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Free Radiohead album distributed by pirates
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 18th October 2007
Radiohead's latest album sold four times as many copies as its last album in the first week, but even the low price of 'nothing' didn't stop pirates.
Despite this and Radiohead’s massive first week sales of 1.2 million units, music analysts have said that at least 500,000 users that frequent popular torrent sites have downloaded the album illegally in the same way that they would for an album that will cost £10 in your local record store.
Big Champagne, a US-based organisation that tracks illegal downloading on the Internet, has said that it expects illegal downloads to overtake legal downloads in the coming weeks. The company’s CEO, Eric Garland, believes that most of the 1.2 million legitimate downloads were pre-orders taken in the 10 days between Radiohead’s announcement and its release date.
Garland says that it’s a matter of habit than of economics. “People don’t know Radiohead's site. They do know their favourite BitTorrent site and they use it every day,” said Garland. “It’s quite simply easier for folks to get the illegal version than the legal version.”
In his experience, an album’s store price doesn’t change how often it’ll be pirated. “Albums that are popular in retail are popular among pirates,” said Garland. “In the big picture, if people want something, some will pay and others will find a way to take it for free.”
Whether or not you agree with Radiohead cutting out the record label, the organisation responsible for pushing Radiohead into the limelight, the band’s move has been an alarm bell for the music industry.
Forbes obtained an internal memo that was sent around EMI, the band’s former record label, quoting EMI chairman Guy Hands saying “The industry, rather than embracing digitalisation and the opportunities it brings for the promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, has stuck its head in the sand. Radiohead’s actions are a wakeup call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy.”
Do you think the music industry will wake up and realise that conventional distribution methods are not working? Discuss in the forums.
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Comments (42)
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Maybe people don't realise you can actually do that or as in the article, people find it easier to go to their torrent sites and hit that download button.
The latter is a tad arbitrary...
I would expect most decent human beings to, when presented by a 'name your own price' offer for a band they like, to at least give a couple of quid for the music (especially knowing this will go direct to the band not some record label). But then i'd also expect regular torrent users to download it just because it's available, whether they actually like it or not.
So i think it is wrong to equate illegal downloads to lost sales, i think this is being blown out of proportion by people trying to sell DRM systems to record companies.
over there - look!
To me it undermines the whole idea of releasing a CD for free by not distributing it to torrent site. I'm not sure what their motives are for doing this, but it seems hypocritical for them to offer free copies of their CD but say only they can give it out. Also, fail to see how this is an illegal download if they're giving it away themselves, I don't think I would label it pirating at all, its really just another path for distribution.
I imagine many other people are in the same boat.
yodasarmpit: It's "their own site" not there, you use there when referring to place. e.g. "Fred is over there."
and UncertainGod, same thing, "their" is used usually used in reference to ownership. e.g. "I'm taking the car over to their place."
Vash-HT: good effort with the "they're"
Sorry for being anal, but if you don't believe grammar is important then check here.
That, and you'll thank me when you're writing your CV.
crikey two posts and already correcting spelling and calling people stupid.:|
i am in the same boat.....
edit: reaper1984, be nice, this is an international forum and some people are not native English speakers.... and some people are simply in a hurry. ;)
and fathazza please don't start with that postcount thing.
i'll let you get away with that seeing as youve got more posts than me.
The use of their and there can be a pain in the ass, and its used wrong all too often on forums and stuff
And lets face it, it makes reading posts hard as well, as you have to re-read it at least twice because it didn't make sense due to the wrong one being used
lets not fight, lets be friends ;) lets make the world a better place :D
and don't let the grammar nazis get you writing youve instead of you've.....
She just likes the concept.
Many people haven't paid for the album because of the low quality download.
In case You didnt noticed... This a international forum with people from all over the world. Dont expect that everyone can articulate in perfect english or slang. To expect people to write perfectly is a bit naive, besides its a forum not a bookclub!
Pirates just dont care. Wether they are seafaring pirates, organized pirates or just P2P freeloaders, they... just... dont... care! A prey is a prey!
Wether its a yacht in the Malacca Strait, a copy of Episode 2 or a you-make-the-price album, they dont care!
Truly a shame that to the mainstream media P2P equals content piracy. :(
It was completely off topic the same as my now deleted post is, his is no more on topic and should have been deleted too (great modding on this bit by the way)
There, their and they're, there's three of them
Ofcourse the album is rubbish and not as good as any of their previous stuff.
On the topic of quality when are legal alternatives going to start making uncompressed formats available for general download?
But the thread topic is flaws in the "marketing" approach by Radiohead; I know shareware authors have tried releasing their programs as un-crippled 'donationware' and been very disappointed by the income generated. It's just not a practical business model, given human nature. :(
Also, are the people who paid nothing people who wouldn't have bought it/downloaded it anyway?
Castle offered an educated guess about what the British band was earning at the label. He figures that in every year a Radiohead album was released, it was EMI's top-selling record. The band likely negotiated a larger royalty rate than most performers earn.
He guessed that when royalties were combined with money earned from publishing, Radiohead saw between $3 and $5 for every album sale.
And, for the $2.26, they still have to pay the costs.
Radiohead made the best marketing esqueme of the year, by far. They still need a label to produce/distribute the coming hard copy of the album, yet they caught everybodys attention being the "man against the machine".
The marginal costs of this exercise are negligible - 100MB of bandwidth per download is pretty cheap these days, and they also build a valuable list of e-mail addresses of those who downloaded this album for use when their next album/tour needs to be marketed.
Radiohead only got so much publicity because they are a known band (via label marketing department), a new band starting with this distribution model has no chance. This album got P2Ped as much as the others have, maybe more since it was more known.
They still need a label to produce/distribute the coming hard copy of the album.
Its marketing, original and successful marketing.
PS:
And check the hard copy details:
http://www.overclockers.com/tips01225/