Briefly: Most of You Are Cheap…and Liars!

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Radiohead let its fans decide how much to pay for a digital copy of the band’s latest release, “In Rainbows,” and more than half of those who downloaded the album chose to pay nothing, according to a study by a consumer research firm. Some 62 percent of the people who downloaded “In Rainbows” in a four- week period last month opted not to pay the British alt-rockers a cent. But the remaining 38 percent voluntarily paid an average of $6, according to the study by comScore Inc.Radiohead broke with its past practice of releasing its music in CD format and through a major record label when it released its seventh studio album online itself. The biggest wrinkle was the band’s decision to let fans pay as much or as little as they wanted to download a copy.

The results of the study were drawn from data gathered from a few hundred people who are part of comScore’s database of 2 million computer users worldwide. The firm, which has permission to monitor the computer users’ online behavior, did not provide a margin of error for the study’s results.

Between Oct. 1 and Oct. 29, about 1.2 million people visited the Web site the band set up for fans to download the album, comScore said Monday. The research firm did not say how many people in its study actually bought the album.

Among U.S. residents, about 40 percent who downloaded the album paid to do so. Their average payment was $8.05, the firm said.

Some 36 percent of the fans outside the U.S. who downloaded the album opted to pay; on average, those fans paid $4.64, according to the study.

Radiohead’s U.S.-based publicist said Tuesday the band had no comment on the study.

The online release sent shock waves through the recording industry, with some hailing it as a shrewd move at a time of declining CD sales industrywide and others writing it off as a publicity stunt that amounted to the band giving away its music.

The band, which also offered fans the option of buying a lavish box set for about $82, plans to release the album in CD format some time next year.

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9 Responses

  1. Big Papi paid big bucks to help jump start this pick a price approach – lets hope it continues- $5 a person is fair enough…

  2. What a bunch of cheap crooks. Artists should be able to get a fee that is commensurate(?) with the effort they put into their work!!! The whole idea of “it should be free cause it’s music” is ludicrous.

  3. no offense here to anyone, but what’s the point? radiohead opened it up to open payments. This does not surprise me at all. In fact, I expected a lesser amt. paid on average. Similarly, I would like to see #’s that correspond to a typical Record Label sponsored LP release @ say $15 and how many others DL’ed it for free. I’d be willing to bet that average would be

  4. I’d like to see how much The band actually received from the digital sales vs what they will receive from the sale of a cd that.

    I would imagine that even if half the people did not pay for the music the band probably still made more then if they released it through the standard channels.

  5. fully agreed HB ^^^.

    I have yet to DL this. If hypothetically, I got the album for free, does that make it wrong? or simply cheap? Now I wouldn’t do that, but I would be inclined to ‘donate’ $8-$10…

    that being said, I cannot knock others for “free” purchases. I’ll even go as far as saying, I don’t think that makes them cheap. In fact, it may make them $marter than me….

  6. I suspect that some cats were grabbing it for free fo the time being…because they were gonna get the deluxe package…or the hard-copy CD when it arrives in stores. That has to be a decent percentage, no?

  7. HB, you’re totally on the ball. I dont know specifically how much they made per disc on their first 6 LP’s which were under contract with EMI, but generally around 10-15% of the sale in royalties is average for artists, and giving radiohead the benifit of being big shots and getting the higer end, they could still afford to make 6 bucks on every other sale and come off even from when they sold Hail to the Thief at 15 bucks a pop in 2003

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