Thursday 11 October 2007

Radiohead

Radiohead, one of the biggest bands in the world, are making their new album available for free download.

This follows Prince's giveaway of his latest album in a newspaper. Other bands are said to be following Radiohead's example.

I'm worried.

Knowledge Politics looked in detail about the intellectual property regime of the music industry in our Frontiers of Freedom reports. Many would like to see this regime become more restrictive, including Pete Wishart MP, who wrote a chapter of the first publication in this series.

Wishart said artists' livelihood depended on being able to explot that intellectual property. With this move, Radiohead willingly give up the chance to make money out of their IP.

Like I said, I'm worried. Even the most avid music fans probably wouldn't buy more than one album a week: there just isn't enough time in the day to listen to more than that. Which would you 'buy' this week - the one you have to pay a tenner for, or the one being given away?

New, unsigned artists give away their music for free all of the time, whether it is a CD handed out at a gig or on the obligatory myspace page. But they do this in the hope it will help them make money out of it at some point in the future, to build up a fan base willing to pay for their material.

Radiohead have absolutely no need to do this. Their fans will gladly pay for their new album. And I fear that the effect of their stunt will be that, this week, at least some of those people who would otherwise have paid for an album for a band that really needed it have decided instead to download Radiohead's album.

Maybe the impact is marginal, but sometimes marginal is important - it can be the difference between a record company droppping a band or investing in a second album.

If Thom Yorke and the other millionaires in his band really wanted to make a point about how they feel tainted by making money out of music, they should have charged a regular price and given the proceeds to charity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I couldn't disagree more. All artists have a right to distribute their work however they see fit. If Radiohead don't want to force people to pay £10 for their new album (and you fail to mention that it is POSSIBLE to download the album for free but not compulsory, more than two-thirds of the people downloading it have chosen to pay something for it) then that is their right as the artists.

It is up to other bands to create something that fans will willingly part with their money for, if that's why they are making music. It's nice to see a band demonstrate that they're not in it for the money. And lets not forget that you are talking about the music industry here. These are not farmers living on subsistence wages you're talking about, they are bands and artists who will go on to make millions.

Anonymous said...

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