Also, it’s important to note that not even comScore data is 100% accurate, I’d like to see radiohead’s figures.

Radiohead could give every download away for free and still come out way ahead. How many new fans will they now have? How many of those new fans will attend shows and buy merchandise?

How much more loyal will their fanbase be now that they’ve stuck it to the man?

The direct return on the cd isn’t what this is all about.

I agree too with Allen above. Who says the next time around the download will be pay what you want. Maybe they’re finding out how much people are willing to pay now and will be charging next time around.

The point with the Artic Monkeys was that the music they were giving away got spread around places like MySpace, and people liked it, so spread it around some more.

If people don’t like it, or maybe don’t like it enough to share it, yeah, you’re gonna struggle to hit the big time.

I’d be interested to see a filter based on actual popularity, rather than a filter based on marketability and money….

I imagine a number of good bands have already missed their potential due to not having the money to market themselves, or not getting a break from a record company that could give them that boost.
There are enough stories of bands who only made it by the skin of their teeth, either nearly not being signed, or being taken on without any expectation of them getting as big as they have.

I’m not saying it’s deffinately the way to go, so we need some bands like Radiohead to test the water a bit, and see how it actually pans out.

And how many bands give away cheap or free CDs when they perform in hopes of making it big? Many more than we could name, I’m sure.

At which point they had record companies effectively bidding for their contract, and Arctic Monkeys being able to dictate some of the terms, rather than the other way round.

That worked because they were/are actually a pretty decent band. There are a lot of ‘artists’ around now, and in the past, that got there due to record company marketing, not due to being any good. Those are the ones who will get hit harder.

No, it sounds about right. But, just to be clear, I do not give a rat’s derriere as to whether the music industry, bands & artists included, lives or dies. My interest is in the response(s): [1] to the marketing ploy itself by the fan base and [2] the defense offered by free-is-sustainable fanboys.

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Interesting point from the comscore page:

Michael Laskow, CEO of TAXI, the world’s leading independent A&R (Artist and Repertoire) company. “Radiohead has been bankrolled by their former label for the last 15 years. They’ve built a fan base in the millions with their label, and now they’re able to cash in on that fan base with none of the income or profit going to the label this time around. That’s great for the band and for fans who paid less than they would under the old school model. But at some point in the not too distant future, the music industry will run out of artists who have had major label support in helping them build a huge fan base. The question is: how will new artists be able to use this model in the future if they haven’t built a fan base in the millions in the years leading up to the release of their album under the pay what you’d like model?”

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1883
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1) that artists can control their distribution and make money (sometimes even more money than they would have made otherwise)
2) that people are willing to pay an average of $6 for a music album download, which will save them about $10 off the usual retail price

For Radiohead (and any other artist), this means they can sell fewer copies of their albums and make more money by “negotiating” the optimum market price and controlling their own distribution. Next step: Offer a music download for $6, no freebies, and see who bites. My bet is that some of those freeloaders will convert to buyers if they’re not offered anything for free.

I went to check it out. I’d not heard anything of the album previously, so actually I opted to not pay for it to start with. If I then liked it, I would’ve been willing to go back and pay £5 or so for it.

But, in order to simply download the file, you had to enter all your details, and even though I’d entered ’0′ for the amount, I was still asked for my CC details.

Lots of hassle just get some ‘free’ music, so i went and downloaded it via Bit Torrent instead.

In defence of some of the free loaders, (again I’m guessing) a lot of these people will have been listeners who have never listened to Radiohead (like myself) and wanted to check it out, if they liked it then Radiohead have picked themself up a futuer paying customer. If it turns out to not be your cup of tea then why should you pay for an album that you wil only listen to once and gain no enjoyment out of.

If it does account for it, it drops the floor from under that $2/album figure to something even more dismal. But if it doesn’t account for that, then they made significantly more than $2/album sold.

But my favorite part of the post was the quote at the end about this being the best album Radiohead has done in years, considering the last Radiohead LP came out 4 years ago.

And i totally agree with Jeff that this was an experiment that was greatly successful because it made a product available to consumers at a lower rate and cut out an unecessary middleman who adds absolutely no value. If only more artists would go this way, and they will because this is the way for the future.