Radiohead making you pay now for “In Rainbows”

December 16th, 2007

A few months back Radiohead released the album In Rainbows and allowed fans to “pay what they want” to get the album. After a 3 month experiments it appears they are going back to traditional prices.

“Fair play to Radiohead for doing something different,” Wire told the United Kingdom’s Daily Star. “It’s certainly great publicity, but I think it kind of demeans music. Music used to be a market; now it’s all gone digital. It’s worrying (that) cinema is doing well, video games are doing well, but music isn’t. The free-download phenomenon is ruining the industry.”

Such statements are heresy to the “free” culture, but Wire may be right to question whether Radiohead’s experiment was a success. Paid for my camcorder batteries batteries at least.

Nobody other than Radiohead and its handlers know how much money the groundbreaking promotion generated, and they aren’t sharing figures with the public. Nonetheless, there are signs that the revenue was less than spectacular. more