Radiohead Says Name Your Own Price for New Album 498
TechDirt is reporting that the band Radiohead has apparently chosen the path less traveled when it comes to the release of their new album. They are offering two very unique methods of purchase for their new music, the ability to name your own price for a digital download or the ability to purchase a special "discbox" which will contain the album on CD and vinyl in addition to a horde of goodies. Will be interesting to see how this new model works out for them and what it might do to more traditional methods.
Don't know if it will work (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Don't know if it will work (Score:5, Insightful)
What a load of wank (Score:5, Insightful)
It's assinine to be crapping on about "dynamic range" and so forth. Given the albums provenance it will probably sound like Radiohead want it to sound which is where the actual value lays for people who like their music.
Re:What a load of wank (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a load of wank (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, to make you feel better, I'm sure that you could hear the difference if you knew what to listen for and listened for it.
Well done on turning a relaxing hobby into hard work.
Yes, CDs sound better than mp3s, but if you rip half decently then the difference is negligible for the vast majority of people, say 95% of them. Double blind tests bear this out. Sure, a handful of audiophiles can tell the difference, but you guys are far and away in the minority. No one really cares about your airless gold plated cables on your hi-fi that cost more than my car. Most people listen to mp3s on an ipod using low end earbuds, and most people are perfectly happy with that.
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No you are pretentious because you call them worthless, because from on top of your high horse you can't even see what is useful and enjoyable for an awful lot of people.
I don't even have an MP3 player (other than my computer). I tend to listen to the radio in my car (so I hear new music) and CDs at home. I have a few LPs but no re
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If they are being cool and releasing un-DRM'd music at a fair price (by definition, fair, since you get to negotiate) then you really have no excuse for downloading it from somewhere else and throwing them a bone, unless you're just a dick.
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I don't even know what music they make (Score:2)
Re:I don't even know what music they make (Score:5, Funny)
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Cheap CD's for us. More money to the artists. What's not to like? I mean, unless you're the record company.
direct link? (Score:5, Informative)
Awful site (Score:3, Insightful)
heh, make the minimum price $1 (Score:5, Interesting)
RIAA Even More Irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
The devil says "Come to my recording studio and we'll cut the record." Once you get there, they've got the studio lined up, the producer, and a few other people to "help you" make your record. If you ask about how much is going to cost, you get told, as is standard in the recording industry that "it will come out of the profits." Then you cut your album and "you have to promote it". If you ask how much that's going to cost...you guessed it kids, "it comes out of the profits". Now that you have to market your album, you have to go on tour. That means a bus, lights, roadies, stage, sound equipment, etc. If you ask how much that's going to cost...you guessed it kids, "it comes out of the profits".
While you're on tour, you need to have T-shirts, posters, bumper sticker, etc. You also need to have hot dogs, twinkies, beer, and cokes for people to consume during the concert. If you ask how much that's going to cost...you guessed it kids, "it comes out of the profits". By the time they're through pulling all the costs out of "the profits", there usually aren't any profits left, which means all that the artist gets is what ever they get as a signing bonus. Not the advance - the signing bonus - since the advance comes "out of the profits", too.
The way that this works out is that if you're lucky, the artist on any given album might see 1 or 2 cents of the $16.99 you pay for CD of music at Wal-Mart. Given that the Internet is the ideal distribution medium for music, I'd rather just go to the artists web site and buy the songs directly from them. Then the artist would get the whole $16.99 for the album instead of $0.02. But you see, the RIAA can't allow that because in that $16.97 lies their profit margins. Without them, it's a brave new world for digital music.
Why do you and I have to pay a third party middleman to broker the transaction for nothing more than a song? Worse yet, we are required to continue to pay this middleman who threatens to sue both the consumer and the musician when we try to cut him out of the transaction. If the artist tries to sell their songs on the website the RIAA will try to sue them for contract violations. If you and I try to download the music, we get sued. The only reason for this is that it leaves the big, fat RIAA profit margin intact.
The RIAA complains that their sales are down and points an accusing finger at "piracy". I'd like to take a moment to dispel that myth. When Napster was operating at it's peak, music sales were up 20% without the RIAA doing any additional marketing. Viral, word-of-mouth would spread quickly about new bands and good new interesting music. People were buying CD's because they'd get a taste of some stuff and like it. Then they'd go to the store, find the artist and buy some stuff. Now, there's no place to share that isn't full of viruses, worms, trojans, fake files, etc. No more free marketing RIAA - you pretty much litigated the goose that laid the golden egg out of existence.
