http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?storycode=1031810

So maybe they intended this as a CD promotion before it went online, but then, Edge had no way of knowing how truly huge the download sales would be when he said that. Perhaps they assumed they’d get a few hundred thousand bucks at most, in which case it made sense at the time to position this as a promotion. I have to think they’re re-assessing those assumptions now that they’ve cleared somewhere close to $10 million.

And in the end, it really doesn’t matter: if not in intent, certainly in effect it *was* groundbreaking.

The album was given away as money would be better made elsewhere, something many bands have actually done (smashing pumpkins, crimea, ash, prince, radiohead…). Profit from gigs, merch, other cds, payed downloads, press deals etc should all increase, and given that many people would have downloaded an album for free anyway they won’t lose much from that.

So like I say the only strange thing is that someone said the ONLY reason was to make money PURELY off future CD sales or the same album, as that’s probably the one thing that will see decreased sales after the giveaway.

Nothing to do with bitrates, drm, slaps in the face or being nice. Just a business plan.

I downloaded the album from their website. I listened to it once. Not sure it was my cup of tea really, but I was impressed.

I didn’t pay them anything, and I probably won’t. But I’ll probably end up giving them $5 if I listen to it more than 5 times.

The quality of the tracks and everything seem fine. I’m not an audiophile, but I have good headphones.

Phil J. Leitch, I think you may need to improve your reading comprehension, because if you had read the information right there in front of you on the Radiohead order site, you, too, would have had the extra-special knowledge that these were the only releases “at this time,” and I guess I was just plumb crazy optimistic to extrapolate that to mean that there would be other releases in the future.

I didn’t gain this knowledge on my special Radiohead message board, but 80% of the users on my special Radiohead message board (insert sarcasm smiley here please) were also, miraculously, able to comprehend this from the information available on the Radiohead website order page (or, possibly, the page before it–as I said, I didn’t make screenshots).

Then there was the 20% who were so overjoyed that they didn’t read too closely, and needed reassurance. Add another sarcasm smiley here please.

For crying out loud. I’m no big Jon Bon Jovi fan, but if people were slagging off his motives this way, I would be defending him, too. Nickelback, on the other hand…

Did nobody read Johnny Greenwood’s interview with Rolling Stone from _nine days ago_? (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/10/10/radioheads-jonny-greenwood-on-in-rainbows-its-fun-to-make-people-think-about-what-music-is-worth/)

Nobody in Radiohead said this was a statement about record labels – they explicitly said, almost from the beginning, that this was going to eventually be a traditional album release.

This was just an acknowledgement of two things – things the band has learned on every album release since Kid A:

1. If they don’t release the album online themselves, pirates will happily do it for them.

2. If they don’t give fans a way to abate their guilt for downloading a pirated advance, it’s a missed opportunity to connect to them.

Everybody who paid Radiohead money to make a statement to record labels wasn’t paying attention to anything but the astonishingly weak and sensationalized, knee-jerk blog responses.

Fans who’ve been waiting for In Rainbows knew, or at least suspected, what was going on from the beginning. It’s just Radiohead – free from archaic, paranoid label restrictions – learning and acting on the lessons learned from the broken street dates of almost every major label release in the last 5 years, at least.

And hey, it does make a great publicity stunt (and apparently a few million dollars) when you let a vaccum of information fill up with everyone’s wildest dreams and fantasies. Everyone bit.

I’m no super-serious audio nut; 320 or 256 is nice, but for most recordings 192 is perfectly listenable – missing the “depth” of a 320, but not problematic. 160, however, is a *big* step down in quality; OK for an audition, but not OK if you’ve been led to believe that you are “buying the album”.

I thought it was a gutsy move on their part, putting the music out there for free, easily and legally accessible.

This sent a couple of important messages, no matter what ulterior CD sales motive they might have had.

It said to the world, Hey look: If you want our newest music for free, for whatever reason that you refuse to pay for the music… We still don’t think you’re criminals. Here’s our music. Take it. For free. No RIAA involved. Enjoy.

It said, We don’t think you’re pirates. Pirates are those guys with the eye patches and parrots on their shoulders, that attack people with swords on the high seas, and steal their stuff. You, on the other hand, are probably just a music lover who is mad at the conventional ripoff distribution and pricing structure. So, here’s something very different. Pay us what you want to. A system based on honor, rather than disrespect for our own fans.

I think it also, intended or not, sends a message that implies the uselessness of DRM. It says, Hey: screw DRM, here’s the music instead. No charge. Throw a few bucks in the jar if you’d like.

And even if it’s only 160 bit-rate, I would be awfully surprised if the CDs contain DRM to protect the higher quality versions. What would be the point? 95% or more of all potential “pirates” of this music will be more than happy with 160.

160 variable bit-rate sounds very clean and good for all but the most acoustically demanding musical passages. For most music, moving up to 192 will yield only the most subtle improvement. 256 is for audiophiles with expensive equipment, who hunch close to their speakers with a faraway gaze, listening for imperfections.

In the early days of Napster sharing, when most of the sharers were still on dial-up, 128 was by far the prevailing bit-rate. It was just too slow to go after 192′s for everything. 128 sounds ok for most music, but 160 was a great compromise, because it does sound noticeably better than 128, in almost any case.

Yes, I know some “pirates” will still torrent the high-quality versions. But I think Radiohead’s move recognizes all of this as a fact of life, instead of trying to DRM us all into submission.

Sure, this wouldn’t work for lesser known acts. But what if it sets a precedent for other big acts? If other big names follow suit, that would deliver a blow to the DRM-crazy major labels. It has the potential to pull the rug out from under their very premise for the “need” for DRM.

