Radiohead - In Rainbows (Released Worldwide October 10th,2007)
 

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 2:02 pm Post subject: Radiohead - In Rainbows (Out October 10, 2007) There will be 2 releases of "In Rainbows":

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD - available from october 10th 2007, and contains 10 new songs.

NOTE: IT IS UP TO THE CONSUMER TO DECIDE HOW MUCH THEY WANT TO PAY FOR THE DOWNLOAD, INCLUDING 0.00 POUNDS (!!!!!!)
Expect a 0.45 bank transaction fee for payments above 0.00 pounds.

DISCBOX - available as pre-order, will ship to consumers around December 3rd.
It is a double CD (+ 8 tracks than the digital download) , added with 2 vinils,bonus enhanced features. It includes the digital download as well. It sells for 40 pounds (worldwide shipping charges are already included in this price).

www.inrainbows.com

A normal, sellable cd should arrive in record shops in early 2008.

It's an interesting move from Radiohead. We all know they are not pioneers, and countless minor artists have offered their music for free, or with a "pay what you want" scheme. But few bands of the scale of Radiohead have attempted this (maybe the Smashing Pumpkins who offered Machina II as a free download).

Let's see how fans respond to their challenge. How much will they pay for a digital download?

Huh, that's really interesting! I've never heard of this method before. @_@ This is an experiment, right? Would they be able to raise a profit from the digital downloads this way? o_o;;

If I was a Radiohead fan, I'd probably buy the discbox anyway...

AHHHHH, thanks bebio! I've been waiting for this stinkin album for soooo long. DISHAIHADOIDHSOAI I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!

ps - Hi badtzy!

hey badtzmaru! long time no see! :)

Well I think Radiohead has enough die-hard fans to pull this off successfully.
My estimation is that around 1/3 of people will download for free (0.00 pounds payment), and the other 2/3 will divide themselves according to the following categories:

- a portion will pay somewhere in between 0.01 and 1.50 pounds
- a portion will pay somewhere between 1.51 and 10 pounds
-a portion will pay somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds (a normal cd price in britain)
- a portion of die-hard fans will buy the discbox version.

I'm writing these prices to underline an important point:
iTunes has very unfair deals towards artists. From the .99 cents that we pay for a download of a song, around 30% goes to Apple, about 60% to the record label, and the artist only gets about 6 to 9 cents per song.
For a full album download, the artist does not really make more than 1.50 bucks/pounds per sale.
therefore, any order that Radiohead receives with a payment higher than 1.50 is already giving them more profit than they would have if they were signed to iTunes.
So in a certain way, it's quite a smart move from them, and they just might pull this off.

I want to buy the discbox version, but my finances are not good at the moment... I'm still pondering what to do. Maybe I will do a small payment for a digital download for the time being, and in november do the pre-order for the discbox version...

I think this is an interesting experiment. Now we really get to see the true colours of Radiohead's fans. For years people talk about an alternative business model, and no high-profile band ever tried to put it into practise.
If Radiohead announce the statistics publicly, we could finally find out if fans, given the chance, will put their money where their alledged loyalties are. If this business model proves to work, I'm sure other bands will be paying close attention to see if they can implement it themselves.
during the process, some will succeed, and some will lose a lot of money.
I don't think most famous pop stars (say, britney or beyonce) could make this work as well as Radiohead, because they are basically a product manufactured by a record company, and cannot exist/survive outside of this industry.

Another interesting question: what if Shiina suddenly decided to use this new business model, and "Variety" had been given to us as a "pay what you want" model (with the option to buy an ultra expensive limited edition of Variety, like Radiohead did)?

How much would we be willing to pay for it?

The same amount I wound up paying for it in reality. $0 =P
(tho, Id give Shiina some dap, like Radiohead)
/SP did it 7 years ago, lulz

It's certainly paid off as the news was all over UK TV/Newspapers recently, which in turn gave the site a ton more traffic than expected and according to Jonny most people are paying full CD price, or close to it with very few paying nothing. I'll be paying nothing for the direct download, as I fully intend to buy the actual CD upon it's release and I'm not going to pay twice. I was even contemplating the Discbox but it was mostly for the second disc of music which will leak anyway.

I demand TJ to pay me back for the damages I've incurred after listening to that horrendous album. :P

I'd buy an ultra expensive limited edition of everything SR did up to Variety (yes even including Adult).

I definitely think taking on this alternative business strategy is a smart move for Radiohead and will garner them even more respect in the music industry. Still, how likely is it that this strategy can be refined to be used to replace the traditional money making model on other bands in the music industry? I'm not sure how many bands can pull this off.

Just to clarify, do you pay for the music before or after you're done downloading and listening to it? Supposing that you can pay anytime (or get your money back), and you paid only $0 ($25) before downloading and after listening to the album you think it's worth $25 ($0), would you go back to top up the balance (get your money back)?

To answer your question, when you go to their site, and you choose to pay for the digital download, you make the payment BEFORE downloading.
basically, in the "payment page", there is a blank field that has the "pound" symbol, that you can fill in with your chosen value. Next to it there is a "?". if you ckick on it, there's a message saying "it's up to you", next to another "?". If you click on this second "?", it says: "No, really, it's up to you" :p

After payment, you get an e-mail with a download link and an activation code. Nothing more. You CAN CANCEL YOUR PAYMENT, but only BEFORE downloading. To do this, just send an e-mail to them requesting that they cancel your order. All the money will be refunded.

Listening to the album before downloading is easy: Youtube is literally filled with live videos containing the performances of practically every song in the album. Radiohead themselves are ok with this, because it's free album promotion. This way, people can decide if they want to invest cash on the album or not.

And you're right that not many bands can pull this off: I guess for less known bands, this move would be disastrous financially.

Is the album going up 12am GMT? If so, I'm staying up and waking the neighbours.

I don't really know, but I'd guess so...
In any case, It's possible that teh servers will crash with so much people trying to access/download at the same time...

I will wait maybe until late afternoon of the 10th before trying to download.

I paid 5.20 pounds, for now.
I hope next month I can order the real discbox.

Also, there's an interesting survey being conducted by this website: it invites you to insert how much did you pay for the download, and official resuts will be disclaimed at the end of October. I already filled my vote.
http://www.whatpricedidyouchoose.com/