"In Rainbows" model

Dean wrote: The Internet is an amazing, surreal world where mythologies can grow over night (or in two years ). In Rainbows was not a free-release album, it was not a donation-release album, it was a "pay what you like" album. The subtleties of that are missed by many people which has lead to the propagation of this myth through-out the interwebs. On its release you could not go to the Radiohead website and just download the album ... first you had to register, then make your donation (even of it was £0.00) and only then you were given access to the download. Now, I can predict with absolute certainty that many people are currently huffing-and-puffing and preparing to type a response telling me that if I paid £0.00 then I got the album for free so it is a free-release... that was technically true for a third of the people who downloaded the album, but the average price "donated" was £4.00 - most people paid "full-retail-price" ... Radiohead would not have averaged that much if the model had been "register-download-donate" and even less if they had gone "download-donate".   Unreliable guesses give the number of downloads at 1.2 million at an average of £4.00 each = £4,800,000 plus another £4,000,000 from sales of the £40 box-set ... a total of £8.4 million.   On its hardcopy CD release In Rainbows peaked in the UK and US charts at Number 1 and sold over 3 million copies world-wide - a gross income of at least £30 million  - being conservative lets call that a nett income of £10million, bringing the grand total to £18.4 million ... or $37milllion at 2008 exchange rates.   I'm not going to be calling this a free release and certainly wouldn't grant Radiohead tax-exempt status as a result.   As Kim Gordon said - it was a marketing ploy - and a damn good one.   However, it was a one-shot model - it will not work the same again, even for Radiohead. Trent Reznor realised this when he released Ghosts I-IV so he created a different model - the free release only got you Ghosts I ... you had to pay for Ghosts II-IV, netting Mr Reznor $1.6 million. He changed the model again for The Slip, with over 2 million 100% free downloads and only 85,000 hardcopy sales. "It doesn't feel like an overwhelming success to me," Reznor says of his band's new business model.

What Dean says here is totally true and accurate, what you could gon on to further say is that both Radiohead and Trent (Nine Inch)Reznor both has serious axes to grind with their record labels. Bands who sign to BIG labels often do, they feel like there are a hundred little people getting flash cars and shiny things off the back of their creativity and sooner or later resent it big time. So they cut out the middle man and sold it direct. The average £4 per album that Radiohead recieved direct from the donations for In Rainbows, I am willing to bet is at least 4X what they would have earned had it been released through the record label.

What is different here, is that with most prog bands, the musicians themselves ARE the record label, or the record label is a small affair that really does have the best interests of the artists at heart. So these artists are NOT getting financially screwed whilst bimbettes apply more nail laquer. The majority of the bands we listen to do everything themselves, they are the cheif cooks and bottle washers, they are the filers, the admin assistants and the flight bookers. They watch every single penny and I don't know of anyone within this business (Prog) for the money.............. they're all broke! ha ha ha!!!

This is why it's important that if you want them to carry on you buy your albums. It REALLY does make a massive difference. Bypassing the buying step isn't "socking it to the man" it's isn't "stickin yer fingers up at the corporates" (Which I think Trent Reznor VERY much wanted to do, because he felt so screwed) buying your music is enabling more music to be made, and recognising the efforts that go into it.

In short, it's a beautiful thing fellas!

There endeth the lesson for today, sorry I didn't mean to go on so long!

Ok, I'll scuttle back to my admin now!

W x

There must be DJs playing free download-able post-rock albums out there

Dean wrote: Personnaly I think it's all a waste of time - stick to standard © copyright.

I don't agree with this - release your stuff under CC license if you want DJs to use it and not be bothered by rights collectors (and the same for broadcasting). Of course, this if you're in the electronic/pop music business.

paganinio wrote: I plan on releasing all my works to the public domain, or under the non-restrictive Creative Commons license. The problem is, the legal terms on Creative Commons' website are too difficult to read.

Creative Commons is far more complicated than it needs to be IMO.

Speaking as someone who had experience with the three "free" examples Dean mentioned, I did pay something for the Radiohead download.  In hindsight I should have paid less than I did as I was going to buy a hard copy anyway.  On a side note, the artwork for the CD package makes it an album you have to have a hard copy of if you like the music.  Ghosts, downloaded the partial, got the hard copy later.  The Slip was the only one I consider a truly free download as it was available in FLAC format.  Still, got the hard copy.

I think the wiser way for most artists to get exposure for and promote their music without completely giving it away is by offering it up in good quality streaming.  You can try before you buy, but if you want to really have it you must pay for it.

finally someone who thinks like an enterpener (however you spell it)

thanks for the info, brotha.

What do you think of full-time working bands who release music for free? Does this model win more listeners over?  Does this kind of band qualify as a tax-exempt charitable organization?  (Wikipedia is a tax-exempt charitable organization too.)

I posted this because I stumbled upon two articles today.

Sonic Youth Slams Radiohead’s In Rainbows Model

What Radiohead’s In Rainbows says about the state of the music industry