Radiohead dupes fans (1 Viewer)

[todd stone]

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/157...adiohead.jhtml

 

[Ron Reda]

Wow, that's pretty lame. They score a big coup like that and it turns out to be a bust.

 

[Shane D]

evidently mtv is blocked at work. whats the gist?

 

[TravisR]

It's just complaining about 160 kbps.

There's already a thread for this topic here:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...d.php?t=262955

 

[Steve Y]

This was not a "dupe". No unkept promises were made. The album sounds great. Will it sound better on the physical CD? Sure. Some people won't be able to tell one way or the other.

This was an experiment, not an idealistic betrayal of the industry. That wasn't the band's script - that was the media's script. That was the fans' script. Radiohead understands there won't be an overnight revolution. It was a first step. And it has given legitimacy to the "fair pay" digital model and freaked out a lot of industry executives. And we get to listen to a great album in the meanwhile (I paid for the gift box, personally).

Everyone else can strain their brain picking out "compression" in the digital audio. Sheesh.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

And this morning on the news they announced that iTunes is reducing the price of non-DRM tracks from $1.29 to 99 cents!

 

[FeisalK]

plucked the words right off the end of my fingers on the keyboard.

as far as experiments go I think it was a success, other than having a lossless option for a minimum price (possibly half the price of a physical CD?)

 

[matthewRaz]

hear, hear!

 

[Greg_S_H]

That's good news that I missed. I guess this is that iTunes Plus stuff?

As for the Radiohead experiment:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

 

[Steve Y]

This is unsurprising news (most people opting to pay $0). What is surprising is how much money the artists made with this model, given that fact. Those who DID pay for it paid an average of about eight pounds (generally harder core fans and, um, idealists). I've heard of a number of people downloading the songs, listening to the album then downloading again and paying for it the second time. Not only that, but from reading social news sites, blogs, and bulletin boards, it appears many people who downloaded the album wouldn't have paid for it on iTunes or in the store (new listeners, curious about the band due to the publicity). So they're expanding their market as well.

There's really no way to tell one way or the other, but the main idea here is that artists continue to try new sustainable models, and hopefully some will click. Protecting and hindering digital sound will just push this twenty-first century market underground. You have to find them where they live.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

There is something else they are missing here. I downloaded it for free, but I also fully intend to buy the CD when it finally comes out.

One fear I have is that *some* bands might see this and say hey, we're not kosher with the people downloading our stuff for free, so we're not going to try this ourselves.