Compounding the problem is that the RIAA is key in determining what gets pushed to the public. Frankly, I think that they've lost the pulse. We don't care about Brittany Spears, although my husband was caught peering at her photos when she got snapped sans the undies. For some reason, the music industry has decided to cater to 14 year old girls. Why? I don't really know. When's the last time you saw a 14 year old that had more than $20 of disposable income at any given moment? If you
Name my own price? (Score:5, Funny)
If the RIAA sues us... (Score:3, Funny)
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With peerguardian, you shouldn't fear getting sued - or am I wrong?
Re:If the RIAA sues us... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If the RIAA sues us... (Score:4, Funny)
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They're make up for it (Score:2)
That being said, I wonder if this is some kind of strange social experiment to see if anyone actually puts more than $0 in the price box. I probably won't.
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That's why I don't own Microsoft stock but do own Google stock. The question will be, how many of those people are aware of this and how many are Radiohead fans? I'm a bit shamefaced to admit that while I've heard of them, I wouldn't be able to name a song by them without resorting to Google/Wikipedia. But then, I'm not that into the music world. I p
Re:They're make up for it (Score:5, Informative)
Magnatune [magnatune.com] also allows the buyer to set the price [magnatune.com] for an album purchase online: from $8 to $18. As far as I know, they've never released stats about how much people decide to pay.
So, this new model is not entirely unique. That's your choice. Many other people (myself included) certainly will pay some amount for the album. I guess the idea is that although lots of people will download it for free, those people would probably have downloaded it for free (via P2P) anyways. At least in this case, you allow those people who value easy downloading to conveniently "do the right thing" and directly support the artist.
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(Not a fan, so didn't participate in that little experiment of his, but the thought occurred to me since so many people started out paying.)
Re:They're make up for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if I was really hard up for cash, I'd consider putting in a lowball amount, but not $0. Putting in $0 would be worse, IMO than stiffing the waitstaff at a nice restaurant on their tip. You're not required to tip them, but you should. Why? They work hard, and make most of their money that way. Maybe it's just me, but I think that artists deserve to be paid for their efforts, even when they don't force the payment. They're asking to be paid a fair price, not to be stiffed. They've cut out the middlemen here, so perhaps that amount is less than you'd pay for a CD on Amazon. Perhaps it's more, for that very reason. They've let you decide.
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What remains to be seen is if they do a "normal" release later on. My little quandary is that I'm perfectly willing to pay them (even up to $20 if the music is good enough) for a physical CD, but I'm not really getting much value for a digital download. I hardly ever listen to the music I download, because I mostly listen to music in the car, and mp3s don't sound so great (to me anyways) with relatively decent speakers.
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Having worked as a waiter before, I'd say that you have no idea how stressful and hectic it can be. A good waiter does have a number of specialized skills, including diplomacy, efficient time management, and expectation management. Having a good memory, the ability to multitask and think on your feet, and keep the customer satisfied as their sole conduit to the (usually harried and even more frazzled) kitchen staff is a lot more challenging than you'd think.
I've never been a waiter but I'll second that.
Even more interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Even more interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
-S
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"Unique" (Score:5, Informative)
There's no "Somewhat unique", or "very unique".
Re:"Unique" (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother was an English teacher and she used to complain about people misusing the word unique in this way all the time. And while I certainly understand the point you and she are making, I have long wondered at what point does a commonly misused word simply become redefined?
You can argue that "very unique" is non-sensical, but the truth is that everyone reading that phrase knows the intention of the author, and therefore information information is being conveyed.
Re:"Unique" (Score:5, Funny)
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Every ladybug is unique, because every ladybug is different than every other ladybug. A ladybug that can shoot fire from its eyes is *more* unique than a ladybug that has a 0.00000000001% genetic difference from all other ladybugs.
In other words: while 'unique' is a boolean, it can be modified in speech to indicate degree. If not, then your definition of 'unique' is kind of useless.
