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SHIFT: Get free Radiohead music, support The Man
Earlier this month Radiohead released its new album In Rainbows, making the music available using an ingenious "pay what you want" scheme. You can download the album for whatever you think it's worth (which could be $0) from the band's website. The plan was smart for several reasons. First, the move garnered an unbelievable amount of publicity for the album; it was written up by everyone from music blogs to Harvard economics professors. And furthermore, though nobody was required to pay for the album, many did. All of the money (one estimate was $10 million in the first two weeks, though Radiohead disputes that figure) went directly to the band.
Many believed that Radiohead's experiment indicated that the band was sticking its tongue out at the current system of purchasing music, or at the very least, trying to innovate a new system. So it made some fans very angry when they learned that the band also planned to release a hard copy of the album with a major record label sometime in 2008. But I believe that, far from sticking it to the man, Radiohead's scheme actually validates our current iTunes/Virgin Megastore music-distribution system. Find out why after the jump.
The Radiohead experiment aims right at those music thieves, along with those of us who love to copy albums from friends (which is legal, but only just). It attempts to replace our sense of entitlement with a sense of guilt. Music takes money to get made, and bands deserve to be compensated for their creativity. That should go without saying, yet most coverage of record-label litigation is unfairly negative, as my colleague Leslie Shapiro has argued.
According to a company that tracks illegal downloading, by the time I post this article more people will have stolen the album (can you even steal something that's free?) over BitTorrent networks like Pirate Bay and TorrentSpy than have downloaded it from the band's website.
It would seem that those who claim they would purchase music under "better conditions" are full of baloney. Radiohead's experiment wasn't perfect: You could argue there's no moral imperative to pay for something that's being given away, especially when there's no recommended price. But those who trade the album for free over BitTorrent are still stealing. Even if you didn't pay Radiohead one dime, downloaders at least gave the band a legitimate e-mail address.
And what, pray tell, is music worth now? Not much, according to many people. Even most of the consumers who paid for the album showed that they value owning 10 songs forever less than one trip to the movie theater. To me, this just goes to show that the cultural distribution system in our country is inherently unfair: Some artists (book authors, film directors) are guaranteed better copyright protections than others, not for legal reasons, but for practical ones.
Though Radiohead made a ton of money of this experiment, if in the long run only one third of consumers pay for the music they download, a lot of artists (and — dare I say it? — their producers and distributors) will lose out. Don't expect The Man to back down on this issue any time soon. The second disc of In Rainbows will cost real, live money, and will be available in stores next year.
S.E. Kramer is a freelance writer in Manhattan. Kramer has traveled the world as a writer for the Rough Guides, and contributed to Wired, Condé Nast Traveler, AOL's Switched, and Portfolio.com.
By TheAdlerian at 9:29 PM ON 11/01/07
The fact is that it costs very little to burn a CD at some factory, and the price of a CD itself is likely near zero at that scale of production. However, CDs have been priced in the mid-twenty dollar range since they first hit the market, and they've only gone down a few dollars. That's in spite of the fact that the material costs little and CDs are now the prime medium and not a new thing. A casette had many more parts and required assembly, yet they were cheaper. CDs from the start were quick and cheap to make.
My point is that CDs were, and are a ripoff, so anyone selling them or an artist recording on them is part of a fraud. Thus, it's entirely ethical to strike back by not buying them, or attempting to seek revenge via free downloads.
I'd be quite happy to see "rock stars" and people in the industry making a middle class income, until then, perhaps they'll get nothing.
By ademion at 6:27 AM ON 11/02/07
I don't fully agree with you ... that the album was downloaded via p2p as well as the Radiohead website doesn't necessarily mean that the concept was wrong or flawed. It will always take some time to change ones habit, so if you are downloading illegally as a habit, you won't stop just because one album is also available with low/no cost through the bands website.
If there's a platform for many bands/musicians where you can one-stop-shop several albums with the concept that radiohead is trying out, than the acceptance would be higher, of course.
Cheers, N.
By y2kh8r at 12:21 PM ON 11/02/07
While TheAdlerian makes a great point about the cost of CDs being outrageous(I could have cd copies mass produced at about a dollar a disc), He misses one of the major expenses involved in making music: studio time. It costs about $65 an hour (about $550 daily) to rent a studio, and that includes time that the sound engineers spend perfecting the sound of the disc, after the artists are done recording.
In the case of Radiohead, I'm going to guess that this established band may have a home studio at this point, which could cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands to a million dollars to assemble(no kidding!)- all paid out of their own pockets. Then, they probably still have to send the final mix to an experienced engineer (who has probably been working in a studio since these guys were infants) to get the finishing touches put on it(to make what they call a glass master).
Of course, this still doesn't warrant the near $20 cost per disc that we see in stores today (as it was pointed out- tapes were cheaper, and I don't think that studio costs have changed dramatically). In my eyes, where the real rip off comes in is when you're buying older music that has paid for itself many times over, yet they still want $12-$18 per disc.
By dbostwick at 11:08 AM ON 11/08/07
Well, using the price of CD's as an excuse to download music illegally sounds pretty farfetched to me. You can buy music online for a lower price if you hate the price of CD's so much.
By DarrianAshoka at 1:59 PM ON 11/08/07
I applaud Radiohead, and I was never a fan of their's. I think it would be wiser for other music artist to require at least a $1 payment for the album download, since they will not get the extra attention Radiohead has received. If other artist can legally do this with their older work (depending on the recording contract with their label) they would only benefit from such a promotion of music no longer in it's prime.
The only grip I have about the cost of a CD is how the artist rarely gets more than a few pennies on each unit sold. The record companies are way too greedy, but I do not swipe music on-line because of it. I still feel that the artist should get some compensation. If I were to download illegal copies I would then need to mail a donation check directly to the artist if I were being true to my philosophy.
If artists are not going to get paid there would not be very much new music produced, other than a few die-hard folk singers who would want to share their art no matter what.
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DarrianAshoka:
I applaud Radiohead, and I was never a fan of their's. I think it would be wiser for other music artist to require ...More »