoded at 320 kilobits per second". I take that to mean that Radiohead had already established a standard of expectation of 320 kbps with their previous behavior. Providing the album 'for 'free' but then changing the bitrate from what they had historically provided for downloadable material is what makes it look duplicitus to me.

Second is this quote from this article. "If we didn't believe that when people hear the music they will want to buy the CD, then we wouldn't do what we are doing,' Bryce Edge of Courtyard Management told Music Week, the UK's industry magazine."

That is a flat-out admission that the only point of the downloadable album concept was to push the CD sales, not any real expectation to make money off the actual download or to use it as part of a new business model that Radiohead was given credit for.

It's these two aspects together that made me think it wasn't an innocent oversight. Even if many won't know, care, or tell the difference, some will and Radiohead certainly wasn't thinking of the download as anything other than a promotion for the CD sales. In other words even if most people are okay with it, I think Radiohead intended for the bitrate to be a little too low and that it would encourage the CD sales instead of being a replacement for them.

Re:wtf

[ThePromenader]

Yep. To the other end of the bias spectrum, I read an article in the Herald Tribune (Wednesday, October 27, "Radiohead's Warm Glow" - Eduardo Porter) stating that his economist friends find those who would download the album for free to be "rational human beings".

I paid £8.

Completely Irrelevant

[Ambiguous Coward]

This is all well and good, but it completely ignores the fact that if people are pirating music, the artists can't make any money!

-G

Re:Completely Irrelevant

[Raineer]

This is all well and good, but it completely ignores the fact that if people are pirating music, the artists can't make any money!

-G Yeah, artists sure aren't making ANY money at all. Hmm...

Re:Completely Irrelevant

[aliquis]

Yeah, he should have said if the people normally buying the music, went to conserts, bought items and so on only pirated the music and skiped the rest and never watched mtv/whatever.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[joe_bruin]

Who the fuck is radiohead? Karma police, arrest this man.

for the record

[SolusSD]

Making $6-$10 million on a new album the week it comes out is _unheard-of_ in the music biz-- especially since radiohead gets to keep most of it, if not virtually all of it. (When you buy a CD in the store for $14 less than a dollar actually goes to the artist). Also-- this album went platinum in the first week! Huge success for Radiohead.

Re:for the record

[lmnfrs]

especially since radiohead gets to keep most of it, if not virtually all of it.

Keep in mind bandwidth isn't too cheap. Certainly they did very well, but the bandwidth and server resources needed to support all those downloads wasn't cheap.

Still, yeah, huge success.

Re:for the record

[burris]

The artist royalty may be less than a dollar but generally the artist doesn't get any of that. That's because all of the costs of production, marketing, packaging, etc... come out of the artists royalty.

see http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Re:for the record

[noidentity]

"Making $6-$10 million on a new album the week it comes out is _unheard-of_ in the music biz"

That's because this doesn't take into account all the production costs. Ask the MAFIAA, distributing online music is very expensive, perhaps even moreso than CDs. There's well... duplicating the bits hmmm. You'd have to ask the MAFIAA since I'm not an expert in their area.

Re:for the record

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish. $6.95 will buy a web hosting account with 1TB of disk space and 1TB of data for the month. Let's be really generous and say the album is 100MB in size. The total cost for each album downloaded is $6.95 / 1TB * 100MB = $0.000695. This is a negligible cost. For 1.2 million downloads the cost is $834. Even I could afford to pay $834 up front out of my own pocket. Think I'll start learning the guitar...

Re:for the record

[Chandon Seldon]

In this case, bandwidth is a smaller expense than credit card processing fees - if they got a decent price for their bandwidth, by an order of magnitude. Remember that sites like Youtube exist - the larger videos on their approach the size of a music album, and *none* of their users pay money.

Re:for the record

[SolusSD]

really makes you wonder what the artists do get, doesnt it?

Re:for the record

[zeroduck]

$6.95/mo accounts that claim they offer 1TB transfer a month are rubbish. When you start hammering the server with requests for that data, you're account is going to be suspended.

For the kind of service you'd need for a major item like the Radiohead cd, you're looking at a completely different service. With a service like Amazon S3, you're talking almost $17k to provide 1,200,000 downloads of a 100mb file.

Re:for the record

[Tuoqui]

Naw Uncle Sam takes 40%... Still a huge lump of cash they're sitting on though.

Re:for the record

[ucblockhead]

Wow! I hadn't realized the IRS took over the UK!

Re:for the record

[Dunbal]

I really really really wish you guys who say this would do something to back up your figures.

      Why? The RIAA doesn't have to back up their figures, why should WE? :)

Re:for the record

[wes33]

First of all, the inrainbows.zip file is 48.4MB. Second, $17K is is .0017 of $10,000,000.00 I.e nothing.

Re:for the record

[Dunbal]

Keep in mind bandwidth isn't too cheap.

      You're joking, right? Even if it cost them 100k (that would be 8 cents PER DOWNLOAD which I sincerely doubt), name me another industry where you can make a 10000% profit margin?

Re:for the record

[Anonymous Coward]

name me another industry where you can make a 10000% profit margin?

drugs. :)

Re:for the record

[Hitto]

I'm a painter. Add a few zeroes, I won't mind. :)

Re:for the record

[dancingmad]

Wow! I hadn't realized the IRS took over the UK!

If the dollar gets much worse you British better watch out. You won't be complaining about BBC fees when you've got American taxmen jonesing for more money ;)

Re:for the record

[bodrell]

In this case, bandwidth is a smaller expense than credit card processing fees

Yeah, the processing fee was 45 pence (UK), I believe. I didn't expect that, or I would have lowered my purchase price. So the figure for how much fans paid probably does NOT include credit card processing, which was tacked on at checkout.

Re:for the record

[gotw]

Uncle Sam? I think you mean Aunt Lizzy!

Re:for the record

[RealGrouchy]

You won't be complaining about BBC fees when you've got American taxmen jonesing for more money ;) Am I totally missing something here, or are you and PP actually implying that taxes are higher in the US than in the UK?

Because if you are, I'll stop holding my laughter.

- RG>

Re:for the record

[Reziac]

I'm reminded of an old country/western song that goes:

"She got the gold mine, I got the shaft..."

Re:wtf

[ThePromenader]

Er, that was before I learned that it was only 160 bitrate. Doh, but not so doh as to pay nothing at all.

Definition of Work

[randalware]

        I like the concept and I am glad Raidiohead tried this.

After looking at the royalty rates for software authors, musical artists, and other creative arts (movie,video,etc)...
The big companies / middle men are raking it in.
And the consumer is paying the bill.

The internet is leveling the playing field.
Lower cost of product, fewer hurdles to distribution, censorship by the consumer's choices (purchase y/n), variable/negoiatable pricing.

More money in being an artist.
Lower cost to consumer.
More artists can make a living being creative. (but possibly fewer mega-rich ones)
Fewer creative limits for the artist.
And the parasitic middle men can change careers.
Middle men that actually add value to the process will still exist. (but make a much more modest income)

The artist win ! The consumers win !

Re:Definition of Work

[noidentity]

Unfortunately us readers often also lose sanely-paragraphed text to read.

Re:Definition of Work

[Dunbal]

The artist win ! The consumers win !

      But more importantly, the RIAA nazis lose.

Honestly

[PJ1216]

I didn't find the album worth paying for, however I still purchased it for ~$10 (5 pounds). I did it more so to support the idea as opposed to really enjoying the music. I found it to be great background music while doing other things, but not really worth actively listening to. Of course this is just my opinion, so please don't kill me. I'm just stating that it's worth going through the trouble of paying a few bucks just to support the idea so others will do it. Hell, if you like the idea of what they're doing, but hate their music, I still think its worth your effort to pay a few bucks just to inspire other artists to do the same. On Trent Reznor's (of Nine Inch Nails) website, he said in the future he'll be participating directly with the audience now instead of working with record labels because he's now finally free of any record contracts as well.

If you don't like the music, just look at it as making a donation to the cause of destroying the RIAA.

Re:Honestly

[MightyMartian]

I find that most albums I've bought probably weren't what I paid for them, and even if I had paid only $10, a good chunk wouldn't have been worth it. Wasn't it Phil Spector who famously said an album is three good songs and a bunch of filler?

Re:It's not piracy, idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, you can't rape a girl unless she's a hooker.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[netsavior]

what a Creep

Re:wtf

[Hells]

I disagree. Controlling the method of distribution is one of the major reason why anyone would pay anything for it. If they just had a bittorrent link on the main site with a donate button in the right corner, I doubt they would be getting alot. By entering in personal informations and a selectable price, you're meant to feel abit bad over paying nothing, putting a tiny pressure on you to pay something atleast.

Its still not PIRACY

[Anonymous Coward]

Were any boats involved? Any rape, murder, or destruction of property? No? Then it was just "copyright infringement" or, if you will "duplication." This is not the same as "piracy" neither morally, legally, nor theoretically.

Just because some media outlet misused this word to refer to copyright infringement doesn't mean we should buy in. We are geeks, we should know better. Please stop reinforcing inappropriate connotations for this activity.

Re:Its still not PIRACY

[MightyMartian]

You know, words do evolve in meaning over time. Trying to win an argument through etymological fallacy only proves your level of desperation.

Re:Its still not PIRACY

[ShadowDrgn]

The Supreme Court of the US was referring to copyright infringement as "piracy" in the 19th Century. Deal with it.

Re:Its still not PIRACY

[GodWasAnAlien]

Well, if the supreme court said it...

I think the first use of the word was around 1700. (Anyone have this quote?)

This was after the 130 year monopoly was not renewed in 1692, and before the Statute of Ann in 1710.

It was used then, the same way it is used now. To market a view point. Comparing copying books with robbery at sea is more compelling than the facts.

Today, DVDs attempt to pound that in your head with those "You wouldn't steel a car...downloading is stealing" commercials.

We should expect the marketing to increase as the monopoly is threatened naturally by technology and popular thought.

Re:Its still not PIRACY

[john83]

You know, words do evolve in meaning over time. Trying to win an argument through etymological fallacy only proves your level of desperation. I tend to agree. The Orwellian practice of labelling something in a particular way to make it more or less palatable to the public is pathetic. We should subject anyone who does something like that to rendition, regime change, piracy, liberation... whatever means are necessary to stamp it out. It's our patriotic duty.

Re:Its still not PIRACY

[cabazorro]

Customer: Hey, you sold me a used car as new!
Sales: All cars are "used", this one only has 8K miles and passed a rigorous inspection, this car is new.
Customer: No! NEW means "NEW" this car was sold already once, is not NEW!
Sales: "You know, words do evolve in meaning over time. Trying to win an argument through etymological fallacy only proves your level of desperation."

Re:Its still not PIRACY

[rjforster]

Illiad answered this nicely.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070716

Re:Its still not PIRACY

[Tim C]

No, but I have a corroborating source; from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pirate:

Meaning "one who takes another's work without permission" first recorded 1701

Languages evolve, words change their meaning and gain additional ones. Why should this one be any different? Why does everything have to be part of some great conspiracy?

In an age when real piracy was rife, is it so hard to imagine some writer or musician calling someone a pirate for "stealing" their work? Hell, there's a thread here on this site with comments in which people use the word "murder" when referring to animals rather than humans.

Re:wtf

[geekoid]

Assuming Radiohead cares.

Great! Yes, make even more money!!

[blind biker]

I really hope all the other musicians still under the shackles of a RIAA-affiliated label will feel positively JEALOUS of the kind of dough Radiohead is making!

While I despise greed, it might just be a very powerful force in the downfall of the labels and therefore the RIAA. Just imagine all those musicians just NOT renewing their contracts (or even trying to end their current ones) and go onto forming their own label and sell their music directly to their fans!

Re:Great! Yes, make even more money!!

[GodfatherofSoul]

While I despise greed

To hell with greed, what about fair compensation? If an act produces a record that hundreds of thousands of people want to listen to, I think they SHOULD be well compensated. In this world, if the artist doesn't get the money, some creative and greedy person will concoct a scheme to sell the product at the correct market price and eat the profits.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[geekoid]

So you're saying the same person downloaded the same song over and over again? that's just stupid.

Firefox gets changed from version to version.

The only exception is if someone accidentally deleted it; Which I imagine would be very few people, if any.
Althoguh I am not a fan, Radiohead is very popular...at least here in the northwest.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[DCTooTall]

Possibly true, But also think about all the people who have heard of Radiohead BECAUSE of the media hoopla surrounding the fact they have decided to sell the album direct to the public via the website and cut out the RIAA/Record Companies.

