Earlier this month, the band Radiohead set up a single, enigmatic website disclosing very little information – other than the invitation to preorder a copy, in one of two formats (mp3 download or shipped CD set), of their latest album In Rainbows which was released on October 10th. Regardless of which choice was made, you were then sent to a featureless purchase page confirming your selection with an empty text box for the price, and a question mark next to that which linked to a page stating simply to name your price.
The cost was to be whatever you thought it was worth. $10? $40? $0? It was up to you. Having such a choice was startling, coming from a for-profit band, even for persons like myself who are accustomed to legally filesharing free music from websites like Jamendo.
As the story unfolded, about 30% of the takers paid nothing, with most others paying varying amounts up to the $1000 which one enthusiastic buyer unloaded for it, and a company that supposedly dropped $10,000 – although whether they were buying the CD set or the album rights was unclear.
It was obvious then that regardless of not having actually asked for any money at all for their work, Radiohead were making good coin. Their ingenious marketing strategy was like a fundraising campaign, but without the publicity. That was supplied automatically as the news spread rapidly through social content sites like Digg and Reddit, and then as news in the mainstream media. Radiohead eliminated the huge expenses normally incurred for advertising and promotion of a new album in this way, and you begin to see how they could come out on top – when there are enough curious takers from a worldwide base of this novel approach who find themselves willing – or perhaps feeling compelled – to pay even a minimal price. People didn’t even have to be fans of the band to be drawn by the mystery, the prospect of a free album, or both.
So why did I pay nothing to download the album? For the simple reason that I had no information on the product. Although the mere presence of the payment amount box on the page nags for you to enter a value greater than zero (and hence perhaps the psychological reason why many did pay at least something), there was no way for me to ascertain a value for the album, given that there were no reviews, song lists, or even a faint indication of the genre of the music. I know next to nothing of the band or their works, and so when presented with the opportunity to take an unknown for free, I did the obvious.
I can say that having listened to it, the downloaded album is a .ZIP file of 10 songs in mp3 format, has a total play time of 42m 38s, and is hard to pin down with a single description of style. It’s rather moody and trancey soft rock, peppy in some tracks and slow and pensive in others, a touch jazzy and very sentimental, and would probably fetch about $20 without objections from a store shelf. Remember, though, that’s for the download – I would undoubtedly rate the CD set with its extra material at a higher value, and just might purchase it soon.
February 5, 2008 at 11:04 am |
$20 for a CD? It’s people like that which make paying $1000 less shocking. I’ve never paid more than $1 for any song, and have little trouble doing without it at all. I don’t think I have anything from the last 2-3 years. It’s music, not air, and overvaluing it is what caused the music industry to jack up the prices in the first place, forcing those with more sense than money to do without.
There is nothing preventing an honest person from downloading the music, listening to it, and then going back and paying what they feel it’s worth. Most people aren’t going to think of that, and the site’s metrics and metrics interpreters (the people trying to claim everyone’s a freeloader) won’t take that into account.
Radiohead’s got a lot of good stuff, but they’ve also got some crap, and I wouldn’t buy anything from them unless I’d had a chance to screen it first. If you’re a Radiohead fanatic, then feel free to pay what you want sight unseen; there are a handful of bands I can trust to make good music without having to screen them first, and not everyone is as dmanding as I am.