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38% of Downloaders Paid For Radiohead Album
brajesh sends us to Comscore for a followup on the earlier discussion of Radiohead making $6-$10 million on their name-your-own-cost album "In Rainbows" — with the average price paid being between $5 and $8. Comscore analyzes the numbers: "During the first 29 days of October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the 'In Rainbows' site, with a significant percentage of visitors ultimately downloading the album. The study showed that 38 percent of global downloaders of the album willingly paid to do so, with the remaining 62 percent choosing to pay nothing... Of those who were willing to pay, the largest percentage (17 percent) paid less than $4. However, a significant percentage (12 percent) were willing to pay between $8-$12, or approximately the cost to download a typical album via iTunes, and these consumers accounted for more than half (52 percent) of all sales in dollars."
did they make more or less profit than what they would have made with the standard sales method?
One thing this didn't account for was advertising. A band that big probably had a huge advertising budget in their past that they no longer had to worry about because being the first ones out of the block, they caught a bit more press on the Internet. There were probably a number of new radiohead fans that were made because of this that will come back and buy future CDs. They might have taken a hit financially, but I think the payoff is going to be bigger in the long run.
at 6-10 mil this experiment work. Radiohead made more in album sales via download than they have on other albums. Plus this does not included what they will make in storefront sales.
Well, of course, it culd be that not all the users are keeping the program, they may be testing, etc... but I am counting the hits that the server register from the same address within a month... So the program has being used a month more or less....
So judging by that, music consumers have a more happy pocket than software users.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
...And with all the free publicity, EMI (their old label) has decided to cash in-- selling their back catalog on a USB drive that retails for TWICE what the CD box set costs.
That pretty much explains the music "industry" in a nutshell.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
drudgereport.com is a right-leaning website frequented by media execs
you see the very first story linked as:
"Most Fans Paid $0 for Radiohead Album..."
(breitbart is a right-leaning media outlet as well)
ps: right now being 4:15 pm, 11/06/2007
what's funny is how a pro-file sharing website, like slashdot, can spin a positive out of the numbers, and an anti-file sharing website can spin a negative
spin, spin, spin
just my two cents: radiohead probably made more money off their album with this internet tip jar concept than if they signed with a label, considering how the companies nickel and dime artists to death. actually, radiohead has some clout, so maybe that's not 100% true. but rather, an unknown band would DEFINITELY make more money with free albums and an internet tip jar than signing with a label
hopefully more and more bands will realize this, and a critical mass of hot young bands will coalesce such that one will consider doing business with the defunct music labels ever again
then the RIAA attack dogs will sue up and coming artists to sign with the music labels? (half-joking, i wouldn't put it past them)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We'll only really know the full impact of this if/when other acts start doing it. I don't really like Radiohead, but I threw them $5 just for shaking things up in a good way. Still, it's obvious most people who bought this album were Radiohead fans. The real question is, how much further will this distribution model go if/when other major fanbases are given the same chance?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I've been an avid Radiohead fan for years now, and when I saw this I was delighted someone had stepped up and realised the change in the state of the music industry. I paid 5 quid for it, and I did so to say "good idea, I'm willing to pay" and I don't regret one penny of it.
Kudos to Radiohead, and I hope those fat cats at the RIAA and related Music Labels take heed.
ilovegeorgebush
I tried to buy the album from the US, my bank declined the charges. When I called them to find out why they said a lot of fraudulent charges come from that part of the world and would not allow me to buy the album. How many of the folks who didn't pay for it actually "couldn't" pay for it?
Here
Results to Date
70 downloads
5 donations
% of downloaders making a donation: 7%
Smallest donation: $2
Largest donation: $12
Average donation: $6.80
As a poster suggested to me in the last thread about Radiohead, I'm not going to quit my day job.
Record companies often SCREW the bands on contract.
Dude, producers, sound engineers, and all those folks don't all work for the record companies.
Front money? How many record company contracts have you seen? And how much does a record company actually advance on royalties for anyone but a superstar?
Marketing: yes, that's true. Of course, it's less true now than it was fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago, there were record stores, and people actually listened to the radio. Well, they killed record stores, and nobody listens to music on the radio anymore anyway.
Record companies are only now getting into the tour bus business, because that's the only part of the industry making money. That is not traditionally what record companies do. That's what band managers do, and for most recording artists, that's still what managers do.
Top-of-the-line instruments? Dude, you mean like Nikes and stuff?
So, no, I say your understanding of the music industry clashes with mine. But you do point the way forward: out of the hands of old "CD and lawsuit" companies and into the control of groups and individuals (within the current record companies, or outside them) with influence on the market as it currently is. And, with the internet, it currently is more segmented and more regional than it's been in a long time. Radio DJs are all but irrelevant; MTV? When was the last time they showed music? And yet the record companies still insist on making $2M videos? The current arbiters of music fashion and taste are those people who've been supporting recorded music since its advent, but have never been under the control of the music industry: your buddy who makes the mix tape, the club DJ, your little hoodrat friend who's been "saving it for the scene". The "industry leading" recording studios aren't worth it for most musicians: they can get a "good enough" job done in someone's house in the Meadowlands. The "music people" and their cocaine only harmed Rock-n-Roll to begin with.
So no, the Reagan 80s were not a glory period for music. As the saying goes, I survived the 80s one time already...
Oh, I felt quite good about it. The system I worked on would have increased the amount of money paid to artists, by implementing royalty calculations for several common contract clauses that the previous system couldn't handle. Whenever the labels write a contract they can't actually implement (which is very common), they choose to approximate it with a calculation that favors them. They don't bother to tell the artist that, of course, and the only way the artist finds out is by paying a team of auditors big bucks to go through all of the records and do the calculations themselves. Even then, the label just offers a "settlement", rather than actually paying up. The settlement is calculated to be just large enough that it's clearly not worthwhile for the artist to sue.
I said "would have increased" because the system was never actually deployed. Oh, well, my employer took UMG's money at an extravagant hourly rate for six months, so it's a little less in their pockets. Some might argue "well, they're just going to pass it on to the fans or take it out of the artists", but they're already screwing the artists just as hard as they can, and they're already charging more than the market will actually bear for music (a couple of studies have shown that they could make more money by lowering the prices), so I'm pretty confident it came out of the coke & hookers budget.
It is with great pleasure that I watch the demise of this corrupt industry.I agree wholeheartedly. All the more so after seeing how they operate in gory detail.
Perhaps they will find some way to continue existing as providers of publicity.I hope it's other people who find a way to make a living providing publicity and arranging shows, but you're probably right.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Rather than stealing I think this is a very interesting glimpse into a post-scarcity economy.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity
The most interesting thing about this is that while 60% of the people paid nothing, the band still made more than they would have under the old method. Perhaps we could do this with the food we currently pay farmers not to grow, give away staples like rice and flour for "pay what you want".
We are all just people.
The ever classic article from Courtney Love goes over the whole scheme:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/