There is also the added purchase support from those who may not be big Radiohead fans who would normally buy a record from them, but who are purchasing the album in order to support their decision to embrace the web... and not something to outlaw like certain parties would appearently like to see happen.....

Re:wtf

[shark72]

"I'm sorry, but, if it's FREE, then it's not really PIRACY."

Popular understanding of the term "copyright" is that it refers to one's exclusive "right" to how something is "copied" (hence "copyright"). Does your understanding differ?

Putting on my Nostradamus hat for a second (although I will not write this as a quatrain), my guess is that we'll see your argument a lot more in the future. Many pirates claim that they have a moral allowance to pirate music because it's outrageously priced at a buck a track, and claim (disingenuously, of course) that they'll start buying when the price hits ($_CURRENTPRICE - $_ARBITRARYVALUE). When that day comes, I suppose the argument will be "Well, now it's practically free, so if I just help myself to the torrent, it's not really piracy now, is it?"

My Indie/Unknown Band is Trying This

[fyrie]

My small local music scene only band is trying this as an experiment right now. The experiment started last night. We made $11 off of donations in less than 24 hours. That might not seem like a lot, but we went into this figuring it very well could be $0. The funny thing was, all donations so far have come from people outside of our local market. I don't know how many people have downloaded it so far because our host only updates metrics daily.

See for yourself here.

Re:My Indie/Unknown Band is Trying This

[byolinux]

Neat. Please do Ogg Vorbis downloads. I emailed you about this.

Re:My Indie/Unknown Band is Trying This

[fyrie]

I can sympathize with you in regards to your feelings towards PayPal, however it was a solution we could put together quickly knowing exactly what we were getting into regarding the transaction terms. The band is looking for a possible long term replacement.

Cash payment isn't the only way you can help us out. Passing us on to other people who care for this type of music is considered payment. If you like the tunes, pass them on to your friends.

Thanks for listening!

Re:My Indie/Unknown Band is Trying This

[fyrie]

I didn't expect a request for .ogg files so soon. They are up now. I'm happy that someone is interested in downloading our music in this format. Pass it on :).

Oggs here

Re:My Indie/Unknown Band is Trying This

[fyrie]

I know! I'm lovin' it!

Re:My Indie/Unknown Band is Trying This

[lazy_playboy]

The radiohead site demands that you enter how much you want to pay before you download it, which I think might be more successful than relying on people coming back to donate after downloading it. It plays on the guilt factor of having to actually type in $0.00, perhaps? I know it's only a small distinction but it might play on human nature to get more money?

I've heard of people writing shareware (or donateware or whatever) software, having plenty of downloads but very very low donations. Music following the same model is likely to suffer the same?

That's what I ahve said over and over again

[geekoid]

If the musicians do not sign, the contracts will be changed.
If all new group boycotted the contracts en mass, they would change, literally over night.

I am not sure why you imply radiohead is being greedy.
They let the fans pick the price. The amount of money someone makes has NOTHING to do with greed.

Re:That's what I ahve said over and over again

[blind biker]

NO no no, I did NOT imply Radiohead is greadky???!!!! Where TF did you get that idea? I was talking about the greed that other musicians should have by now *lloks comically at watch* and very seriously considering their current situation.

ummm... did I really make it sound like I thought Radiohead was gready? That is totally not what I think. The opposite is true: they tried something new and perhaps risky, and even let their fans pay 0. That's visionary and definitely NOT gready.

Re:That's what I ahve said over and over again

[geekoid]

"I really hope all the other musicians still under the shackles of a RIAA-affiliated label will feel positively JEALOUS of the kind of dough Radiohead is making!

While I despise greed, it might just be a very powerful force in the downfall of the labels and therefore the RIAA. "

Since you are talking about the dough radiohead is making, starting the next sentence with 'While I despise greed,..."
Seems to imply that Radiohead is being greedy, but it's ok because it's teaching the RIAA a lesson.

I didn't think you actually meant it, but I wasn't positive because of the implication.

I am glad the are blazing a trail and hope other group realize they don't need the current contract the RIAA uses. Realizing the the RIAA gives something now and a heavy price to be extracted later.
Peace.

Re:That's what I ahve said over and over again

[blind biker]

OK, now I see. Yeah, that kinda looks like I was implying it's Radiohead the one to be greedy. I hope whoever reads my original comment, reads this one as well.

I totally agree with everything you said. It's the artists that were under the labels' thumb for a while are the ones most likely to have some fire under their arses. I think I'll grab some snacks and enjoy the show, it should start to be real fun right about now. How about you?

Grammar and spelling Nazi alert

[Foerstner]

First, it's "Nazi."

Second, "In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example, "the team is in the dressing room" (formal agreement) refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst "the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals." (Source)

(/me is not normally a grammar or spelling Nazi, but I enjoy correcting them when they get it even slightly wrong.)

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Who the fuck is radiohead?

When I am King you will be first against the wall.

Hang on a sec, that abbreviated would make a cool ID. I really should do that...

What were their

[xx01dk]

production costs? I'm not sure that they couldn't have been in the multi-million dollar range. Anybody have that data so we actually have something to compare the profits to? Also, how much net profit does your average top-40 album produce? These would be a lot more useful than some random dollar ammount.

Re:What were their

[1310nm]

Can you imagine this scheme working with Top 40 "artists" like 50 Cents and Fergie? Doubtful.

Too simple.

[Skadet]

This is an oversimplification. How much did their producer get? Their manager? Attorneys and accountants? Other support crew? In the traditional model, the label pays these people and recoups the cost from that $6m (or however much). Now, they have to do it.

It's cut out the "intermediaries" (well, aside from the payment processing people, hosting company, bandwidth providers, et. al.), but it isn't as if they're splitting $6m between themselves.

Re:Too simple.

[JonathanR]

Since they won't be signing any contracts with record labels, there won't be any need for attorneys. Since they might earn a shitload, they might not need bother with an accountant either.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Original Replica]

1.2 million people isn't really that many people when you are talking about a global release. If one in 300 people in the US and England bought the album you would have at least that many sales. Or if half of the people in New York City under the age of 18 bought the album you would have that many. Millions just aren't as impressive as they use to be.

Re:wtf

[yali]

Radiohead may or may not care if people redistribute their album. But there may be rational reasons for them to assert their rights, even with a product they are willing to give away for free. Here are a couple off the top of my head:

1. Even though listeners could get the album free from Radiohead website, users who are on the fence about whether to make a voluntary payment might become convinced when they go to the site. Limewire etc. does not make that possible.

2. The information gained from their server might be valuable or useful to them. Radiohead may want to know how many people have the album -- as a way, for example, of evaluating their novel pricing method to see if it's worth doing again for their next album. They might want the satisfaction of sticking it in the eye of record labels. Or they might want the solid data tell other artists, "We put our album in N million listeners' hands and made X million dollars at the same time, you should try this too." All those things might have some value to the band.

The bottom line is, a copyright is a right to control distribution, period. It is not dependent on price. It's Radiohead's call whether to assert or waive that right.

Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[Carcass666]

Radiohead has always been planning on releasing their CD in January. Putting out a 160 kbps crap quality version is there way to whet your appetite for the real CD, which will probably contain more content than the mp3 release and be of much better quality.

Re:Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[theNeophile]

Radiohead has always been planning on releasing their CD in January. Putting out a 160 kbps crap quality version is there way to whet your appetite for the real CD, which will probably contain more content than the mp3 release and be of much better quality. They're clearly hoping to sell to the 0.05% of people that can tell the difference.

Re:Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[john83]

160kbps is, I think, good for perfect reconstruction up to 20kHz. A typical person can hear up to 16kHz-22kHz, with the upper end of that range relatively rare. I approve of the redundancy of a CD (32kHz) but I really don't think it matters very much.

Re:Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said anything about altruism? They're trying to find a business model that works when 90% of music listeners just download mp3s for free. Their previous album was widely available on the p2p networks months before its release (ripped from review copies given to magazines which need to go out early so that the review ends up in the magazine at the same time as the album is released).

This way the people who would have pirated it still pirate it, but maybe they see a dollar or two out of people who would pirate it rather than pay full price for the CD. And they get every penny of the decreased price. It was sound business not altruism. Meanwhile they'll do a CD release later for people who actually want a shiny silver disk.

Re:Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[salimma]

*cough* an audio CD is sampled at 44.1 kHz, not 32 kHz

Re:Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[john83]

*cough* an audio CD is sampled at 44.1 kHz, not 32 kHz Ah, so I was wrong about the number. It only contains frequencies up to ~22kHz, which is sensible in light of the human auditory range I mentioned in my earlier post.

This is why I don't read /. so much any more. Lots of people know the numbers, but too few know what they mean.

Re:Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[Carcass666]

Even James Randi isn't going to put money on somebody not being able to differentiate between a CD and 160kbps MP3, even on my modest car sound system (not Bose, but not tinfoil speakers either.

Re:Not as Altruistic as First Appears

[salimma]

You're entirely correct -- it only captures frequencies up to ~22 kHz. Audio DVDs are encoded at 96 kHz (thus 48 kHz), which might be an overkill, while the audio track in normal DVDs are encoded at 48 kHz which seem perfectly reasonable (worryingly, a lot of DVD ripping software would offer to downsample the audio to 44.1 kHz -- for no good reason).

"piracy" (Re:wtf)

[GodWasAnAlien]

Actually, Piracy is a robbery committed at sea.

Re:"piracy" (Re:wtf)

[MysteriousPreacher]

Yep, in the same way that an act of god is quite literally a verifiable intervention on the part of a deity. Words and phrases don't always have a literal meaning. I've been called a bastard by mates, but it was never meant to imply that I was born out of wedlock.

Piracy has been used to describe copyright infringement since the 19th century.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[ilikejam]

How long have you been waiting for that?

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[ZeroExistenZ]

You don't remember
You don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?

Re:wtf

[MightyMartian]

You forgot to mention another basic reason for copyright, so that some asshole can't take the album, do some minor change like adding a new instrumental track, then calling it "Smurfette's Rainbow Fuck Hour".

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[GrubInCan]

You could have just given him Low Morale

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Belacgod]

In 20 years, the RIAA will have been completely replaced by a set of publicists. These publicists won't own the copyright to anything--they'll be paid, on salary, to hook the musicians up with venues, hire web designers for band websites, and in some cases find places to record.

They'll have a professional organization, but no lobbyists and no power. They'll be more or less fungible--Home Managers, parallel to Road Managers. Some will even do both.

Benefit to members of society who have computers

[jaypaulw]

Who already have thing pretty good anyway

I *would've* paid for it...

[r_jensen11]

...but since I know I'm going to purchase the CD when it's out in stores, I bid 0.00 on it. Basically, I'm thinking of it as getting the demo or pre-release version for free, and since the CD's sound quality will be considerably better, I will then purchase that.

I just wish I hadn't lost my Hail to the Thief disc....

Re:I *would've* paid for it...

[Rank_Tyro]

The problem with that is now the lions share of the money you fork over for the printed media will go to the retailers and the record labels. Remember, we want the record labels to go away. Buying it online would prove to them that they should either change their business model or go away.

Re:I *would've* paid for it...

[r_jensen11]

I'll pay for the highest quality. It would be rediculous to pay for the mp3's just to put them on CD when you can do it the other way around as well. I'm sure the band will get plenty of proceeds from me when they go on tour next.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[LukeCrawford]

It would not suprise me if artists forumed a new lobbying group, one more friendly to the interests of artists; I think what we are seeing here is that the barrier-to-entry to becoming a label has become extremely small, therefore both artists and consumers are seeing that labels currently have more power than would be dictated by the economic fundamentals. The labels still have the power they gained back when manufacturing, duplication, and distribution of the media required a large capital investments; these days those things are all but free; the only thing a record label does that would be difficult for, say, me to do is the promotion.

though quite often sales-jobs are commission-based, and it would suprise me a lot if that changed for publicists. the more money I make, the more money you make is often a good deal for all involved parties; though like I said, I think the power-balance here will shift away from the labels and towards the artists, so the cut (for the publicist) may shrink.

Thats it !! Im quitting web development

[unity100]

and starting up a band asap !!

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[The Great Pretender]

I paid $10 but dowloaded it twice. Once at home and once at work. Seemed to be easier than downloading it and then putting it on a thumb drive taking it to work and uploading it. I must be really stupid.

Re:Benefit to members of society who have computer

[l2718]

Are you claiming that those who don't have computers would be better off if the album was available at the stores for $15 instead?