Not true. Levels of uniqueness exist (Score:3, Insightful)
This is trivially disprovable. Any collection of objects can have a mixture of unique and shared elements. What do you call the result other than 'partially unique'? Take a Linux distribution, or human DNA, for instance. We have unique bits - a tiny fraction of the whole - and we have this vast sea of shared bits.
It seems to me that it's perfectly sensible to say '25% of this collection is unique', and therefore to say
This is brilliant (Score:5, Interesting)
Only immediate problem I see is that the record companies are going to be darned sure to sign new bands to perpetual contracts to prevent this kind of defection in the event of success. Maybe the new pathway will be for new bands to get exposure on iTunes or Amazon's new .mp3 download service. And just maybe, as the article suggests, big successful bands selling direct will feature or promote new, worthy acts.
We can be glad the sun is setting on the **AAs.
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Not sure about you, but I like this (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if the publish the results (Score:3, Insightful)
It will be interesting because they are (for whatever reason) a relevant and popular band with access to traditional B&M distribution. So we can see (very approximately and inaccurate duh)
-what geographic locations paid the most average price
-what geographic locations which paid nothing
-what the average per-download price was
-highest & lowest price
and so on... esp. since it's not often that a band with as much exposure as Radiohead (don't even say Prince or I will slap you) experiments like this.
Why not? (Score:2)
http://www.magnatune.com/info/press/coverage/usa_today [magnatune.com]
How about name your own price for concerts? (Score:2, Interesting)
I love MeetUp.com because I think it is a great way to get to know others in your area who have similar tastes as you do. But MeetUp has a few shortcomings in terms of active financial participation of those who are part of the group,
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Now where were those pubes...
love this idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
I got a nice email from someone saying "thanks, but due to contract restrictions with the record label, they could not accept direct donations...please support us by purchasing our album from traditional sources" or something along those lines.
There is something 10x more satisfying by trying to give my hard earned money directly to the artist, and not to the scum-sucking music executives who have, for years, been stealing millions from naive, unsuspecting bands.
Not so novel (Score:2)
How is that first item--the ability to choose your own purchase price--in any way "unique", let alone the oxymoronic "very unique"? Magnatune [magnatune.com] has been doing it for years, and it's (one of) the reasons I love 'em. Aside from the ability to choose FLA
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And Video Killed the Radio Star (Score:4, Insightful)
"The traditional business model had been ruined by the Internet," said Grundy. "The industry is still trying to work out what on earth the new model or models should be and this is just one option."
Sucks when you've become redundant, eh? Authors are self-publishing; musicians can sell their songs on-line. They've found that they're doing most of the promotional work anyway, so why are you getting such a big cut? They've peaked behind the curtain and found there is no wizard. You evolve or you get run over.
I for one just preordered (Score:2)
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They're not independent (Score:2)
My point is that this doesn't prove that record companies are not needed. It just pro
I adore Radiohead, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
CD 2
MK 1
DOWN IS THE NEW UP
GO SLOWLY
MK 2
LAST FLOWERS
UP ON THE LADDER
BANGERS AND MASH
4 MINUTE WARNING
Also, the only reason radiohead are in a position to do this is the label they used to be on. And while I think this is the perfect direction for them, but I don't think it makes sense for labels to disappear. Good labels filter out the garbage to find and promote the good ba
Odd model (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Odd model (Score:4, Insightful)
People already pay ridiculously high prices for albums that they haven't heard all the way through. Often times they're buying it just for one or two songs that they've heard on the radio, and the rest of the disc is just gravy (or filler). The cost of CD's probably has a significant effect on the baseline perceived value of a digital album that I mentioned earlier, although I'd guess that most people would agree that a downloaded song should be cheaper than a disc.
You're probably right in that people will tend to underpay initially out of fear of "getting ripped off", unless they're huge radiohead fans. But if you do that, and it turns out you really dig the album, and you wish you had paid more; I'm sure radiohead wouldn't mind if you paid for and downloaded the album again.
http://www.quoteunquoterecords.com/ (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, but . . . (Score:2)
Hmmm.... Nice, but sadly I'm not 100% happy (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is that the slashdot "groupthink" will be positive, and likewise, I'm broadly positive about the attitude behind this.
However, in the details, it ends up leaving me high and dry.