So count me among those who are surprised that BB wouldn’t be embracing this move wholeheartedly. It seems counterproductive to their stated cause, to rebuke Radiohead for not going far enough. I think it’s clear they took more than a baby step forward into the unknown, and in doing so, they have redeemed and justified some of the very same basic principles of free access that BB has expounded for so long. I think this is true despite any perceived ulterior motives.

They wanted to actually sell CDs, too? Isn’t Doctorow’s whole thing that by giving the books away, people will want to own them? I really dig (most) of what BoingBoing is all about, but if this is supposed to be a bad thing, I give up on this whole new copyright stuff. I’ll go drink the RIAA Kool-Aid instead.

It’s pretty clear this is all a great promotional stunt. Since it hypes the band and allows them to reach out to non-fans.

Look at the cost of an average promotional campaign. From print ads, to posters to mailing white-label promo CDs to reviewers. That all costs tons of cash.

In this case, the band takes a bold/viral-marketing move that doesn’t cost them nearly as much. Just give it away to the fans for the cost of download, give them an option to pay what they wish and even give them a physical option. A very win-win-win scenario for all involved.

Radiohead made a great offer, I made use of it. I happen to have a policy of listening to music encoded at a minimum of 192kbps but after having listened to their album I found it perfectly acceptable.

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So, next time, they will have an HTML 3.2 page with direct links to individual mp3 files that can be downloaded immediately. At the bottom of the page will be a PayPal link with the text ‘pay for this if you like it’

And they will make twice as much money as this time.

Bonus tracks aren’t an album. They aren’t part of the album. It’s extra material, just like the LP jackets you aren’t getting with the free download, or the CD art you aren’t getting with the free download, or the box itself you aren’t getting with the free download. They probably won’t come with the CD, either.

They haven’t sold a boxed set before – the Singles set was a redemption promotion – but since they consented to selling music online, they’ve been liberal about EPs. I’d be surprised if the boxed-set tracks you want will show up online soon after it ships in less than two months, and you can throw your money at them then.

Until then, sure, remain optimisitc. But stop spitting on a gift because it wasn’t good enough.

First, @ Xeni, I think it’s unfair to label the digital release as “incomplete”. In Rainbows is a ten-song album. I think the rest of the songs in the discbox should be looked at as a supplement, b-sides if you will, and not a longer, “complete” version of the album itself. If the physical cd comes out (in non-discbox) form with more than ten songs on it, then I will stand corrected.

Secondly, 160 kbs is fine for me, a non-discerning audiophile. However, I’ve started to warm to the complaints of people that say it’s too low (not to say I think Radiohead dropped the ball on this release). Seems like a simple solution is to torrent the flac files when the cd is made available. With this pay as you want model, it seems like it would be hard for the band to hold a grudge against fans who acquired higher quality files without re-paying first…

I paid my six bucks, and while 160kbps is fine for me, I don’t think I’d feel any guilt should I up my bit-rate via non-official channels. Same goes for the content on the discbox. If my two choices to hear that music are to pay 80 dollars or zero dollars, I know which one I’ll choose, and I don’t think I’d be drawing the ire of the band for doing so…

Love the site. Thanks for being awesome.

But stop spitting on a gift because it wasn’t good enough.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, leaving aside the silly “spitting” hyperbole — here’s the important point.

It’s not a “gift” if you pay for it.

And plenty of music fans/consumers aren’t expecting “gifts,” they’d be absolutely happy to pay a reasonable price for digitally-delivered music that is of no lesser quality than “real” CDs.

The positive lesson from this experiment, whether it was just for CD marketing purposes or not, is that we now have further proof that this is true.

Although…I didn’t try to pay nothing, so I’m not quite sure…

But no, Cory doesn’t do that. He doesn’t condescend to his audience. So I don’t think the two are analogous.

Radiohead has the right to do whatever they want with the art they create, and if they want to give away or sell low-quality MP3s to entice people to buy CDs, again, it’s not a crime.

But it’s not very forward-thinking, given how many of us see digital downloads of music as a primary means of purchase and enjoyment.

Jim Griffin on the pho list likes to talk about “Tarzan Economics,” meaning that folks in the record biz often try to hang on to an old business model while tentatively grasping at others, trying to swing through the jungle.

If you really want to progress, at one point or another you just have to let go of the old, familiar vine, and fly forward.

It’s not a “gift” if you pay for it.

Then don’t pay. You had that option. It was a gift – that’s what you don’t seem to be getting – and Radiohead let you thank them with money if you wanted. They didn’t expect you to pay anything; the blank was empty by default, the site was insistent that you pay what you thought was fair – even if it’s nothing.

If you didn’t want to pay, you didn’t have to break the law or violate your conscience. The process was even less intrusive than a tip jar – everything was set up for you to pay nothing, enter nothing, and register nothing if that’s what you wanted to do. All they wanted was for you to get it directly from them.

And plenty of music fans/consumers aren’t expecting “gifts,” they’d be absolutely happy to pay a reasonable price for digitally-delivered music that is of no lesser quality than “real” CDs.

Then buy the full-quality download when it comes out. If the bonus disc is never released digitally, I’ll be on your side about that, but then I’ll probably be more upset that Radiohead would be too stupid to make money off their own music.

I’m glad, at least, that we can both agree about what everybody learns from the experiment.

Instead, it looks as though they did it just to promote this specific CD. They probably won’t do it again next time and they’re probably not fussed if it has no effect on the way music is sold.

The clue that they were selling stuff was that they were asking for some money for the download. Not demanding it, mind you, but asking for it.

Which, right there, is pretty groundbreaking. :-)