This just ins

[geekoid]

Man puts group of people he doesn't know on a pedestal and is crushed when they didn't live up to expectation!

Defends move by exclaiming how much money he spent on a Tee-Shirt.

here:
"most ignorant people will assume that"

Fixed it.

Hey, guess what? That "ALBUM" already ahs the shit compressed out of it. You should not buy any CD until you can also get the masters!

Re:This just ins

[GnarlyDoug]

...crushed when they didn't live up to expectation!

Annoyed, yes. Crushed, no. I had no expectations because before the stories, I'd only heard of Radiohead briefly anyway.

"most ignorant people will assume that"

I expect basic fairness in advertising. Guess that makes me naive, and you a fan of Caveot Emptor. I know that CDs are already compressed. But when they say 'the album' without any qualifiers, the CD is obviously the standard to apply that term to for most people. They lied, at least my omission, so I didn't send them money.

As Much As $8, Huh?

[morari]

That's surprising, considering the few times I have bought a new album they have always been $10-$12. These are fairly high-profile bands too. I've always felt that $10 seems like a fair price for any album I'd be willing to purchase in the first place.

Re:As Much As $8, Huh?

[k8to]

I'd pay as much as 14 dollars for a full-quality download of a recording I'm prety sure I'd like.

For a lossy-compressed recording I am unsure about? I paid them 3 british pounds (a little over 6 dollars, 7 with service charge). Heck, I can always "buy" it again.

Re:As Much As $8, Huh?

[k8to]

To be clear, for a full quality recording with a portable, physical backup medium included (a CD), I've been known to pay well over 20 dollars.

The actual CD has real utility and real costs. I expect to pay less for downloads and even less for lossy.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[geekoid]

Yeah, you are.

Sorry, easy shot.

Good point, but I would wager you are in the minority since:
Most people don't have a PC at work. (Shocking, but true!)

Many that do aren't allowed to download stuff to it.

Simple solution

[geekoid]

You play music, a lot.
You release to internet sites, you play in every po-dunk there is, you get a local name.

Which, BTW, is what you have to do to get recognized by the RIAA. Except industry created groups.

You give away some music online, you give CD's to place that the patrons might enjoy the music.
You play on street corners for change. You have a day job and put every penny into creating better 'studio' Which is damn cheap these days for everything but top end.

Maybe you could sell a piece of the band? Someone supports you for a piece of the group?

Simple solution.

The numbers don't add up!

[FlameboyC11]

First off, the average donation is independent of the number of downloads. I would say that the average donation of the people who donated was between $5-10, not the average amount donated *total* Just because somebody downloaded it doesn't mean they donated...

Re:The numbers don't add up!

[FlameboyC11]

But we were talking about average *donation* not average donation per download.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[budgenator]

OMG think of the Children! if the record companies didn't make as much money, then they couldn't pay the lawyers to sue gradnmas with multiple scerosis for piracy and the lawyer's children mught have to go to Public Schools !

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[aleander]

Yes. That would be RIAA trying to buy out all the copies.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[gigne]

The 45 pence charge was actually a credit card admin charge. If you put 0 in the box you didn't have to pay anything at all.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Will the publicists be able to somehow offset the expensive startup costs making music? Or will professional music-making become a luxury for the very rich?

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except there was no transaction fee if you entered a zero price.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[dan828]

Actually, no. There was a credit card processing fee of .45 pounds. So strangely enough, if you opted to pay nothing, there was no need for a processing fee and thusly no charge. That way you could check out the music for free, and if you decided it was worth it you could then pay whatever you liked.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Belacgod]

Extensively processed music will become a thing of the past. People will play and record on devices that are much cheaper than they do currently. The lower capital costs will enable them to better weather rampant piracy, surviving on fans' CD purchases, some legitimate online sales, and concert revenues.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Scrameustache]

Who the fuck is radiohead?

Exactly. The idea that 1.2 million people downloaded Radiohead's latest is not believable given historical sales data for the band. You mean given that since historically they've sold more than that for most of their albums means that they shouldn't sell as much for this one, which they offer for less than any previous album?

How does that make sense?

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[suv4x4]

In 20 years, the RIAA will have been completely replaced by a set of publicists. These publicists won't own the copyright to anything--they'll be paid, on salary, to hook the musicians up with venues, hire web designers for band websites, and in some cases find places to record.

They'll have a professional organization, but no lobbyists and no power. They'll be more or less fungible--Home Managers, parallel to Road Managers. Some will even do both.

Unless time started spinning backwards that won't happen. There's always consolidation and incorporation of any business that lasts more than 5-10 years in the industry.

You're right: labels will lose a LOT of their power, similar to how movie studios lost their business with exclusive contracts with actors in the 70-80 period. Also some of the big labels will go away, and some will adapt to the new business model.

Where you're wrong is that those alternatives won't grow and become big companies and have their own lobbies.

The same will happen with the publishers that will replace TV channels like MTV. Look at one emerging publisher: YouTube. Is it some tiny player with no power? No. Even before Google bought them, they had influence since they had a big community going on. And with big community, comes Google, or Microsoft, or Yahoo, and buys them. Consolidation.

Clarification: consolidation is not necessarily bad.

Clapton agrees...

[MC Negro]

From the last two pages of his autobiography -

The music scene as I look at it today is little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure. However, the system of marketing and distribution are in the middle of a huge shift, and by the end of this decade I think it's unlikely that any of the existing record companies will still be in business. With the greatest respect to all involved, that would be no great loss. Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached. Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance. It has always found me, and with God's blessing and permission it always will.

They would have made more

[teslatug]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who went to their site to buy it, and couldn't even find a link to click on!!! I kid you not, all I saw was the psychedelic colors, tried clicking on things (or rather hovering) and couldn't even get a link. They should really find some more competent people to create their site and host it (it would have paid for itself). And by the way there should be one site, not a new site for every album they make. I wasn't even sure if it was legitimate site due to the poor design and not being their main site.

Re:They would have made more

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

next time skip the shrooms ;)

Re:They would have made more

[JuliaNZ]

I agree the site design is unusual, but the big white link right in the middle of the page saying ENTER was a giveaway for me.

Re:They would have made more

[vladsinger]

Same thing happened to me on my Ubuntu box w/ Firefox.
I went over to the Vista/Firefox laptop, site design didn't improve much, but at least the links showed up this time. Maybe something to do with Adobe's port of the Flash plugin? Who knows...

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[HockeyPuck]

How are publicists any different from Boxing's promoters...?

ask Mike Tyson how much Don King made off of him..

It's fine for the big names...

[WoTG]

But you know those startup bands that you've never heard of?

Well, there are a lot of barriers between that and being able to sell $100K of online music, never mind $5M. How will new bands become popular in the future? I think the "middlemen" will be with us for a long time. They'll adapt... they'll just take their cut from a wider range of revenues, i.e. live shows, rather than CD sales.

In the meantime, all the big names who "have made it" will drift away from the big labels. That's nothing new.

FUD through name calling

[Scrameustache]

You know, words do evolve in meaning over time. Trying to win an argument through etymological fallacy only proves your level of desperation. Piracy still means attacking boats http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4584878.stm
Actual pirates still kill real people, still really steal real cargo.

Trying to sow FUD about file sharing through this etymological fallacy only proves the *AA's level of desperation, and your defense of their crimes against language only proves you're a tool. "piracy" applied to file sharing is the same as a godwin: it's making a mountain out of a molehill.

Re:FUD through name calling

[shark72]

"Trying to sow FUD about file sharing through this etymological fallacy only proves the *AA's level of desperation, and your defense of their crimes against language only proves you're a tool. "piracy" applied to file sharing is the same as a godwin: it's making a mountain out of a molehill."

I was a software pirate (cracking as well as collecting) in the 1980s; I wore the badge proudly. As do the millions of fans of The Pirate Bay. The homonym (or, if you prefer, homophone) has existed for several centuries now; much longer than you, I or the RIAA have been around.

I think it's you who are splitting hairs. Software/movie/music piracy is piracy; acquiring your warez via "file sharing" vs. the old-school methods doesn't make it anything else. It's still got the look, demeanor and distinctive quack. File sharing is simply the latest technological tool that allows you to trade warez. The net result is the same.

Re:FUD through name calling

[ScentCone]

Trying to sow FUD about file sharing through this etymological fallacy only proves the *AA's level of desperation, and your defense of their crimes against language only proves you're a tool. "piracy" applied to file sharing is the same as a godwin: it's making a mountain out of a molehill.

You mean, sort of like trying to obscure the fact that you're ripping off someone's work by referring to it as "sharing?"

Re:FUD through name calling

[Tim C]

your defense of their crimes against language

Their crimes? I wasn't aware that the RIAA was around in the 18th century.

Like it or not, "piracy" refers to copyright infringement as well as attacking and stealing from ships at sea. It's in common use, it's in the dictionary, and the first recorded use dates from 1701. You've lost that battle I'm afraid.

Re:FUD through name calling

[Scrameustache]

I think it's you who are splitting hairs. Software/movie/music piracy is piracy; acquiring your warez via "file sharing" vs. the old-school methods doesn't make it anything else. It's still got the look, demeanor and distinctive quack. File sharing is simply the latest technological tool that allows you to trade warez. The net result is the same.

No, pirates take over. If you pirate a web site, you hack it and take control away from its legitimate owner.
That's akin to taking over a ship.

If you copy a ship design and make your own without taking anything away except the edge of exclusivity, it's not akin to piracy.

Re:wtf

[srleffler]

Yep. Same principle as the GPL, in fact. Everything distributed under the GPL is copyrighted, and the copyright holders require those who wish to copy it to do so under the terms of the GPL. Any other copying of the work would be a violation of the authors' copyright.

You let the Labels die...

[jberryman]

and watch it happen.

Re:wtf

[stinerman]

I'd pay more than $5 for that!

modern marketing

[opencity]

No links, sorry, but Radiohead also offered a big package with disks, hardcover book and vinyl - I know a DJ who bought one. There are people who want the big pretty collectable: double vinyl album / poster / design heavy liner notes / decoder ring. The great reality of the post-biz music racket is by giving away / undercharging for digital, selling vinyl, building fans and selling them tickets and beer there is more than enough money around for mid and even lower tier artists. But no money around for lawyers who decide you need 'more cowbell', are too old or that 'guitar bands are over'.

Not a big Radiohead fan but the record is interesting. Atmospheric with thick string parts and distant vocals in places. I heard it in a cafe and I'm pretty sure they don't pay ASCAP - though ASCAP does come around asking sometimes ('I am the ghost of business models past')

Re:modern marketing

[Technician]

Atmospheric with thick string parts and distant vocals in places. I heard it in a cafe and I'm pretty sure they don't pay ASCAP - though ASCAP does come around asking sometimes ('I am the ghost of business models past')

I worked as a projectionist many years ago. I got tired of the dead silence between films and noticed the aux input for intermission music and jacked in a tape deck (Pre-mp3 and CD). The owner came unglued and let me know the liability caused by my action. The fees would have been very high and the penalties for getting caught would have been much worse. I looked into both the fees and penalties. We removed the jack to prevent any future projectionists from making the same mistake.

Nowdays it's not a problem. They just play commercials instead. The soundtrack on the commercials is paid for by the advertiser.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[IthnkImParanoid]

The idea that 1.2 million people downloaded Radiohead's latest is not believable given historical sales data for the band.

Huh? According to their wikipedia entry their last album went platinum in the UK (300,000 sold) and gold in the US (500,000). That's 800,000 copies sold in two countries of one of their poorer selling albums. 1.2 million Radiohead fans out there downloading their album is not hard to believe. Maybe some people did download more than once, but I'd guess their numbers are few, especially since the download site is crap.

PROTIP for firefox users

[tetromino]

The website failed and left me frustrated.

I'm using Firefox on Linux, and I too had some trouble with the site (the flash navigation didn't work). Fortunately, View -> Page Source revealed Radiohead's secrets. Firefox users, just click here:
http://www.inrainbows.com/Store/index3.htm

Re:Hire a publicist!

[srleffler]

No, but a new band starting out can't afford to run a national publicity campaign. That's been the main legitimate thing the record companies have to offer, now that distribution can be done more cheaply through the internet. Record companies are willing to fund the campaign in the hopes of making the money back in future revenue from record sales. A new band couldn't do that on their own.

