Radiohead’s In Rainbows experiment
Radiohead released their new studio album, In Rainbows, this morning as an MP3 download. The album has been thoroughly discussed in the media over the last week because the band decided to release the work independently without the help of a record label. The album is available for purchase in two formats from inrainbows.com: a digital download or a 2xCD, 2xLP discbox. The special edition discbox is priced at £40 (~U.S. $81 at the time of release). The digital download is available with no set price — you pay what you think the album is worth.
I think the “donationware” concept of the Radiohead album is an interesting idea. Personally, I am more inclinded to buy a group’s album if I know they are receiving money from the purchase. Radiohead is not the only band who is going to attempt to go it alone in the near future. A couple of days ago, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor anounced on nin.com that he has not renewed his major label record contract and will attempt to go it alone like Radiohead. Rumors have been circulating around the Internet this week that Oasis and Jamiroquai will follow suit.
Digital distribution straight from the band is a great idea but I can already see a number of flaws in the model that need to be addressed. First, the album needs to be made available in a lossless format (i.e. FLAC) with no digital rights management attached. In Rainbows is available only as a low quality 160 kbps MP3 download. I am willing to pay for a lossless download but not an MP3. Until that’s available, I will stick with CD. The other problem is distribution. Radiohead opted to serve the MP3s straight from their site from 10 server mirrors. BitTorrent is a much better protocol for serving up a digital download to a large number of customers. Blizzard already uses BitTorrent to deliver World of Warcraft patches to its subscribers.