This is madness! No, This is Radiohead
The release of music for free online is certainly no new thing, with many bands finding success through file-sharing. That fill-sharing kills the record industry is also nothing new, however Radiohead recently made it official by showing that it’s possible the make and reach millions without either.
This is what you get when you mess with us
Free of a binding contract and able to do as they please, English band Radiohead decided to ditch the middle-man and do things on their own. 2 months before any traditional CD release (which is also only available through their website), a download was made available and people were given the option to pay whatever they wanted for the new album.
A lack of oxygen from my life support
As the hearts of the record labels stopped, thousands upon thousands placed orders for the download. With the option of having it for absolutely nothing, a survey by The Times newspaper found that people paid around 4 pounds for the album anyway (about $10).
And whilst the industry spends millions on DRM technology and goes about suing every day people (for the obscene amount of $220,000 for sharing 22 songs), 1.2 million people are estimated to have given the band upwards of $10 million on the first day of release.
Where do we go from here?
It’s obvious that your local garage band isn’t going to get the same response to their new demo, but it’s still worrying signs for an industry that has long lost it’s relevance. We believe that music is returning to experience - people don’t want bad music forced down their throats at over-inflated prices. They want good music, and they want the freedom to pay what they think the music is worth without being made a criminal in the process.
You’ve heard it before - when the cost of distributing a product reaches zero - experience is where the real value lies. The music industry prefers to complain, whine and sue. Radiohead have taken the industry by the scruff of the neck and shown them that creativity and innovation pays off.
excellent opinion, I too hope the actions of Radiohead and Prince (he gave his album away with the Mail on Sunday I believe) actually change the face of music as we know it.
one of my favorite bands that actually split and semi reformed into a band free of record label influence and continue to make and sell music which I will gladly buy.
a sign of the times no doubt and long may it reign
I love your wrap up quote : “experience is where the real value lies”
Really, really good. Something that should be taken into account by every start-up, music business or otherwise, no?
We’ve added our $0.02 to the Radiohead conversation at our music licensing blog. As you said, it’s great that such an influential and important band is taking these risks, but there’s no way the future is quite this simple for up and coming independent bands… this is not the panacea that some in the industry are proclaiming it is. There will be a place for marketing, promotion and labels, acting as a filter if nothing else.
as i see it this is more a first-takes-it-all thing. like the One Million Dollar Homepage. of course the ultimatum games of game theory have proven that we are not only the “homo sapiens economicus”. but still i expect radiohead’s followers to earn by far less.
What do you think about the actual downloading process from Radiohead’s site?
It still requires a bit of personal information and, even while free, is not as easy as BitTorrent.
Also, downloaders who weren’t going to pay anyways actually feel a bit better by torrenting and not impacting Radiohead’s bandwidth bill.
konnexus,
I totally disagree. This is not a onemilliondollarhomepagething. Yes, Radiohead has the necessary hype to make the really big bucks as a first mover, but I bet that Moogwai or The Arctic Monkeys and even Leonard Cohen make more money without the middle man.
But: The product is the experience, the interface is the brand. Radiohead’s product is music. Yet, to get the full brand experience - which as a fan, one wants - you will have to buy the box.
Big shocker for me was that one cannot buy the box in the music shop. At least in Tower Records Shibuya there was no sign of the new Radiohead Album. Hard to describe how radical that felt to me. The missing Radiohead-CD just made the whole store look like history to me.
This is no marketing trick. It’s the future right there, for free.
The download process on the site is not the easiest option for those familiar with other methods (BitTorrent or otherwise).
If they just released a torrent for the album I think it would have lost some of the charm. Music has been available for free (legally or not) for a long time, but being able to type your own price into the shopping cart is what was truly unique. That’s what made everyone swoon.
i see a big difference between 1mio-hp and radiohead in the sence that radiohead actually delivers a product, a service that you use and profit from. 1mio-hp was an approach to getting attention while i as a user profit from radioheads music. in that sence: yes, other bands will be able to earn money with it. and no: they won’t get that much publicity which leads to millions of dollars on the first day.
Pitchfork made a good point about this during the brief run-up to the release of “In Rainbows”. The reason there isn’t a CD (or box set) available in Tower Records is because it isn’t actually ready yet: Radiohead are basically leaking their own album, while giving people the option to pay for it. What I find exciting about this is the idea of a band being able to release their stuff as soon as it’s ready, thus sparing us the barrage of advance publicity that normally leaves me bored of an album before it’s even been released.
An interesting development on this. I just received a message in my inbox from waste.uk.com who looks to have been providing the hosting for this download. Interesting to see what happens when it hits stores.
“FAREWELL TO IN RAINBOWS DOWNLOAD AREA We also thought you’d like to know that the download area that is ‘In Rainbows’ will be shutting its doors on the 10th December so if you’ve not yet downloaded, here is the place to go http://www.inrainbows.com“
then from their site: “For those of you who wish to buy In Rainbows in the usual way, it will be available on CD/Vinyl and download from traditional outlets from the 31st December 2007.”
2konnexus: I’m with Oli, I disagree. First-mover isn’t the issue. Others like comparatively complete unknown Jane Siberry (even more unknown now that she’s changed her name to “Issa”) have been doing the “Self Determined Pricing” thing since early 2005, although certainly with less financial success than Radiohead. Not only is her label Sheeba selling with a pay what you want model, but they’re also admirably transparent about who paid what. Take the same model, attach a superstar band, and you’ve got Radiohead’s new album and a kick-ass model for putting money in the hands of the artists. The didn’t move first, they just had the weight to make the world notice.
The next and more exciting step is establishing marketplaces to gather “pay what you want” music in one place. How many CDs would you own if you’d had to visit the band personally to buy each one?