People should learn from Radiohead

[Jan Capsizer]

These days you can use youtube, google, slashdot and almost anything to advertise what you are doing. I am sure anyone who would just have enough devotion can bring something to offer the same way as radiohead has now done (look for the star wreck guys for an example), thus it only depends on your imagination and courage; to achieve your dreams you just have to be clever and invent new ways to get what you want -- surely nothing works forever the same way, the world changes all the time and thus we gotta be changing. Change is a mark of being alive, being stuck means that you are dead.

I appreciate what radiohead has now done, they are showing the way. Recording industry _might_ have been a good thing for us from 50s to probably 80s, but now they are more like slowing down the development of everything else. By sueing any potential customer they might have, they actually bring their customers against them, that's certainly not the way to go. When you bury others, you bury yourself.

Everything that's alive is in constant move, things that are dead are still -- the "modern" recording industry has been stuck for many decades now. The 70s were happy years -- of course the future can bring us something happy too -- but you must not remain still, we have to always keep our eyes open for changes, because that's what happiness is all about; enjoying the little changes that are happening all around us, the beauty of every day!

Re:wtf

[Simon Simian]

"Smurfette's Rainbow Fuck Hour"

With your permission I'll dream about that tonight.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[LooseIsNotLose]

Seriously, what expensive startup costs? If you want to record yourself there's the initial outlay in a powerful computer set up and perhaps Pro Tools, and some good microphones for drums and vocals. So--maybe $10,000? $20,000? And once you've got that equipment, you can use it as much as you want, with no hourly studio time.

And if you don't have the knowhow or money to do the recording yourself, there are all kinds of small studios with perfectly decent engineers that charge less than $1,000 for a day. It's perfectly feasible to record an album for $5,000-$10,000 this way, or much less if you have connections or friends in the small-time recording industry.

After that, electronic distribution is essentially free, via MySpace, or by setting yourself up on iTunes, eMusic, etc. If you also need CDs, a company like Kunaki can produce them for you on the fly for less than $2 each, *and* handle the ordering back end.

Compared to a lot of other things you could do for a living, music is *not* an expensive industry to be a part of, if you don't buy into the rock 'n' roll life style, often lived by artists who are *fearsomely* in hock to their major label for some ungodly advance money that it will take royalties years to pay off, if ever.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[wiredlogic]

You forgot the hook that binds everything together: loansharking.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Belacgod]

Mike Tyson made his pile too, and Don King never filed thousands of lawsuits against anyone.

There's power, and then there's the major labels' historical stranglehold.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[DustyShadow]

To prevent this from happening any more, labels will just probably try to force even longer contracts onto their new artists. I wouldn't be surprised if from this day forth, new bands are forced to sign a 10-12 album deal, which would force them to stay with the label forever basically.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[AgNO3]

Please help me know when artist where NOT paid in historical times. I don't mean artist that didn't get paid I mean a time when artisans where not paid for there skills and work as a profession. The Pyramid artist where paid well from all accounts and pretty much since then I can show that artist have been well compensated for there work. Mozart was not a popper. I guess I should stop putting $ in the street musicians basket cause he is obviously not about his art.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[MrSteveSD]

I have a friend in the recording industry, and he says that whenever someone wants to use some famous pop song in an advert or documentary, they nearly always have a heart attack over the amount the record company wants. Instead they usually ditch the idea and get someone to play something similar. However, in a future where the bands themselves are in charge, I think using their work for other projects will become much cheaper. It may even become feasible for amateur film-makers to get permission to use famous tracks for a minimal fee.

I paid $ 0.0

[sjs132]

I paid zero dollars for it... downloaded it free.. and glad I did, I wouldn't have spent a dime on it. The "music" was cool. Lots of good vibes, and then the vocal kicks in and the voice sounds like nails on chalkboard. I'll never go back and buy it because I've deleted it and don't plan on missing it at all. Sorry if this is harsh, I guess I'm not a Radiohead fan, but thats just how my ears hear it now... I guess 10 years ago and it would have been different. Just not sure, I guess our music taste change as we age.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[allthingscode]

I did buy it just because of the way they sold it. Not bad, but a little on the light side for me.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[allthingscode]

No, the bands that are good, like Metallica and Green Day, will build themselves up through fans, and will earn their money by being good.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

How would bands even get a chance to be judged "good" without having any money to make their music? Metallica and Greenday would be able until they retire, because they probably have the money to risk on independent album production, but it relies on money they made on previous distribution systems.

Nice

[TomK2434]

I also tried buying the album and having problems with the website, and downloaded it. I will probably buy it on CD though, it's really good. Maybe their best yet.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[YrWrstNtmr]

In 20 years, the RIAA will have been completely replaced by a set of publicists. These publicists won't own the copyright to anything--they'll be paid, on salary, to hook the musicians up with venues, hire web designers for band websites, and in some cases find places to record.

What do you think the 'recording industry' was to begin with? Their current power did not spring forth fully formed. Started out small, got lucky with a couple of acts that made it big, then had the money/resources to take a chance (with their own rules) on no-name acts. And a few of those made it big.
And so the circle goes.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[cicatrix1]

Mr. Pink?

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[sg_oneill]

"Possibly true, But also think about all the people who have heard of Radiohead BECAUSE of the media hoopla surrounding the fact they have decided to sell the album direct to the public via the website and cut out the RIAA/Record Companies."

Oh come on, your just being silly now. Radiohead where one of the biggest bands of the late 1990's. They hardly are a small-following band.

Economies Of The Industry

[nick_davison]

Whilst I realize I'm going to get flamed for daring to say it:

The challenge isn't making $6m with a successful act.

The challenge is in identifying the one band in ten, if you're lucky, that'll be that successful act.

If a typical band blows a half million dollar advance on recording an album and it flops, the record company is out the advance.

To deal with this, they write contracts that mean they recoup the 9 flops from the 10th breakout.

Those contracts are perceived as screwing successful artists because they take so damn much money from them once they are successful. What the artists are conveniently ignoring is they quite happily spent the advance while they were convinced they'd be the greatest thing ever but the label knew that hadn't been proven yet.

Radiohead ditched their label and all of the costs associated. Getting a much higher chunk of revenues, $6m is likely a great profit for them and likely far better than they'd get under a traditional deal. The question is whether any of that profit will get re-invested in advances for other artists in the way it would with a label trying to grow a stable of artists rather than just one band?

The industry does a hell of a lot wrong. They're slow to react, arrogant and treat their customers like criminals. On the flip side, they do at least have a [debatably flawed] structure for developing talent... an area where Radiohead's taking all of the profits may well fall short.

Re:Economies Of The Industry

[Dunbal]

The challenge is in identifying the one band in ten, if you're lucky, that'll be that successful act.

      Nope, the market can do that too. Youtube has no trouble quickly identifying its "celebrities". All you need is a decent search method. But now that millions are involved, I'm sure Google will be happy to think of something (giving them yet another place to serve their ads)...

Re:Economies Of The Industry

[Chapter80]

I am definitely NOT an RIAA fan. But I've thought the same as you, really just as devil's advocate and as a way to question common conceptions on Slashdot.

My logic was more like this: If the RIAA is screwing the artists, then where's the money going? There must either be a small number of people getting very rich for no work, or there must be waste in the system. (i.e. foolish spending).

Market forces would take care of things over time, in both cases. If being a record label is so rewarding, then more and more companies would be jumping into it, and competition would cause prices to drop and artists' payments to go up, and force waste out of the system.

Granted, the frivolous lawsuits of Jammie and thousands of others makes me wonder about the waste. As does the triple-seal CD case (it's harder for me to open a "Poison" CD case than a container of poison). But "betting" on 9 acts that fail, out of ten (which is your guess at the percentage), this isn't necessarily waste. And the lawsuits, while perhaps a questionable strategy, will benefit artists (at no cost to them) if they end up benefiting the RIAA through increased CD sales (big "IF", I know. But if the threat of a lawsuit causes someone to buy a CD instead of downloading it, then the artist makes a little more money).

If few record execs are getting ridiculously rich, and there's not a ton of excess waste, and market forces are at play (i.e. no artificial monopoly), then it's reasonable to assume that the record labels are paying a fair price to artists. Seems to me that artist are eager to sign with labels (no one's forcing them). Sure, if they could get 20% instead of 10% (or whatever), they'd be happy. But I think smart artists recognize that 10% of a large pie is much better than 100% of nothing.

If the record labels are screwing artists by paying the "standard cut" (10%?), what would be fair? 11%? Don't say 100%, because then the labels have no incentive to "invest" in the unknown artist, and it won't happen. Seems to me that we have arrived at a "fair" percent based on market forces.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Irish_Samurai]

Compared to a lot of other things you could do for a living, music is *not* an expensive industry to be a part of, if you don't buy into the rock 'n' roll life style, often lived by artists who are *fearsomely* in hock to their major label for some ungodly advance money that it will take royalties years to pay off, if ever. Preach the truth brother.

I'll lay all my cards on the table, I'm a turnaround marketing consultant. I make A LOT of money showing business entities how to reformulate their images, re-purpose their delivery mechanisms, and polish their overall revenue generating vectors (god that sounds like awful marketees).

You know how I do it?

By showing them how consumers actually want to consume.

PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO LIVE THE WAY BUSINESSES WANT TO TELL THEM HOW TO LIVE!

That shit is dead. You can make more money doing it all yourself and by NOT pushing it to everyone on the planet. You don't have to lie. You don't have to falsely claim you're something your not. You don't have to INTRUDE. You don't need to buy into the A&R guys pitch.

DO NOT LET THE INDUSTRY TELL YOU YOU HAVE TO DO IT THEIR WAY! It is a lie. There are more than enough people out there who want to hear the music you make who will pay you for it. Enough who will pay for it and enable you to live comfortably.

YOU HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE. Do I want to be a "rock star" or do I want to live by creating music. The two are not the same.

XTC was doing this shit IN THE FUCKING 80's.

I have worked with "capitalistic" businesses. I have taken their money and they have failed. I have worked with "idealistic" businesses. I have taken their money and watched them flourish utilizing the knowledge I have passed to them.

It isn't rocket science. I'll even give it away for free right here.

Don't tell people they want you, make yourself available to people who want what you have.

Radiodread

[flickwipe]

I hate to plug but ... http://www.hyfntrak.com/radiodread/fromafriend/

Radiohead - OK Computer redone in a reggae style.

Well I like it anyway

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Cameroon]

And? I am not a big Radiohead fan but I did buy the album to support the message that the RIAA isn't necessary and that their methods and business practices are not in the best interests of the artists or the customers. Yes, I knew that they were respected but I am mostly ambivalent towards them (though I have enjoyed the album).

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[archen]

Actually startup costs are extremely low. This will most likely give rise to what many were predicting: middle class musicians. Instead of having slaves to the music company's with a few shining examples at the top, a few signed bands that get no where, and a bunch of bands never signed, you get a more even mix. Many bands used to blow a more money making crap demo tapes than you can now pool into a respectable recording session with modern tech.

Basically you have low barrier of entry, and relatively low cost of production. The main hurdle is marketing your stuff, and as another poster insightfully pointed out, there's going to be a growing segment of marketers for just these types of bands. Those with talent may soon find their ship has finally come in. In the end this may finally start to redistribute the wealth more evenly then the extremes between the traditional starving artists and Britney class megastars. Well unless the government somehow manages to fuck all this up which is quite possible.

Your point?

[Jarjarthejedi]

And your point is? People are still born out of wedlock, perhaps even at a higher rate than before. Does that mean that the epitaph has no meaning and shouldn't be used for that reason (I sometimes wish people thought this, but that's another issue).

There is such a thing as a non-literal meaning for a literal term. Grammar Nazi's typically don't have many Nazist beliefs, Nazi's still exist though so should we stop using that term? What about some of the other hundred words that are used to mean something different than their literal meaning, even though that literal meaning is still valid? Should we completely reformat the English language because of the travisty that people are being called pirates without wearing eyepatches and getting Scurvy?

A Great Disturbance in The Force

[HangingChad]

Darth RIAA just felt a great shudder go through the record industry. As if thousands of A&R reps cried out at once and were suddenly silenced.

Re:A Great Disturbance in The Force

[cudjo]

Wouldn't that be better put "A Great disturbance in the Farce?" Last time I checked the RIAA has little credibility except in one jury case against a crazy woman. God bless her by the way, hopefully she can get an appeal for lack of a defense and try again...

At least Darth Vader could choke you from across the table for a 'lack of faith.'

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[p3d0]

If one in 300 people in the US and England bought the album you would have at least that many sales. Or if half of the people in New York City under the age of 18 bought the album you would have that many. Right. And if just 1% of the cells in your body bought the album, well that would be 500 billion sales right there, so 1.2 million is no big deal.

