Radiohead - In Rainbows : What Are You Paying?

A sandi thom type stunt.

major labels are worse than big oil or hitler that's for sure, if anyone would come up with a sweet scheme to give away records for free it'd be them. i think most of them are owned by jews they are kind of shifty like that.

Is that an Xasthur quote? ;)

OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE!

DOWNLOAD CULTURE IS NOT FOR $$$$ALE!!!!!

Thanks Radiohead. Now the 99c suckers will cotton onto the fact that no one's paid for downloads for a decade.

Ten dollars (USD). I felt funny giving that much, since it's more than I pay for downloads on eMusic, but I thought that what Radiohead is doing is such a innovative and savvy move -- and showed such respect toward the public and its fans -- that the "donation" was appropriate to support the band's efforts.

The move is sort of analogous to an episode in Freakonomics, where a vendor puts a plate of bagels in an office with a sign indicating the price and a cup to put the money in, then leaves and picks up the plate and the cup at the end of the day. The vendor is trusting the office workers to pay the listed price. Generally, people appeared to pay the vendor's price. What Radiohead is doing is different, but they're both interesting experiments in "moral choices."

Ten dollars (USD).

Same here. System was terribly buggy and hung up when I tried yesterday at this time but the kinks seemed to be ironed out today. Took a few refreshes to get the security code to pop up, though!

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As a bit of a parallel theres a restaurant here in Melbourne called Lentil as Anything, where when you have your meal, you pay whetever you think it is worth. They were scoffed at and told the business model would never work but it has done so succesfully for some years now.

You'd be suprised how many people are generous about this kind of thing.

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The public has spoken.

I'm confused about this notion of this approach Radiohead being generous toward their fans.

I don't listen to MP3's. They don't sound as good. So unless it's something rare, not on CD basically - e.g., a couple Brotzmann/Van Hove/Bennink records from the 70s I downloaded from some server years ago - I don't want it. I'm completely out of the MP3 loop, and I like that.

If I could get a regular CD, I'd have it for 15 dollars, unless I was dumb enough to go to Borders or whatever chain stores actually still sell CD's and spend 18 or 19 dollars. Then you make CD-R's, and give them to your friends.

After all, there is technology now to make CDs that can't be copied. The Kevin Ayers reissues, for example: I tried on a stand-alone CD burner even, no go. If big-name acts don't want people copying their CDs, seems like that's the way to go. I realize of course that a lot of people buy both CD's and MP3's, so for them this is "generous" - but to me it's annoying. 80 dollars for the real thing? Maybe for Sun City Girls, or Stockhausen. Hell, I just spent 100 on a Neil Young ticket. But for a Radiohead CD? Huh?

Ooops, forgive the mangled first sentence.

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As a bit of a parallel theres a restaurant here in Melbourne called Lentil as Anything, where when you have your meal, you pay whetever you think it is worth. They were scoffed at and told the business model would never work but it has done so succesfully for some years now.

Haha, I've been there! Andrew wot ran the ILX server for years and I had a good meal there when I visited. Then we met up with Electric Sound of Jim for a drink.

Discbox

I paid 3 pounds ($7 USD with the processing fee) for the download, before I learned there was also going to be a regular CD release. I'm not too bent out of shape about it since the money's going straight to the band for once instead of through a label, and I got a small raise last week, so eh. Definitely buying a regular CD; would buy a "discbox" if the dollar hadn't been driven off a fucking cliff over the course of the last seven years.

I'll almost certainly buy the regular CD when it shows up. I may or may not download the mp3s in the meantime; if I do I won't pay for them and I won't keep them after a listen or two.

Given that artists usually only receive about £1.22 of a CD sold in the UK, isn't that a good price to pay? As all this is going directly to Radiohead Inc, methinks they might make MORE money from this than going through a record company, no?

they're both interesting experiments in "moral choices."

but it's a fairly broken experiment, no? if it turns out that 75% of the people downloading end up paying $10 or whatever then sure, it's a testament to people's generosity etc etc, but if it turns out 99% of the downloaders pay ten cents, it's too easy to chalk it up to 'trying it out before i buy the real thing' or 'didn't want to wait until december for my discbox' or any number of other valid excuses. not that it won't be interesting to see how it all turns out, but it's a little one sided?