Downloads, for me, are for those cases where "there's only one or two tracks on the CD I really like". If an album is any good, I vastly prefer to buy the CD - I enjoy the physical product, the artwork, lyrics/inlay notes, the free backup, the future-proof lossless quality.
On the other hand, I've no interest in vinyl - I've got no decks!
So with a choice of "buy the mp3s" or "buy the CD and vinyl boxset", I don't really want either :(
Shame they're abandoning the middle ground of selling regular CDs, which I'd guess still represents the majority of music purchasing in the western world today.
(And no, this isn't one of these "and thus I feel justified in pirating" excuse-posts. I spend more of my money on music than any other form of leisure/luxury; over £100/mo isn't uncommon. And I'm in a band who has cd and mp3 sales [keiretsumusic.com] of our own, and we've been at the wrong end of Russian allofmp3 style sites ("wholly legitimate" cry the slashdotters - legally, perhaps, on a technicality, but not morally... they're not sending any money through) and p2p. So, if I like the sound of this, I will pay for it, but I will be slightly miffed there is no way to get a CD without also wasting money (and space) on unwanted vinyl.)
Important question (Score:4, Funny)
Zero paradox (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the first major label major band defection that I can recall since Trent Reznor, and this will be sizably more influential as Radiohead still has a career left.
The real problem with getting rid of major labels is how artists will handle promotion. Radiohead would not have become this big without mass-media coverage, radio station payola, and other forms of promotion. Independent artists have more freedom and make more money, but how do they promote outside a local area?
Re:Zero paradox (Score:4, Interesting)
I could buy the air I need to breath -- it's certainly worth enough to me, being necessary for life and all, and people do sell bottled air for underwater use and the like -- but since I'm not under water and here air is superabundant ("not scarce") I don't have to pay anything for it, and quite logically choose not to. I'm sure the air-bottlers would love to eliminate their free competition, but unlike the music publishers they haven't managed to buy themselves a legislative distribution monopoly.
Translation: when a good is available for free from one source it's hardly surprising that people won't pay more for the same thing elsewhere. It has nothing to do with the good's "worth" and everything to do with the available alternatives -- which in this case are nearly identical in quality and as close to "free" as one is likely to find.
Let's Do Some Math Here (Score:4, Informative)
That makes me cry -- not at all.
How much goes to radiohead? (Score:5, Insightful)
SO... how much of my price goes straight to radiohead? And how much goes to the MAFIAA (if any)? The article wasn't really clear about that point... Anyone care to enlighten me/us?
Re:How much goes to radiohead? (Score:4, Informative)
The possible downside is that they have had to take all the risk where a record company would usually underwrite it, but Radiohead are a remarkably popular band and I would expect them to recoup. I have thought that there will be a standard CD for the shops (the supermarkets account for a considerable amount of sales in the UK for example), but this being Radiohead, well, they might not.
Admirable, but ultimately useless (Score:5, Insightful)
iTunes and other online distribution stores are a start. However, there still needs to be a better way to get lesser-known artists' music broadcast to as many people as possible, while still cutting the RIAA out of the loop. The answer to that dilemma? Well, I guess I'm not really sure. =/
Treat Them As Artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps they are just artists. Granted, they've probably made enough money from their prior albums to no longer need to worry about money. They are treating their music like a piece of art. Real art should be free and open to the public (which is why public museums in London are free to the public). If this was their intention then I applaud Radiohead.
Personally, I'm a fan but not the biggest fan. I would've liked to sample the album beforehand but their reputation and previous albums are good enough for me to put money on the line.
Re:Treat Them As Artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Big mistake: radiohead site doesnt have bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
If people download the album from another place they aren't going to see any donations.
They need to get their site fixed so that it is no longer getting slashdotted or else they areen't going to prove anything.
Stephen King did this with The Plant. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Does... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it does. That's sort of the point, isn't it? You pay what it is worth to you. If it is worth nothing, pay nothing. If nobody pays anything, we are unlikely to see more music from Radiohead (especially under such permissive marketing schemes) but it wasn't worth anything to you so who cares?
If, on the other hand, it is worth something to you, you might want to send them something to encourage them to continue making music.
It's really quite simple.
Re:Does... (Score:5, Interesting)
You are faced with the choice of supporting the band, or not supporting the band. Many people need to support the band in order for it to stay afloat.