Accounting 101

[sean_ex_machina]

Revenue is meaningless if we don't know how much it cost them to produce, promote, and distribute the album. Unless they have substantially cut recording costs, selling In Rainbows for $5 a download probably doesn't net Radiohead any more profit than releasing it through a label.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[UncleTogie]

Extensively processed music will become a thing of the past. People will play and record on devices that are much cheaper than they do currently.

Somehow, I don't think the guitar controller from Guitar Heroes will be replacing Stratocasters anytime soon.... {Musicians, drop your fave brand in there mentally...}

Call me crazy, but the cost of these things never really drop; it's just what's considered "high-end" is constantly being rethought.

the key issues are trust and novelty

[grossvogel]

i couldn't wait to download this album, paying 8 pounds for it even though i don't normally buy music. it's a vote against the record companies, and i'll vote that way again when the next band follows in radiohead's footsteps. i see two problems that may keep this from being the sea change many of us are hoping for:

1) TRUST
first, there was the www.radioheadlp7.com hoax. then, there was the strange design of the actual inrainbows.com site. i had to do some research before i was convinced that i was giving my credit card info to radiohead, and not some script kiddie in the former USSR. when every promising band starts to sell their album on their own website, how are we going to know which sites really do represent the bands, and which are worse than Sony?

2) NEWS
radiohead made BIG news by doing this, so they cashed-in on a lot of (well deserved) publicity. but the next band will not be able to count on this.

It seems like some kind of trusted distribution network may have to be developed before it's practical. If outlets like the amazon mp3 store (or maybe more journalistic sources, like pitchforkmedia.com) could work directly with the bands, for instance, this kind of thing might really fly.

(Of course, they may just replace the labels in ripping off artists and consumers.)

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[TheDormouse]

REAL MUSICIANS DO FOR THE MUSIC.

Just like "real doctors do for the health of humanity." [sic]

Professional musicians, just like everyone else, do what they do because they are good enough at it to make a living doing it. Some professions are lucky enough to allow people to believe they are making a difference to society.

(The argument about who gets to decide which musicians are truly "good enough at it to make a living" is another argument altogether.)

A quick NB for traditional media companies

[Jaro Cooke]

The music industry thinks it has it bad, wow that's rich! Think how the film processing industry is feeling about the internet and the digit revolution in general. There business is all but gone, are they complaining? No they are just getting down to the business of surviving in this new market place. Admittedly the sue your customers option isn't there, as they are doing nothing illegal, but lets be honest this approach isn't really helping the music industry anyway, is it?

The whole problem here, is that rather than accepting that the market place was changing, because of the internet, they tried desperately to cling on to obsolete business models. The results are, as they always are, disappointing on all fronts. If I was a majority shareholder in a Music label, I would go on a board of directors firing spree!!! How did they not see this coming? Their inept decisions have addicted an entire generation of their customers to free, illegal alternatives. Now over time the price of a thing should tend to its marginal cost, assuming a free market for the goods, so in terms of price for digital music, it was never looking good long term. However the potential for digital products comes from scale. If they made it easy and convenient to download music over the internet, people would buy far more music. What does it matter whether people spend £15 a month on 2 CDs or £15 a month on 150 MP3 downloads?

Now the really funny thing about all this, is that the movie and TV industries are basically following the same path as the music industry, but the markets changes are delayed, because the files are that much bigger. However in a lot of ways the Video industry is making all the same mistakes as the Music industry. They are using DRM 100% of the time, they are finding it difficult to monetise a product that is still very difficult to use due to incompatibility issues, lack of perceived value (due to the DRM again) and generally inconvenient as you usually have to install a different program for each media source. Come on guys, its not to late to pull your heads out of your a**es! There is money just waiting to be made, you just have to do it the internet way!

On a side note there is one other thing that the music industry could do to maintain the status quo, at least for a while. If they could just find a way of making the video files bigger so they take longer to download. I know, lets push High Definition!!! So maybe they do know something, but mark my words boys, your only delaying the inevitable.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[ozmanjusri]

1.2 million people isn't really that many people when you are talking about a global release.

It may not he huge in raw numbers, but if poll figures are correct, In Rainbows will have the highest profit margin (for the musicians) of any album ever released.

That's where the story is here. Radiohead bypassed the record companies, gained big kudos from their fans, and look like they've made about four times as much as if it'd been released through an RIAA member.

Why would you sign with a recording company, or even iTunes again?

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[ConanG]

Production costs can get ridiculous sometimes for big name bands. I remember reading that on Tool's last album (10,000 Days), there was $100,000 worth of recording equipment around Danny Carey's drum set; that doesn't include his actual instruments. That was more than the entire first album (Undertow) cost to produce.

I wonder how much different it would sound if recorded with less stratospherically expensive equipment...

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[sortius_nod]

You're missing the point.

The average over 1.2 million "sales" is $5. whether it's 1.2million people or 500 000 people it matters not. The fanbase may be smaller, or possibly larger (I know quite a few people who *shock horror* don't own a computer), but that's a different matter to raw sales data.

it's not all clear profit

[Tpenta]

Even without the recording industry, there are still costs associated with the production of the album, for example studio time and people to do post production etc. Estimating all sales as purely profit is short sighted and simplistic to say the least.

It must still be said though, even with the costs involved in making the album, that's a nice wad of cash.

Tp.

Re:it's not all clear profit

[Tpenta]

Not to mention paying for the bandwidth!

Tp.

publicity

[bodrell]

[italics]

In 20 years, the RIAA will have been completely replaced by a set of publicists. These publicists won't own the copyright to anything--they'll be paid, on salary, to hook the musicians up with venues, hire web designers for band websites, and in some cases find places to record.

[/italics]

What do you think the 'recording industry' was to begin with? Their current power did not spring forth fully formed. Started out small, got lucky with a couple of acts that made it big, then had the money/resources to take a chance (with their own rules) on no-name acts. And a few of those made it big. And so the circle goes.

I think you're referring to artists & repertoire, whereas the "recording industry" also consists of the manufacturing and distribution elements (and of course publicity, as mentioned). Manufacturing is dirt cheap DIY, more than ever before, because CD duplication is available to anyone with access to a compuer. Same goes for distribution, a la Radiohead's new album. A&R doesn't make sense without manufacturing and distribution--the only thing left is publicity. So I think I have to agree with the original post. And it's about damn time the artists got the biggest share of the revenue.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[mochan_s]

Extensively processed music will become a thing of the past. People will play and record on devices that are much cheaper than they do currently. The lower capital costs will enable them to better weather rampant piracy, surviving on fans' CD purchases, some legitimate online sales, and concert revenues.

It's a marketing campaign made by the cheap recording gear makers. It is NOT TRUE.

Extensive processing can be done by anyone with the computer.

However, before extensive processing comes, we need a very basic thing - a good room, a good instrument, a good microphone. It's very very expensive to make a good room, buy good equipment and microphones - plus, using them requires training and experience.

Without a good basic sound to start from, all the processing done on the computer will not sound good.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[mochan_s]

Seriously, what expensive startup costs? If you want to record yourself there's the initial outlay in a powerful computer set up and perhaps Pro Tools, and some good microphones for drums and vocals. So--maybe $10,000? $20,000? And once you've got that equipment, you can use it as much as you want, with no hourly studio time.

You need a very good room first - a room where the sound doesn't bounce around in any frequency range.

You don't make a warehouse into a concert hall and start booking orchestras and selling tickets. The acoustics must be taken into consideration. Otherwise, it will sound like you're recording under water, or recording in a tin can or recording inside a sewer depending on the room structure.

Yes, 10,000 can get decent equipment. $2000-$3000 for 2 good mics, $1000 for drum mics, $2000-$3000 for good preamps, $2000 for a good EQ. Plus, cables, stands etc etc. But, after you get all of that, it's not going to record by itself. There is a lot of knowledge that is required to make a good recording. Just buying a copy of Visual C++ doesn't mean that a major software can just be reproduced.

And if you don't have the knowhow or money to do the recording yourself, there are all kinds of small studios with perfectly decent engineers that charge less than $1,000 for a day. It's perfectly feasible to record an album for $5,000-$10,000 this way, or much less if you have connections or friends in the small-time recording industry.

I have found out that most are shitty engineers and it's very hard to find good engineers. YOu need big money to hire good engineers or good luck to hire good engineers before they are famous.

After that, electronic distribution is essentially free, via MySpace, or by setting yourself up on iTunes, eMusic, etc. If you also need CDs, a company like Kunaki can produce them for you on the fly for less than $2 each, *and* handle the ordering back end.

But, marketing isn't. I have known bands that have recorded a collection of amazing songs and not have anywhere to go from there. Marketing is very important. DIY marketing is a bad bad idea unless you have a very good idea about it.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[mochan_s]

Basically you have low barrier of entry, and relatively low cost of production. The main hurdle is marketing your stuff, and as another poster insightfully pointed out, there's going to be a growing segment of marketers for just these types of bands. Those with talent may soon find their ship has finally come in. In the end this may finally start to redistribute the wealth more evenly then the extremes between the traditional starving artists and Britney class megastars. Well unless the government somehow manages to fuck all this up which is quite possible.

Why would there be a growing segment of marketers for these kinds of bands?

The local band scene thing is dead. Bars have crappy PAs destroyed years ago by all the smoke and they charge high cover charges.

It's risky to buy a CD from a local band since it have some production flaw. One CD I bought had something wrong with it - it always sound tinny and made me want to vomit but comparing side by side with other albums it was fine but listing it the whole way through, there was something wrong with it. Most of the times you can just tell that it's shitty instruments or shitty mics or shitty rooms or all of the above. Recoding good music is a black art and not an exact science right now.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Hey, when life throws you a soft pitch like that you don't just tap it for a single, you smack it out of the park.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[mitgib]

There is also the added purchase support from those who may not be big Radiohead fans who would normally buy a record from them, but who are purchasing the album in order to support their decision to embrace the web... and not something to outlaw like certain parties would appearently like to see happen..... I did exactly that, I don't believe I've ever heard Radiohead before this release, I've heard of them, just never heard their music, and purchased this solely to add my vote of approval to the distribution model and to send a message to the large labels that consumers will buy music online when it is presented in a manner we want. After just finishing listening to this new release from Radiohead, I'm very pleased with what I hear, still do not think I would have bought this if it was released by a major label, but it's not bad music by any means (yes I'm an old fart at 43).

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Rebelgecko]

What the hell are you talking about? I put in 0 pounds and it didn't charge me anything.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Belacgod]

I doubt artists would form an effective lobby. Most have little money, they don't necessarily interact as a matter of course, they're diffuse...it'd be hard for them to organize. I think the whole matter will become less politicized. No one in music will have a very strong lobby for a while, after the strong RIAA lobby is broken.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Belacgod]

You don't have to support it. It's coming, or if I'm wrong it's not coming. If you really want to hear music processed on producing equipment too expensive for even a small business, you might want to side with the RIAA on piracy though, 'cause if they lose no one will put that kind of capital up. (Also, the cost of equipment required to produce the kind of music you like may come down to the point that an individual can afford it--what's some of the processing you like?)

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[minorproblem]

My sister does this actually, she has recorded her last 4 albums in small studios, and then sells her music through itunes and at live gigs, she isn't rich but she actually makes a decent living. After factoring in the cost of printing the cd's and recording plus putting money asside for her next recording she ends up with about $16AU pure profit left over from the cd sales. Which isn't bad at all seeming she does about 2 - 3 gigs a week and will ussually sell about 20 - 40 cd's at each gig ontop of the door fee. I am envious of her actually even though she earns much less than me she gets to spend her weeks chilling out with diffrent people writing music and playing in there gigs for fun etc.

Re:Hire a publicist!

[mdwh2]

No, but a new band starting out can't afford to run a national publicity campaign.

Sure, in a world without labels, a new band wouldn't go from being nobodies to national or international superstars overnight. They'd have to work their way up, starting locally, and only the very best would become known nationally.

Is that so bad, though? It's no different to how it is for most other industries.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Synonymous Bosch]

radiohead have for their previous efforts albums sold some 5 platinum and 2 gold albums world wide - thats 7 million copies sold, and online downloadable sales aren't counted in those figures.

last i heard, the web was world wide these days - if anything, 1.2 million seems like a pretty small figure to me, considering it comes in on average at less than half the price.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[stuboogie]

I wish I had mod points!!

You managed Funny and Insightful in so few words. Bravo, sir! Bravo!

And what of the rest of us?

