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Radiohead Rewrites The Rules!

Posted by on Oct 1, 2007 | 4 Comments

Most music fans know that bands make little or nothing from CD sales. That’s where the record companies make their big bucks and get their incentive to promote the bands. Most of the band’s income comes from concerts and touring. This Is The Way It Has Always Been.

Radiohead have just re-written the rules. When their contract with EMI ran out last year, they didn’t renew. Pundits wondered “with whom will they sign?” (Well, actually not, probably. Pundits are just as likely to use prepositions to end sentences with as the next guy.)

Anyway, Radiohead’s new album, In Rainbows, will be available only two ways. By ordering ahead of time, you can get their boxed album and a bunch of goodies delivered in time for the Winter holidays for only £49 (roughly a hundred bucks US). If that doesn’t appeal to you, you can download it from the site, and you choose the price.

That’s right. Go to the site and enter your order. When you get to the checkout, you’ll see a little question mark next to the price. Click on the question mark and you’ll be told how to set your own price for the download — or get it free if you don’t feel like paying.

This is revolutionary! It takes the power away from the distributors, and puts it in the hands of the bands themselves. Their only costs are production, server time, and bandwidth, and they get to keep the change. You can bet this will spread like wildfire, and you can also bet there are some overpaid record execs gobbling the Tums tonight.

Serves ‘em right.

[tags]radiohead, riaa, drm, mp3[/tags]

  • http://clifnotes.net Clif Notes

    Hi Bill,

    Thanks for the good news. Long live free music!

    Clif

  • Crosby

    Ok.. One question

    If more and more bands try to take this route, and I’m not as concerned with the well known acts like Radiohead, how will they differentiate themselves from the sites pushing the “never heard of them but they sound like” and get radio airplay so that they can make money?

    Don’t get me wrong, I am all for the musicians getting more money for their work, but without promotion, who’s going to know?

  • Grannar Olice

    As I have been reading, not exactly right. You can get the first 8 songs of 18, and it costs $1 process charge to a credit card. I could be wrong. Other groups have done this before, and, of course, some opine Radiohead sucks [to the extent I have heard, I agree]. But that is neither here nor there

    On the other hand, it more than serves the “record industry” right. After four years of RIAA suits against loyal customers, many are alienated by the record companies and already get their content elsewhere, whether P2P or CD ripping,used CDs on eBay, etc. EFF has a worthy writeup on these four years, please avail at http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/riaa_at_four.pdf

    Discussion I read stated that musicians get about $1 from a CD sale, so Radiohead might actually make out better with this promotion, the good will of the fans offering more than $1, or buying the whole item for the regular price.

    This is not the first, not the best, but just another signpost along the way showing big labels have blown it big time with RIAA and such, and there will continue to be other ways to advertise, share, recommend, purchase, and consume digital content from upcoming and established bands.

  • http://digital-dharma.net Bill Webb

    The point is, the system is broken.

    YouTube and myriad web sites have shown the power of viral marketing. Word gets around. Perhaps this isn’t the final answer, but as Grannar Olice points out, it could be the start of a trend that will result in a far more equitable distribution of both profits and product.

    The RIAA wouldn’t exist if the big music companies weren’t scared poopless about the power of the Net. In itself, it is a testament both to the way rats will bite when pushed into a corner, and to the relentless leveling effect of technology. Look for more suits against the little people, and more attempts to shut down the sites. But the final result, while still murky, is no longer in real doubt. If they want to stay in business, they’ll have to re-think their industry before it’s simply removed from their hands.

    And Eastern Europe — untouchable in terms of litigation and in most other ways — is waiting in the wings.