Since this seems to be thread where people are talking about the economics, certainly on the basis of the linked Bob Mould board...

Am I the only person on here in the Neubauten Supporter Project? As far as I can work out, Supporters entirely finance the first print run during subscription leaving all non-supporter sales at profit.

The first attempt was a bit of a failure, and needed Mute to put out Perpetuum Mobile as well. The second attempt, and the release of Grundstueck went a bit better with a proper self-release for both the CD and the DVD (although in different packaging to the supporter versions). This time seems to be going well, with the public release of the album in a couple of weeks (although with less tracks than the supporter album).

In total this time, for my 65Euro I've had (or am getting) the album Alles Wieder Offen in an extended Supporter-only version, a DVD containing at least one live show and decent quality highlights of the webcasted material throughout the project, another free digital album (Jewels) which was available in mp3 or WAV and almost monthly clusters of webcasts (varying from rehearsals to interviews to full live shows).

I think it's been good value, to be honest.

Historic: I bought KidA, the first Radiohead album I bought.

I got "Amn" off d/l, but bought it later.

I got the live one and "hail" off d/l, wasn't fussed about either tbh. would not have bought either.

(Is there an album I missed out there?)

(d/l = free ones natch)

no option for the people who won't get the album, even it is free.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1193/1475809377_95b82a8df1.jpg?v=0

If you can download this album as WAV, FLAC and high bitrate then great. I may do that and then pay them something if I end up liking it. Not interested in physical copy and I don't really like the artwork they've got for this album - seems really flat and uninspired. They should also consider offering (if not 'selling') distinct parts of the recordings separately - this band has always been more remixable than is thought.

not that it won't be interesting to see how it all turns out, but it's a little one sided?

Yes, you're right. Still very interesting to see how this unfolds.

It also won't be a very true representation of how the album is distributed, given that 90% of those who eventually get it for free will do so from bit torrent, rapidshare, etc, - not the Radiohead site.

if they can get it for free from the Radiohead site why not get it from there tho? will be people bothered enough to download it who never go to their site tho i suppose.

Really, if you're going to pay them zero, wouldn't it be a better idea to grab it elsewhere to minimize Radiohead's bandwidth bills? Otherwise you're still costing them a minuscule amount for your free download.

there is a service charge (45p?) added to every order to cover bandwidth / infrastructure costs.

even the free ones?

I think the service charge is there if you put anything other than absolutely nothing.

Really, if you're going to pay them zero, wouldn't it be a better idea to grab it elsewhere to minimize Radiohead's bandwidth bills? Otherwise you're still costing them a minuscule amount for your free download.

-- mh, Wednesday, October 3, 2007 2:09 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, but I'm sure a lot of people would want to download it directly from RH, free or not, so that they can contribute to the band's "sales figures" and show their support for this experiment.

show your support by being a leech? odd concept.

I mean as a symbolic gesture, to say "yeah, this pay-as-you-please system is great, look how many people participated in it, more bands should do this."

I mean if it turns out that a couple million people or more download this off RH's site, it'll make the kind of 'statement' they clearly want it to make whether most of those people paid nothing or 99 pounds.

ok, to bolster the numbers.

i think they may do well out of this - fans will pay enough to make it profitable (and may end up paying again for proper cd down the line), non fans won't pay anything but probably wouldn't buy the cd either. their server costs are low and are covered by service charge(?). no middle man. 100% of a fiver is probably more than the usual artist cut from a cd after all.

that said, i am surprised at the number of cheapskates and freeloaders on ilm (and slashdot and...)

> even the free ones?

actually, i don't know. didn't click through to order page as i'm radiohead agnostic.

could the future of radiohead as a band rest on this? should people consider this (either way) when they enter their amount?

can't they just give it away with the News Of The World?

well, another aspect is the lack of packaging that a download only release means, which is a good thing (probably cancelled out by the uberbox, which it does appear is selling well).

i do worry how many copies of, say, the echo and the bunnymen thing that came with the sunday star a few weeks ago just go straight to landfill.

another thing to consider is that they now have all your addresses...

that said, i am surprised at the number of cheapskates and freeloaders on ilm

They've got a business model. It's "loss leader to stimulate interest + high-profit-margin product". It might be new for selling albums, but it's been around forever. Supermarkets often sell products at less than cost. When they do, do we feel morally obliged to give the supermarkets the difference?