[bkgood]

Those of us really interested in little more than a jewel-cased CD without the RIAA flavoring? I don't really want to pay $80 for the premiums of the box set (a lack of a turntable explains the majority of this), but also really like the whole CD, jewel case and booklet combo and am willing to pay for it -- name a base price for the cost of creating the physical package and let me tack on dollars as is done with the digital download. Are those of us in the middle of the road left out in the rain?

Yes, it has extra tracks

[dinodriver]

>"probably contain more content than the mp3 release"

The track listing of the later release is right there on the website, and one can pre-order a special version right now with extra artwork and whatnot. i was tempted but the price was a tad dear for a surf bum like myself. I was happy to give them 5 pounds for the download though.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[ravenshrike]

Actually, if the businesses were truly capitalistic, they would have flourished, as the entire idea behind capitalism is that if there is a need for something, you can make money doing it. As need for that thing drops, you will struggle. So, any true capitalist must either continually adjust his produt to suit current need(, get into a static need business(like fuel), or somehow guarantee a continued want/need for their product(the govt.).

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[cybereal]

Did you just reuse the download link? It's not like they are so dumb that they tracked downloads from links instead of purchases...

And if you purchased it twice, even for 0 pounds sterling you still had to pay SOME money for the download fee...

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[adolf]

The cost of a quality musical instrument, as a tangible thing, might not be going down. But we're not talking about Strats or Steinways; we're talking about recording, specifically the processing end of it.

To that end, let's take amplifiers, which are the near-universal processing and monitoring side of the electric guitar. These are definitely getting cheaper. A Marshall stack is always going to be expensive, for a variety of reasons, but other amplifiers from companies like Line 6 and Roland keep bringing down the cost of quality amplification and effects. (Line 6's processor modules are also available as software plugins with no hardware dependancy, which can reduce or eliminate the need to have separate amplifiers/cabinets for each guitarist, as far as the recording process goes.)

Synthesizers are cheap, and getting cheaper. They consist largely or entirely of software, lately, and there's even a few free open-source packages that don't suck.

Commercial multi-track software recorders like Adobe Audition (formally the much more reasonably-priced Cool Edit Pro), and of course open-source products like Audacity and Ardour, allow more possibilities for recording, post-processing, editing, and mixing than were ever dreamed possible with analog gear. Multiple-input sound cards from companies like RME and M-Audio keep dropping in price and gaining new features.

It is quite possible, and has been for some years, to produce extremely professional recordings with nothing more than a few good microphones, a decent outboard A/D device, a few selections of totally free software, good engineering practices (!), a spare bedroom, a revealing home stereo (or maybe just some quality headphones) for monitoring, and the instruments that the musicians already own. Oh, and a little bit of talent from everyone involved doesn't hurt, either...

So, in reply to you, UncleTogie: Good instruments have always been expensive, and will probably only become more so as the cost of raw materials continues to escalate. But gone are the days when the only way to cut an album was to rent time in a recording studio stuffed with gear, and so the cost of cutting an album is indeed dramatically lower than it has been in the past.

And in reply to GP: Because computers are, by any estimate, quite cheap and getting cheaper by the second, it is simply not very hard to produce "heavily-processed" music without a "proper" studio. These days, they're even fairly quiet, which again lessens the cost of recording -- there's just no great need to physically isolate a modern, quiet, cheap Dell machine from the recording space. This makes the whole process a lot cheaper in terms of real estate, dedication, and cabling. Even my 2-year-old laptop is able to run for extended periods with the fan completely disabled, its Hitachi hard drive is practically silent, and it is more than fast enough to enable nearly any manner of "professional" recording thanks to the virtues of USB 2.0 and Firewire.

Nine Inch Nails' most recent album was largely recorded in hotel rooms and tour buses, for example, using the same software and technology that is available to anyone else. And while the expensive Protools rig that Reznor finished the album with is sure to enable a smoother and more productive workflow than anything being produced in Audacity, that doesn't mean that a competent engineer cannot accomplish similar results with far less.

Back on topic, these lower barriers to entry all conspire to mean that a recording contract continues to be less and less useful to a musician or band which seeks to make money selling the products of their creativity, but that by no means is any indicator that quality must suffer in exchange.

Piracy isn't possible here

[Mikey-San]

You cannot pirate something you are allowed to pay nothing for.

Re:Piracy isn't possible here

[_Shad0w_]

Technically, I think, that is untrue - piracy is copyright violation. Money doesn't have to have changed hands to obtain the permission to use the copyrighted item, merely permission has to be given; that is what you're being given when you download the music via the official channels.

If you obtain a copyright item from the copyright holder (or an empowered agent of the holder) and then pass on that item to someone else you can't also give them the copyright holder's permission to use it - unless you've been granted that power by the copyright holder, which I doubt is the case with the Radiohead album.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[shma]

What the hell is he doing here?
He doesn't belong here.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[UncleTogie]

Well said! As for recording capabilities, I'll happily agree; I installed a friend's Digidesign Digi001 setup back in the day. Even being fairly new on the market, a deal at $1000 with PCI card {that was a pain to set up}, breakout box, ProTools LE, and a small monitor {forget the brand}. He got some good use out of that, especially when an engineer friend came over and showed him the ropes...

As for the newer amps being cheaper, yes. Yes, they are. But as you hinted earlier, Marshall heads being tube-driven will drive up the cost, but there's a "warmth" to the sound that you can't emulate with any digital pedal, effect, or sonic maximizer.

Just a matter of preference, really, and matters not a whit if the twit on the kit plays like shit.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[The Great Pretender]

I just reused the download link, so I paid $10 (plus credit card processing fee) the first time only. I'm assuming that they are tracking the unique download links to eliminate, or track, the multiple download...well I would. (for those who didn't do this, you sign in to create an account and after "purchasing" the album they send a unique link to the email account given during account creation).

Re:yhey are gay group catering to homosexuals

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for being our go-to guy for current info about the gay community.

Re:wtf

[glwtta]

I suppose the argument will be "Well, now it's practically free, so if I just help myself to the torrent, it's not really piracy now, is it?"

There's to be a big difference between "free" and "practically free". In this case, "pirating" something that is available for free may technically be violating copyright, but I really doubt a lot of people would be able to work up any outrage over that.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[JackMeyhoff]

Rent a room then.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

You don't have to support it. It's coming, or if I'm wrong it's not coming.

I've voted with my wallet. I'm not getting the new album (at least until it come out on CD and CD only format). I don't support their business model, and although it may not make a difference in the end, it's where I stand, and I'll try to convince others of the same thing.

If you really want to hear music processed on producing equipment too expensive for even a small business...

Stop right there! Not everyone has the same resources as a small business! This is what I'm talking about. It seems you have to the resources of a small business, and still somehow have the spare time (which small businesses don't have) to make music. Not only that, you not only have to have the money, but you have to be prepared to lose it, so the resources of a small business have to be chump change to you.

...you might want to side with the RIAA on piracy though, 'cause if they lose no one will put that kind of capital up.

I do. But I forgive you for jumping to conclusions. It's not like anyone else 'round here sympathises.

Basically, the RIAA serves its purpose: to lower the barrier of entry into the music profession. I don't agree with their lack of care in their lawsuit strategy, but I agree that we need to stop piracy now, before it becomes any more of a social norm, and I can't think of a better way to do it than to use lawsuits. At least the RIAA doesn't discriminate music availability by internet access. That said, I'm not tied to the RIAA, so as soon as Radiohead release their album in stores, I'm going to get it.

BTW, why was my post overrated? It was only on score two and it wasn't at all offensive.

Not that they do but...

[Headcase88]

In a well-designed market, the two should go hand in hand.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[DDLKermit007]

You can get a decent room put together for under 5-10k. Far less than many studios end up charging these startup groups. From there your expense is instruments. Only people who will bitch about these cheaper rooms is audiophiles who'd NEVER know the difference heard the album was made in one of the band member's spare room they kitted out. Due to that they can somehow can taste the difference, or some other bullshit thing audiophiles always claim, but when you live in reality, doesn't exist.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[pipingguy]

20 years? Divide that by four maybe.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[CRCulver]

Adolf Wolfli never made a dime from his art. Neither did Henry Darger. Some people are just driven to create regardless of whether they are compensated.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[AgNO3]

No one said artist have to make money but to pull that purity of the form BS is total crap because artist have been paid for there art pretty much for all of time. Van Gogh Sold 1 hole painting. So what? There are exceptions to the rule.

A few points...

[Tastecicles]

OK, here's some to cook your noodles:

1. What kind of exposure would an independent band get on a label-owned (read: every) network or commercial radio station? Answer: none. Radio stations are there for one purpose: to promote signed bands with airplay.
2. Given that Radiohead are an established band with a huge repertoire behind them, how much of that back catalogue do they actually own that they can pull off a similar stunt with? Answer: none. The label owns every single track. Radiohead can't even ask them for them because the label knows what they'd be wanting to do with them, which would completely cut the label out of any potential profit loop.
3. Given the associated costs of being a signed band, what would the labels' reactions be to bands upping sticks, potentially abandoning their old material and going independent and self-promoting and self-producing? I'll leave that one open to the floor.

um... crap. That's all I got right now.

The guys that called Scott Tenorman a crybaby

[denzacar]

Remember that Southpark episode when Cartman gets that kid (Scott Tenorman) to eat his parents? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Tenorman_Must_Die

Radiohead was the band that told the kid that just ate the chili made out of his parents that he was a crybaby and totally not cool.

There.. now you know.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[cliffski]

you mean like the 'gathering of developers' which was a similar thing in the game publishing world, it would be a new style publisher that would support the developers directly, and give them a far better deal, instead of ripping them off like the other publishers.

GOD were bought up by Take 2, and now don't exist.

I doubt anything different would happen in the music industry. there is a natural economic trend towards large publishers controlling entertainment markets. take a look at the casual games industry to see it happening right now.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[10bellies]

Van Gogh Sold 1 hole painting The original Goatse?

So like... they are not selling it anymore?

[denzacar]

They have closed shop?

Nobody else will get the album this way?

Whats done is done?

We have the final count now and no more albums will be sold? Ever!?

So that is the new halflife for the music these days - 10 days?
After that, go find a new favorite song/album/band?

Shit... I'm getting old.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[mochan_s]

You can get a decent room put together for under 5-10k.

OK. I'm guessing that you're already assuming that the band owns a house or the property for the room. Otherwise, it's 5-10K just for the rent per year.

You're also assuming that the person building the room will have full knowledge of room acoustics and sound proofing material and such.

Plus, what does decent room mean? There is no way to quantify what a decent room is. There could be a problem that without professional advice could not be found. The end product is the music which is multi-track, goes through mics, preamps, analog to digital converters, and then through back out a speaker system in maybe a different acoustic environment recording instruments with all different peculiarities. How are you possibly going to figure out the problem or track it down without extensive knowledge?

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[JonathanR]

That lot is just audio engineering. It's nothing that is really uniquely provided by the big name record labels. Having said that, you could probably hire a studio to do the recording sessions. I just checked out the Abbey Road website, and it doesn't say anything in the Terms & Conditions [PDF warning] about having be signed to EMI to make a studio booking.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[tha_mink]

It's nobody's fault but his own...

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Kadmium]

Line 6's software stuff technically isn't dependant on the hardware, but it does use it as a sort of dongle and won't operate if the hardware isn't connected. The only exception to this is Amp Farm, which is TDM and therefore requires a (ridiculously expensive) Pro Tools HD rig.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[gsslay]

However, in a future where the bands themselves are in charge, I think using their work for other projects will become much cheaper. I can't see where you're getting this. Do you imagine the bands don't want paid as much as the record company?

Say I'm a musician with a famous song; what's my incentive to sell it cheap to boost the profile of some crappy advert or shoddy amateur film? If I have an artistic reputation for quality and popularity, why should I allow someone else to cheapen that to promote their product? Maybe I don't want my song associated with a bar of chocolate for little return. And if I choose to do it, why shouldn't I demand a large amount of cash?

If the advertiser or film maker doesn't believe my music is worth that they are always free to go elsewhere.

Re:"Overnight success" after sixteen years

[CmdrGravy]

I saw Radiohead supporting a band called the Sultans Of Ping at the Barrel Organ in Birmingham sometime around 1989, they were rubbish. Most people didn't even bother to get up and listen to them but just sat on the floor and chatted instead. Creep was probably their best song but it sounded nothing like the song it would turn into. However it was obvious that they had some kind of serious backing because they had people going around asking you to subscibe to their mailing list and giving out free flourescent yellow "r" shaped stickers and had a far more professional team backing them up than the headlining Sultans Of Ping had.

