Most Fans Paid $0 for Radiohead Album
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
The average price that WAS paid is interesting.__________________________________________________________________________________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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Piracy not raiding CD sales
Asher Moses
November 6, 2007 - 12:45PM
The enforcement arm of the Australian music industry has dismissed damaging overseas research that found illegal music sharing actually increased CD sales.
The study, conducted by two researchers at the University of London for the Canadian Government, found people downloaded songs illegally because they wanted to hear them before buying or because they were not available in stores.
"We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P (peer-to-peer) download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year," the researchers found.
The findings, based on a study of 2000 Canadians, fly in the face of years of expensive campaigning by the music industry worldwide, which claims file sharing costs it millions of dollars a year in lost revenue.
Individual file sharers in the US were sued and hit with exorbitant fines on the back of such claims - Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old single mother, was recently fined $US220,000 ($239,000) for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa.
Numerous file sharing sites were shut down by music industry investigators this year, most recently the invite-only site OiNK. Ironically, the free publicity the move generated has led to an explosion of new file sharing sites in its wake.
The local music industry's anti-piracy unit, Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), has threatened to start suing Australians if local ISPs don't police their users' file sharing habits.
But the Canadian study suggests file sharing is not the cause of the music industry's problems and is actually beneficial to music sales.
MIPI general manager Sabiene Heindl insisted the study's results did not translate to Australia.
She pointed to a telephone survey of 1000 Australians aged 14 to 74, conducted by Quantum Market Research last year, which found 57 per cent of those who downloaded via P2P file sharing programs rarely or never went on to purchase the music legitimately.
"It's not rocket science to work out that if you get your music for free, why would you go out and buy it," Ms Heindl said.
"Of course 'true fans' are hopefully in a different category and we encourage them to do the right thing and get the music from a legitimate source."
Ms Heindl said there were many places other than file sharing networks where people could try music before they buy, "including record company and artist sites themselves".
MIPI wants ISPs to voluntarily send infringement notices and disconnect users identified as having engaged in illegal downloading, but it has met significant resistance from the ISPs. The Federal Government has been reluctant to get involved so far, with the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, recently telling all parties to go back to the negotiating table.
A recent survey conducted by GfK found 40 per cent of Australian internet users admitted to illegally downloading music.
Research firm IBISWorld estimates the music industry loses $100 million a year in revenue as a result of piracy, with illegal channels accounting for about 11 per cent of all music acquired by the general population.
The pervasiveness of P2P file sharing and music piracy has led some bands, such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, to embrace it.
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, dismayed at the high cost of CDs in Australia, recently encouraged fans at a Sydney concert to pirate the band's music. Reznor has since been working with fellow musician and friend Saul Williams on a concept album, The Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust, which has been released first as a digital download. The basic album is free but higher quality versions can be bought for $US5.
Radiohead recently released its new album, In Rainbows, as a digital download, saying fans could pay whatever they liked for it. But even the promise of a free album wasn't enough for many file sharers, who obtained it illegally anyway as opposed to going through the Radiohead site.
Forbes, citing statistics from illegal download tracker Big Champagne, reported 240,000 people downloaded the album illegally on its first day of release. The number had risen to over 500,000 just days later.
"It's quite simply easier for folks to get the illegal version than the legal version," Big Champagne chief executive Eric Garland told Forbes.
Sales figures for the first six months of the year, released by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), show total physical music sales dropped by almost 16 per cent in unit terms, but legal download sales increased by just under 90 per cent.
The Canadian study found no statistically significant relationship between illegal P2P downloads and paid-for digital downloads from stores such as iTunes. In other words, it found file sharing neither increased nor decreased the likelihood of legal download purchases.
IBISWorld predicts that by 2010, legal online music will comprise 22.4 per cent of all music sales in this country, with online delivery replacing the manufacturing of pre-recorded media within the next five to 10 years.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
To bad your post above proves her wrong.
I did some grunt work for EMI in the mid to late-90's and they were a cool ass band. Plus, they were impressed that I knew who Can was.
If only this were the correct rate of exchange. If only.
As the article you've quoted already stated (loosely) - those who care about music are still purchasing it, those who never cared don't
As an indie label owner, I'd expect you would be well aware of the fact that quality releases sell regardless (which is why the big labels are so scared - this is legitimately threatening to their current business model)
I've not looked at any figures, but I doubt that DLs of movies have cut considerably into DVD sales - film buffs aren't going to tolerate a shitty, low rez DL of a movie they could actually acquire for a reasonable cost
I think Rock is just trying to say a bunch of people didn't pay shit for this album.
Most people i know who are into radiohead downloaded the album for free becasue they ordered the box set verison which dosn't come out for a few months and wanted to actually hear the album now. I don't think its a good representation of how much money radiohead is making on the album
i have no plans on buying the album. but really the whole thing is kinda stupid. if i download an album and listen to it once or twice, how is that really any worse than borrowing a cd from a friend to get a taste of it anyway? if i loved the album i'd go out and get it on vinyl or whatever.
Exactly.
There was an administrative fee tacked onto that somewhere.
I think this record is actually better than the last few. My favorites are The Bends and OK Computer. It's not as good as those, but I don't feel as if I'm doing Radiohead a favor by listening to it.
I'd like to think this is the case, but I'm not sure. I was at a friend of mine's a while ago, she's about my age (25-ish) and I was checking out her cd collection. She had a pretty big shelf of cds - all from the late 90s. When I asked her about it, she said with some degree of guilt "Yeah, I haven't bought an album in five years or so".
Basically, there's a bunch of things competing for your hard earned cash. If you're really into music AND clothes, as in this case, getting one of them for free means being able to spend more on the other.
I'm not saying filesharers should be beheaded, I just think the above arguement is a bit oversimplified. However, if you're a music NUT (like most people on this board, I'd assume) you're probably going to spend a bunch of dough each month on music, no matter what.
Kids can have it for free. They wouldn't buy it anyway as it has no bling or "Street cred", innit dough?
yeah that cracked me up, if you actually decided to pay for it, they hit you with a credit card fee. THEN my credit card company charged me an international transaction fee. I think I paid 2 pound or 2.5, it wound up being $7.50 or so.