i think it's different. ok, a download isn't tangible so there really is no cost for the product (may not even count as a product). but everyone knows that studio time isn't free. thom has to eat (albeit not much)

also, nobody is a *fan* of supermarkets. when was the last time you were interested in the new sainsbury's release?

is interesting. can be argued either way, i guess. i always feel a bit cheap when i get something for nothing and try and return the compliment.

oh, these people have an interesting take too:
http://www.hiddenmusic.co.uk/news/whyfree/
(ie the moment you release anything then anybody can access it for nothing (not legally but...) so you may as well not charge. is a lot like the free software movement.

also, nobody is a *fan* of supermarkets.

Yeah, the psychology of it all is interesting. If a supermarket gives something away for free, no one is going to give money for it. But we have warm, fuzzy feelings towards our favourite band, so we might. Although objectively that doesn't make a lot of sense.

another imperfect analogy: events with a suggested donation for entry.

Like the London Science Museum, you mean

Well, I just think for a lot of people (the 80% who will download this for free who are vaguely interested in a new Radiohead album), it's easier to do their usual bit torrenting (where Radiohead joins a queue alongside anything else) rather than go to a site and sign up etc. I mean, they're not exactly making it hard, but still a tiny bit harder than normal.

xpost
i haven't been, but yeah the only things i've attended using this scheme are museums and rock shows. i always pay it.

... but do i only pay it because PEOPLE ARE WATCHING?? etc

well a lot of those things are nonprofits

> I mean, they're not exactly making it hard, but still a tiny bit harder than normal.

they are making it more *legal* than normal. people seem to forget that.

museums, yes, good point. last couple of times i've been to BM i've gone there to kill 15 minutes. or to see one thing that was shut the time before. and haven't paid. ditto the tate. if i'm going there in order to go there specifically for something (the whiteread boxes) then i do.

look, i pay my taxes, godammit. 8)

(are museums lottery funded, government funded? i forget. i doubt radiohead are)

Museums are primarily funded from central government (we're talking UK right?). For the BM it's about 75% of the funding (I think) but also get money from lottery and supporters and, well, just about everywhere they can get it.

none of the above.

“I am surprised by the number of freeloaders,” said Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures and well-known music aficionado. “The stories to date about the In Rainbows ‘pick your price’ download offer have been much more optimistic. I paid $5 (£2.45) and had no reluctance whatsoever to take out my card and pay. It’s a fantastic record, the best thing they've done in years. But, this shows pretty conclusively that the majority of music consumers feel that digital recorded music should be free and is not worth paying for. That's a large group that can't be ignored and its time to come up with new business models to serve the freeloader market.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7103071.stm

Yorke paid nothing for own album

No-one was given copies of the album for fear of it being leaked
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has admitted he was among the thousands of people who paid nothing to download the band's latest album.
Last month the group released In Rainbows online and invited fans to set their own price.

Speaking to BBC 6 Music's Steve Lamacq, Yorke said: "There wasn't any point. I just move some money from one pocket to the other."

According to one survey, three in five people paid nothing at all for it.

The project, which in October one of the band's managers Bryce Edge admitted was a "risk", was shrouded in secrecy.

"We had to literally tell no-one. I didn't tell my wife we were going to release it like this," said guitarist Ed O'Brien.

Yorke added that no-one was allowed to have copies of the master recording in case it was leaked beforehand.

"Every record that we've done for ages has been leaked. And why not leak the bloody thing yourself?" he said.

Every record that we've done for ages has been leaked. And why not leak the bloody thing yourself?

Internet monitoring company Comscore found the average price paid for the album was $6 (£2.90).

American fans were the most generous, paying on average $8.05 (£3.85), compared with the $4.64 (£2.22) paid by those outside the US.

Of those who were willing to pay, the largest percentage (17%) paid less than $4 (£1.90).

However 12% were willing to pay between $8-$12, (£3.80 - £5.71).

During the first 29 days of October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the In Rainbows site, but it is not clear how many downloads were made.

Radiohead recently announced the CD and vinyl versions of the album will be released in shops on 31 December.

Yorke said: "There wasn't any point. I just move some money from one pocket to the other."

"like Tommy Cooper. Just like that!"