If you support the band, you have no reason to believe anyone else will support the band, but you are unable to spend the money you spent supporting the band on other things. So the rational decision is to refuse to support the band, and hope that someone else does.
This might work because people feel good about giving away money, but it wouldnt scale very well for the rest of the industry.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Does... (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that it says about the band is that none of their fans have taken game theory.
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FWIW, game theory is a major part of my PhD (specifically social dilemmas), and I've just paid 5 pounds for the album. Usually I download music illegally and only buy CDs from my friends' bands, but I'm prepared to spend 5 pounds to reward the generous gesture of offering me the album for nothing.
Your mistake is to assume that standard game theoretic notions of "rationality" apply to human beings. There's ample [wikipedia.org] e [doi.org]
Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
If we were solely rational (Score:3, Insightful)
There is more to life than game theory, thankfully.
Re:Does... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if Radiohead announced, "Hey, we made 20 million off this idea! Thanks guys!" then I could see the Tragedy of the Commons becoming common.
Re:Does... (Score:4, Funny)
Now, if Radiohead announced, "Hey, we made 20 million off this idea! Thanks guys!" then I could see the Tragedy of the Commons becoming common.
Good point. In order to make sure this thing works, I'm going to refrain from paying them.
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This is true, but there are many ways of supporting a band. Seeing them live, buying merch directly from them, turning others on to their music, wearing a beaten-up old t-shirt with their name on it, performing drunken, off-key renditions of their songs to anyone who will listen ... these things all help to promote and support a band and probably do more for their bottom line than what they actually receive from the sale of their CDs.
You
Re:Does... (Score:5, Interesting)
OK (Score:2)
This is the future of the market, which is why I feel that Apple should spin iTunes into the marketplace, and take their profits. An open marketplace for the music, and perhaps movie, industry would be fantastic.
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this logic might work on the local garage band I saw last week at the pub-- if me and a few dozen other people voluntarily paid for their album they might not need to go back to their jobs at Denny's. But it's hard for me to picture my mustering up a bit of change from my hurting budget affecting the release of the next radiohead album. I think I prefer the i
Re:Does... (Score:5, Interesting)
Really?
You do know that MagnaTune [magnatune.com] has requested donations for albums for years and done quite well for themselves and their artists? Admittedly they do ask for a minimum of $5 (most likely because for very small amounts it really isn't worth the trouble to process), but routinely get paid much more than that. Artists get a 50% cut of all sales (far better than any normal record company). But you can download 128k mp3's for free, and even use them in non-commercial podcasts.
I've bought a couple albums from them in the past couple of years, and just now I see I need to go back and give them more money since I see some more stuff I want.
The Residents [residents.com] have also had an online store for the past couple of years funded entirely by the honor system: if you need a track, download it and pay them: they only request that you pay more than $3 so that they don't get eaten by billing costs. And, of course, they have also had the "extra special cd" available for most of their works in the past few years (package with bonus CD, book, numbered edition, etc).
They seem to be doing very well despite being the most obscure successful band.
Sure, Radiohead may "lose" some sales... some people will download their music and not pay: most of these would be people who would have never listened to their music anyway. People who were willing to pay cash money for a CD will appreciate being able to pay less online (and not finance MegaMart Music Stores) and even appreciate the convenience of getting the music from their home. Completists will appreciate the bonus edition and will gladly buy it: possession is a major part of being a Completist.
I see no reason why this won't work for known bands with dedicated fans. It would be harder for the little obscure bar band to survive like this, but, then, most of them aren't making much from CD sales either, so it isn't clear that they would actually lose money.
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That's not true at all. Major tours cost huge amounts of money to move around, and are only used for promotion for the records. Bands don't tour so much these days because more of that promotional money is spent on the videos that they make.
I agree with you though that Radiohead can afford to try this kind of stunt even if it fails, so they're not laying a lot on the line. It'll be valuable for less well off bands though to see if it works.
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You're cheating yourself (Score:5, Informative)
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You can live without the Radiohead, but if you're starving and on a budget you may well think "Yeah, but the portions are HUGE!" is an excellent thing to say about a restaurant with terrible food.
Re:Let's not see this one on the filesharing netwo (Score:2)
You can do that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Magnatune (Score:4, Interesting)