6 or 7 years later I saw Radiohead headlining at Glastonbury and they were totally and utterly amazing, the Sultans Of Ping had vanished into a pit of oblivion and split up. The question is would Radiohead have been able to evolve from what they were to what they became without the support and investment from their record company who must obviously have spotted some potential in the band which wasn't obvious to most people of the people listening to them in the early days ?

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[looseSpark]

Regardless of the Web being world-wide, such a method of distribution is still only really going to have an effect on countries where Radiohead already has a pre-existent fan-base with only a minor increase due to people being curious or supporting the distribution method for idealogical reasons. On top of that, obviously not everyone in the world has an Internet connection...

From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet#Worldwide_Online_Population_Forecast ):

>In its "Worldwide Online Population Forecast, 2006 to 2011," JupiterResearch anticipates that a 38 percent increase in the number of people with online access will mean that, by 2011, 22 percent of the Earth's population will surf the Internet regularly.

So using the supposed global distribution of the WWW as a means of judging the popularity of this album is, really, quite misleading; we should not be using the ratio of downloads to global Web access to judge, rather how much richer Radiohead is by using this strategy compared to the traditional record label one. If they make more money using this method, it's a success and other artists will undoubtedly follow.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[thegnu]

Except for if they sold it through the RIAA, they'd make 37 cents per sale, instead of $5. Or $1. Or whatever. Almost noone is so cheap that they can't beat what the RIAA pays.

Good idea, bad implementation

[MobyDisk]

I like the idea of what Radiohead is doing. Offering a physical discbox or an online download via their own site. It's great.
I dislike the web site itself and the physical discbox.

The site is ugly, slow, and has been up and down for the past 2 weeks. It doesn't work right in Firefox. It has unnecessary use of flash. It's not intuitive. I can't preview the songs. I have to "register" with my name and address in order to download a song. Mobile phone # is a required field. The discbox is expensive and I don't need vinyl disks. You know what would be great though? A CD! I can put it on my shelf, use it in my CD player, and it has a 44khz uncompressed audio file on it. Great huh?

Their EULA:

Specifications :

The Company reserve the right to alter specifications to those stated. [WTF???]
The Customer's statutory rights will not be affected. [WTF???]

Mailing list :

By registering with the shop, w.a.s.t.e. products may use your e-mail address to send you Radiohead news, updates, ticket info etc. This is perhaps the worst-designed, jerkiest web site I've used in the last year. I'm not sure which is worse: This ordering system, or the RIAA. At least the RIAA only penalizes me if I don't buy the CD. These guys are penalizing me for actually buying it.

So much for the Record Company

[HermMunster]

An artist generally makes $.07 per song on any given album. If an album were to sell a million copies the artist would have made $70,000. Given the tax bracket the artist would have probably paid close to 50% in taxes. That leads to a $35,000 income off a million copies of an album sold. Even if the tax bracket is lower you can see that the artist just didn't make much money. In the past the artist used record sales as an advertising path for their concerts. That allowed them to make up for 93% of the income off those record sales that went to the record company.

Now you consider $8.00 per album and the $6 to $10 million made and you know this was the right move for them. It opens up the world for them. It breaks the cartel set up by the recording industry and essentially issues a pink slip to all of them and any employee that promoted that decadent system to begin with. No more billionaire recording company, instead the artist gets the benefit of their artistic talents.

This is really incredible because if they have made that much money they have changed the whole structure of how music will be sold. It is a very glorious day that the recording companies are now going to be removed as the middle man. It also means that if music distribution becomes primarily done through this mechanism we'll see a major shift away from those recording taxes on everyone that buys CD blanks, etc.

Now consider this, no more lawsuits against Radiohead customers, none of their money going to the RIAA to allow them to fund lawsuits against old ladies, the disabled, and even the dead. Just amazing if other artists recognize the value of this and move to this same model. Hey, I might start buying music again.

What a wonder the internet is. All the recording industry can say is "bad internet, bad bad". But the artists can say "good internet, good good" because they can now make the money the deserve from their efforts. This is total unequivocal proof that the recording industry, the content rights holders, and their lobbyists are wrong.

Comparable Stats w/Label???

[Necromancyr]

The numbers don't actually mean anything without something to compare them to. How much money would they have made from the same number of records sold if they went through a label with the best contract they could have gotten? And would the additional press and airplay received (for this CD, because of the media attention I doubt it, but still) increased those sales?

Without knowing how improved it was over a label release, it's a bit unclear how much better they did.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Ilgaz]

I just downloaded it 3 times. You know why? Because they are stupid enough not to setup a private tracker, offer the file with 1% of cost of bandwidth and do ordinary HTTP server download just like back in 1994. My browser crashed 3 times because of a bug in completely unrelated tab.

Is there a rule that torrent should be ONLY use for piracy? Can't we get a private tracker URL which would be 100x more secure for them too? I am saying secure since even multi million companies which were founded by sole reason of conspiring p2p couldn't mess with private trackers :)

I have found the cause of RIAA/big record company puppet media's "It was free but still pirated" thing. People PAID for it and downloaded from Trackers since the HTTP server couldn't cope with millions of requests. That is what Wired(.com) says and I believe it is true. If my browser couldn't resume or I was a ordinary user who doesn't figure there is a chance to resume (via cookies etc), I would do the same thing too. Remember, we have already paid for it anyway.

If these numbers are true, this is a giant step in music scene. I bet the usual suspects being open to major changes will follow them.

I would love to see a multi million selling artist like Madonna shipping her own music using torrent technology and those ISP's support lines get overhelmed because they have filtered torrent traffic thinking it is for piracy only.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[HermMunster]

Actually firefox numbers are based on web page hit percentages not on downloads, per se.

But yes, some people do download firefox multiple times. That's not a number that matters because when you calculate the number of people that spread that downloaded copy around you make up for the anomaly of multiple downloads per person.

But in the case of Radiohead the system does not work that way. You add the item to your cart, then you pay for it, then you download. People are not going to pay for it and then download it multiple times because it doesn't work that way. Besides, the firefox anomaly has to take place over a long period of time to even be measurable. The Radiohead distribution of the 1.2 million is over a short period of time. It should make the record company shake, rattle, and roll at this record number.

I was just thinking that the record companies will somehow want to tax the internet (like they do CDs) in order to recoup costs. I thought that because I know they are planning on trying to get some percentage of sales when *most* artists decide to take this direction.

Any artists not taking this route would have to be FUCKING INSANE to pass up millions in exchange for a recording contract that nets them very little of the actual sales.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[KarmaPolice]

Karma police, arrest this man.

Ok!

badly done

[edxwelch]

They need to learn something about internet sales. There should be a one click payment like for skype. No entering of unnesecary personal details. If you make the sales process concivient and quick the customer has less chance to think twice about it.
Also most people would want to hear a couple of song first, there should be a preview of the songs

Shenanigans!

[bodrell]

To put it simply, You're full of shit. If you REALLY wanted to support them you would have done it anyway and made the suggestion that they encode in a higher bitrate. All your doing is trying to claim you 'would buy it for the common good' but didn't because of some retarded technicality that wouldn't have affected you if you did what you claim you were going to do.

On point 1, I agree. I am annoyed at the relatively low bitrate (160 kbps = low, 128 kbps is not even worth downloading), but I paid 5 pounds to support the band and hear their new album. And I like it. But when I read they were releasing a CD in January, I wished I had not paid good money for shitty mp3s.

Second, I'd put a months pay on the line that I could encode a 320kbs mp3 and a 128kbs mp3 and play them both on your hardware and you wouldn't know the difference. I hate when people are all high and mighty about high bitrate mp3s ... and you play them through you $15 over amp'd speakers connected to your onboard soundcard via a frayed headphone cable

You're setting the bar way too low. 128 vs 320? Hah! The difference is pretty damn significant, if you've got decent ears. Now if you had said 192 vs 320, I would have been more hesitant. But I'll take you up on that 128 vs 320 bet any day, any time. However, I demand to use my own hardware, since you've been listening to music on a computer with a shitty soundcard and a frayed headphone cord.

You know the original MP3 encoders were designed so that at 128kbps most people could not tell the difference right? Yet you are one of the many people who claim 'OMG LOW BITRATE SUCKS'

Key word being MOST, here. I can tell the difference, and I'm sorry if that makes you feel inferior with your sub-par ears. But I (I am not the OP) will NOT shut the fuck up about how low bitrates suck. One of my biggest fears from digital music distribution is that high quality tracks will disappear completely, along with the CD. I still buy CDs because, as I said I CAN TELL THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE. Maybe you can't, but I've ripped at various bitrates and tested myself.

Seriously, shut the fuck up and stop acting like you were all out to buy the album but this stupid little bitrate issue is what stopped you from buying it.

Okay, so that was just a mean spewing rant, but I really hate people that talk like this and act like bitrates like this are the end of the world ... cause you can tell a difference on your shitty ass PC sound card. /me waits to here how he has an ASUS board with tube amp onboard, monster cables feeding a harmon kardon amp with bose speakers ...

The original poster didn't even seem to LIKE radiohead, so you have to take the whole post with a grain of salt. I like the band, have bought several of their previous albums. I paid for the download, and I'm giving notice: 256+ kbps in the future if you want me to pay top dollar. Downstairs, I listen to my music on a Power Mac G5 with a Texas Instruments TAS3004 sound card. My audio-out is connected to my amp/pre-amp stereo system, which is made by Audio Source (not a big name, but decent hardware without whistles and bells) and has speakers by Boston Acoustics. Upstairs, in the bedroom, I have a Klipsch ProMedia THX 2.1 computer speaker system to which I plug in my iPod, and it sounds sublime.

I want to build my own tube amp, but I don't currently have the $$. I'm a wannabe audiophile without the means to buy the fanciest equipment. It doesn't require the fanciest equipment to differentiate shit (128 kbps) from quality (256 kbps). I know people who rarely listen to music, and I know people who are perfectly satified with 128 kbps coming from tiny, tinny computer speakers. For some of us, music has a bigger place in our lives. Music to me is kind of a propulsion system that keeps me going, keeps me productive. I constantly have music running through my he

Aliasing

[bodrell]

Ah, so I was wrong about the number. It only contains frequencies up to ~22kHz, which is sensible in light of the human auditory range I mentioned in my earlier post.

This is why I don't read /. so much any more. Lots of people know the numbers, but too few know what they mean.

Methinks you don't know what the numbers mean in this case, either. Think about it for a second--if you were to encode a 22 kHz sine wave (nothing complicated right now) with a 44.1 kHz signal, how many points would you have per cycle? Exactly two. One for a peak, one for a trough. What does that spell? TRIANGLE WAVE. And those sound nothing like sine waves, which you probably know if you've ever played an old Nintendo game. But it's worse--the triangle wave will only resemble the sine wave in frequency if sampled at exactly the right places (peaks and troughs) but will be silent if sampled at the point that the wave is at zero amplitude. This is the problem with aliasing. This is why CDs will never sound as good as analog, regardless of the nominal frequency range. Analog frequency and bitrate are limited by the recording equipment and the medium (e.g., acetate records). Realistically, you need about eight points per cycle to represent a sine wave, meaning that CDs, with their 44 kHz sampling, only capture realistic sounds up to about 5 kHz, not 22. Above that frequency, it all starts to become electronic-sounding. And for more complicated waveforms, eight samples per cycle is still inadequate, meaning those waveforms sound "muddy."

Caveat: I am not an electronic engineer, and I don't know how aliasing appears in the frequency domain (i.e., mp3s ripped from CDs), just the time domain. But CDs use the time domain, so these limitations do apply.

Re:Aliasing

[Lunzo]

Two words about CD sampling frequency: Nyquist's Theorem.

The relevant section for those too lazy to click the link, or who just don't want to see the mathematical detail there:

Exact reconstruction of a continuous-time baseband signal from its samples is possible if the signal is bandlimited and the sampling frequency is greater than twice the signal bandwidth.

In other words, sampling at 44.1kHz is enough to encode sound due to the range of human hearing being roughly 20kHz. I think you'll find from your own experience that CD audio sounds nothing like muaic from your SNES games.

Another example is with film. Movies run at 25fps and the human eye samples at around 10fps. You don't think the picture is flickery when you go to the cinema do you?

Re:Aliasing

[john83]

Two words for you: reconstruction filter. And, for the record, I am an electronic engineer.

