The Ed Techie

Why 'will Radiohead make money?' is the wrong question

Ed Felten has a good piece on how the Radiohead experiment can mean they make more money by selling more at a lower price. While I agree with his analysis I think this focus on how the  'you choose the price' model will work misses the point. This is a step along the path to free content so all those who think it's a failure if some people don't pay are looking at it the wrong way - some might pay this time, but next time? Or the time after? Radiohead have a reasonably devoted fanbase who will opt to pay, but for lots of artists that isn't the case - they'll make the choice between fame over fortune. Better to have 1000 people download it for free and generate some buzz than 10 people pay for it.

So the question isn't will Radiohead make money from this release, but rather 'how else might Radiohead make money?' They are offering a proper CD release box set for around £40. This is one model - release for free something that 90% of people will take, and something special for the remaining 10%. This is the sort of thing Gran can buy them for Christmas - 'What does Kevin like?' 'Radiohead' 'Okay, I'll get him the special release'. I would expect to see lots of variations on this - most of an album free and then some special DRM locked bonus tracks you pay for, bundled with some video, interviews, etc. People will crack these and release them free, but for the fan who really wants them they'll be prepared to pay and the rest of us will just take the free stuff.

PS - you may be thinking I am contractually obliged to mention Radiohead in every post at the moment. This is the last one. Probably.

Why it's important that the Radiohead album is good

So I downloaded my copy of In Rainbows and have spent a lot of time listening to it in Australia. I should confess that I like the 'difficult' Radiohead albums (I rank Amnesiac just below OK Computer as best Radiohead albums), but I rather thought they were treading water by the time of Hail to the Thief.

In Rainbows is great though, it contains at least four outstanding tracks which rank with any of their best. The reason I'm blogging about this is not because I'm a frustrated MySpace user who suddenly wants to do album reviews, but because it is really significant. Releasing your album free is fine if you're on the way down, and no-one is going to buy it anyway. It was important therefore that In Rainbows was a 'proper' album, ie one that would have been a normal release any other year. And it is. What that says is this - the game is up for record companies. They may lumber on for a few years, like a mortally wounded dinosaur, but it's over. Or at least the business model they think they know is over.

I like the whole back to the future flavour of this - musicians used to make their money from live performances. The advent of recorded music became a means of generating interest in the artist as a means of promoting their live performances. It then became the main revenue source for artists. For a few stadium bands, with the Rolling Stones leading the way, live shows have again become the major revenue source. Now it looks as though gigging will be the way artists make their money again, but it won't be just the stadium bands now. I have no idea what this will mean for the music industry, for artists, for fans, and whether it will be a good thing or not. But it will happen.

Radiohead explore pricing models

Almost as if they've been reading the Future of content debate here (hey, it's a nice thought), one of my favourite miserable groups (okay, all my favourite groups are miserable), Radiohead have announced they are releasing their new album next week. It will be available for download direct from their own website and the price box is left blank for the purchaser to enter an amount.

Assuming it's not another hoax, this is further evidence of record companies being disintermediated and content shuffling towards the freedom it so achingly longs for.