Re:Aliasing

[lazy_playboy]

I'd guess that a 20kHz triangle wave would sound the same as a sine wave, to a human ear.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[larry bagina]

Green Day started out on an indie label and switched over to big label (warner/reprise) after gaining popularity and outgrowing Lookout's distribution capacity.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Synonymous Bosch]

In a remarkable set of coincidences, not everyone in the world has a computer, mp3 player, cd player, or buys cds and the parts of the world which are highly representative of the webs population also happen to be highly representative of the locations of Radioheads fanbase.

As of 1997, only 50% of the worlds population had actually made a phone call. The fact that the minority of the world uses the internet is representative of the fact that the minority can afford and have access to it.

It's easy for us cruisy first world types to forget this.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Belacgod]

Why sell it cheap? So people will actually buy it and you see some money.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Belacgod]

They were originally the people with sound studios and radio stations, plus the capital to hire songwriters and backup bands, and the connections to advertise widely in a print-only age. Now, none of those are so expensive as to be necessarily centralized.

It is a slippery slope in both directions. In the beginning, producers had the power because they had the capital and the barriers to entry were high, so they got favorable contracts. We're approaching a reboot point after which all producers will be able to offer is contacts at larger venues, rather than the ability to record at all. That puts them in a much weaker position, making it harder for them to get back the power they had.

Re:Hire a publicist!

[srleffler]

I agree. I'm not one of those who is opposed to this new model of music industry. I'd love to see the big music companies die off and be replaced by flexible distribution over the internet, combined with smaller businesses that provide services to musicians with growing careers--publicity, help with distributing music to radio stations, etc.

I wouldn't be suprised if the new model reduces income at the high end. Fewer superstars making huge incomes from music. Music could even become more like other careers, where you have a large "middle class" that makes a solid but not excessive income from live shows and selling their music online.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[symbolic]

Me too! Damn funny.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[symbolic]

I agree. I spent some time messing around with a Korg Trinity (which is old by today's standards), route the sound from the headphone jack to the mic in jack on my computer. I then used Audacity to record it and add a very small amount of processing (fade/fade out). The results, though probably not studio quality, quite a bit better than I expected. Obviously things like live guitar and vocals would present more of a challenge, but for a determined artist, these probably aren't insurmountable.

I am Jack's...

[Araes]

Total lack of faith. 10 years ago you might have been able to sell me on that, but in those 10 years after peer sharing, web distribution, and similar technologies burst on the scene, I have seen almost no visible shift away from the consolidation of the established music industry. The existing music publishing architecture represents a stable, visible sign of success for artists. Much like comic publishing and the syndicates, the stamp of approval from some group by BMG still represents the goal of success that IMO most groups strive for when they're trying to make it. They may be shooting themselves in the foot and creating nothing but badwill among their consumers, but in any age group except 20 somethings, all I've so far seen is people buying into the concept that the industry is right, and terror at being accused of being a pirate.

Re:I am Jack's...

[Belacgod]

In 20 years the 20-somethings will be 40-somethings, and the people younger than them will agree with them. That's why those who say it'll happen in 5 years are wrong.

Also, piracy has had only about 6 years to wreck the RIAA's business model. Another couple decades and the finances will have cracked. Finally, in 20 years internet capacity will have grown to the point where music filesharing will be a small enough portion to squeeze by easily (or the USA will be on its way to being a 3rd-world backwater and nobody at all will be making money in music).

The last decade is simply too early, and too small of a timespan, to see these changes. Heck, 10 years ago there wasn't even Napster, and dialup was still common. 10 years ago I still owned cassettes. If someone had told me this 10 years ago I'd have thought they were crazy. It's only now that it's beginning to look possible at all.

Tired of hearing geeks talk about the music biz...

[gary gunrack]

..but still addicted to Slashdot. Seriously, I missed this discussion because I was driving to a gig, one in a string of many out of state gigs this month in what is a grueling schedule that we've set for ourselves. I got home at 5am. After a long weekend of hard work, we might get paid enough to cover gas and expenses, if we're lucky. Half of what we make goes back to the band account to pay off our debts: the money it cost to produce our first CD, the money for our new CD, the money to buy our tour van (built in 1986), and soon, the money to hire a publicist. It occurs to us that buying our own recording gear and learning how to use it makes more sense than paying to use a studio. For what we paid to make our last 2 cd's, we could have gotten almost enough gear to do it right. But $20,000 worth of gear is a staggering figure for us. We're working so hard on the music that it interferes with my ability to make a living. (if this sounds whiny, its because it kind of is... I'm exhausted, demoralized, and a little broken). It isn't as easy as y'all make it out to be with your nice theories about business models. There's no way that Radiohead would have sold a fraction of their albums if they hadn't previously had record companies promoting the hell out of them for more than a decade. How many people here actually go out to see independent bands play? How many of you buy CD's from sources like CDBaby? There are thousands of bands in the US putting out music that is better than the Big Labels', working their asses off, and failing to make ends meet because people don't take the time to hear them. And if you do buy their CD, you will probably be dissapointed because your ears are accustomed to hearing big-budget productions, and these bands cant afford it.

Tchaikovsky, please; he used cannons

[abb3w]

There's one thing that the record companies provide that you can't typically get on your own, and that's publicity.

Yeah? You can get it from a Spammer, too.

More importantly, record companies used to serve an editorial function, and indicate a level of quality as well. If someone figures out how to incorporate (a) reliable distribution, (b) editorial judgment, (c) a way to get about 5% of what all of the bands take in as profits, and achieve (d) a little word of mouth, the Internet will beat a route to their servers. The hardest part is designing part (a) so that the operation can fully scale from the first local band you hand a Benjamin to so they try you out, to the day you drive the last of the current RIAA members into bankruptcy because every Big Talent (and little talent) and customer on the planet prefers doing business with you — no matter how fast you move from one to the other.

I'd be surprised if someone at Google isn't working on this as their side project; it's an obvious opportunity to make an honest gigabuck or two.

"Think big; win small." -- Darius Regulo, in Charles Scheffield's The Web Between the Worlds.

Reviewers Power

[Nicolay77]

I heard a lot of good things related to this album:

- 'The best album after OK computer'

- 'Probably the best album of the year'

And so on. With these reviews it's hard not to want to download and (maybe) pay for it. So I don't think it's really just because of the novelty, but also because of the reviews.

Other albums from other groups will probably have very different reviews. This puts a lot of the marketing might in the hands of the review sites.

Radiohead owe me 45p!

[dusura]

How come I ended up paying 5 pounds 45 pence when I said I wanted to pay 5 pounds?

Re:Radiohead owe me 45p!

[dylan_-]

How come I ended up paying 5 pounds 45 pence when I said I wanted to pay 5 pounds?

Because you didn't click back and enter £4.55 when you found out about the transaction fee? They needed to do it this way because otherwise entering, say, 10p would be worse for them than entering nothing, as they'd lose 35p on the "sale" to the credit card firm.

Are you really blaming Radiohead because you were too lazy to go back and enter a different amount?

Re:Radiohead owe me 45p!

[dusura]

No, I was joking. The wording on the website was weird. They say it's up to me how much I want to pay then they go and charge me more than I said I wanted to pay.

Website

[Nicolay77]

No matter how little the website designer got, it was too much.

Notice one little detail

[Master of Transhuman]

The article suggests that some of the BitTorrent downloads were due to slowdowns on the official site.

This supports what I've been saying all along - people do not pay for MUSIC, they pay for ACCESS to music. They have no problem paying $40 for a concert ticket, but they hate paying $20 for a CD they can keep (except for those merchandise freaks who love CDs simply because they're physical pieces of merchandise.)

Using P2P systems is a royal pain in the butt, until you've put it the time on one to master its intricacies.

But when the official site slowed down, people went to P2P who could.

The fact that the official site required registrations as well also would cause some people to use P2P if they already knew how.

This supports my thesis that what matters to people is ACCESS to music. They will pay to get the music they want, but they really aren't paying for the music itself. Generations who grew up with radio blaring free music all day isn't going to pay for music.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Just take a look through any of these radiohead slashdot posts. How many posts do you see from people saying they just bought it to support the distribution medium? I've seen at least a dozen so far.

Now, how long will these 'i dont care for the music but i will pay just to support the idea' sales last? I'd say the number quickly approaches zero as more and more people switch to this distribution method.

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[gsslay]

Or you could sell it a whole lot dearer to fewer people and see even more money, over a longer term. cheap + more sales does not necessarily = more profit.

WTF: Invalid authentication code?

[Azul]

Ugh, I just put there 8 pounds and when I went for the download link, I got a silly error page:

I'M SORRY, BUT THIS AUTHENTICATION CODE IS INVALID.

PLEASE CHECK AND TRY AGAIN OR CONTACT OUR CUSTOMER SERVICES: downloadinrainbows@waste.uk.com

Ugh.

Lets email them and see what happens. Lousy website.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[ThirdPrize]

Does that mean hat if you paid 35p for the album then Radiohead were 10 out of pocket. Cool, where is my credit card?

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[casualsax3]

Who's your sister? At least give her a plug.

and in 30 years time ...

[ThirdPrize]

the various separate bands will have remerged back into something we know and think of as a record label. The thing is, no band is going to get as good a deal on anything as a couple of bands working together. In the UK every now and again they privatise some government run service or industry as they think they will give it more freedom and control if it looks after itself (and of course, the government make some money off the back of it). Ten years later though and the companies have brought each other up and are back where they started.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[Lunzo]

Please help me know when artist where NOT paid in historical times. I don't mean artist that didn't get paid I mean a time when artisans where not paid for there skills and work as a profession. The Pyramid artist where paid well from all accounts and pretty much since then I can show that artist have been well compensated for there work. Mozart was not a popper. I guess I should stop putting $ in the street musicians basket cause he is obviously not about his art.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not trolling and are just ill informed. There are a few exceptions but throughout history artists have been rather poorly paid. Much of the work on the pyramids was probably done by slaves, so I doubt they were well compensated for their time and effort. Mozart did die a pauper. Musicians of Mozart's time and earlier were either servants under patronage to a particular noble or were wandering minstrels and troubadours and the like. In both cases they would only just scrape out a living.

In fact it's only in the last 200 years or so that musos and artists are compensated somewhat fairly for their work, and even still you wouldn't go into either of those professions just for the money. In both cases it's a lot of hard work for little reward financially until you make it big, and lets face it there are plenty of bands and artists that don't make it big.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[AgNO3]

I will just awesome you are ill informed because it was proven long ago that it was not slaves who did most of the work on the pyramids. Not paid well and not paid are not the same thing are they? The apprentice system was for sure a paid system. They took the children and then paid for their room and board. In some cases the parent might pay to get the child in with a particular person or note, For sure the master was being paid for his art or he would not be the master. What do you think Verrechio was doing with that workshop that Da Vinci apprenticed in? Not getting paid? I was an assistant for many many year getting paid poorly. Again paid poorly is getting paid. So the BS about Not taking pay for your art is just fucking stupid and is usually said by people that are not talented artist or are not dedicated enough to there art to have to get paid for it. I make my life my art. Its not a side hobby its is my life and soul and people pay me for my time to create art for them or to buy my creations.

You might want to read this about who build the pyramids. You seem to need to.
http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/070391.html

Re:and that is the threat to the big labels;

[Peeteriz]

The big issue is soundcard - the analog-to-digital converters.
100-200$ for a low-end soundcard with a couple of nice inputs will put your setup up to 99% of the studio quality (if you want to record your Korg; recording vocals, for example, will require some $$$ for good mics).

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[dan828]

No, it means if you pay 35p with your credit card, you also have to pay another 45p to process the credit card for a total of 80p. If you pay nothing, there is no credit card processing and hence no credit card processing fee.

Re:Who the fuck is radiohead?

[DCTooTall]

Been about a week... so not sure if you, or anybody... will even SEE this comment.... BUT..

I know I've heard of RadioHead... and a lot of people have... but remember, late 90's was about 10yrs ago. Think of all the people who heard them back then, but didn't give a big following who pretty much forgot about them in the time since. Or the people who never heard of them because they listened to country or some other musical genre and the time and therefor never crossed paths with them.

Then you've got the kids. 10yrs is a long time when you think about the current younger "record buying" generation. Hell.... I went to a haunted house this past weekend which had a radio station asking people trivia questions for radio-station freebies. They ended up asking a 17yr old girl which old band "Posh Spice" was in............She didn't have a clue and had NEVER heard of the Spice Girls. Considering how HUGE they got, you couldn't help but at least hear the name even if you didn't listen to any pop music.