‘Free’ album still stolen on P2P-networks

What’s interesting here is the legal version is likely EXACTLY the same as the illegal version. Normally pirated music is not the same as buying a CD (lossless audio vs. lossy) and this is a difference. The product is not the same. The strange thing here is the product is a 160Kbps second MP3 file is still a 160 Kbps MP3 file after it is downloaded somewhere else. What’s interesting is the product is arguably free, and free on the bittorrent client, so the public sees no difference.

If I was a casual Radiohead fan who had heard about their new album and I knew I could get it quickly and easily on a filesharing network, why would I bother going through the registration process on the band’s website just to end up with the exact same files? It’s a matter of convenience. Nothing is stopping those people from going back later to make a payment.

Surely this isn’t particularly surprising… I dare say there’s not a single possible release method that would have prevented the album from spreading via the usual means. The information we should be interested in is how many people chose to pay something, and what, on average, they chose to pay.

It’s true that by legitimizing a free download of the album, Radiohead have made downloading it via torrent etc [i]feel[/i] more legitimate… but that’s largely irrelevant, as the people who obtained it via those means would not have paid anything had they gone through the site anyway.

There will always be people who will get it for free, no matter which angle you take. The question here is whether, regardless of that, this release method was still financially viable.

Sounds like people (in the article) are just trying to slight Radiohead’s immense success in their experiment. The record companies must have really freaked when they heard the numbers. Think about it.

So, like a govt. doing damage control, the record companies are going to try to find anything that casts a negative light on this event. Quite a lot in the music business changed on Oct. 10th.

Radiohead knew what they were doing.

i do not give a fuck
radiohead lick ass
i bought the box set
and now i am happy
it’s pretty much priceless
peole spend that much in an hour out at
a pub

of course theres gonna be people downloading the tracks on p2p networks, theyre just the curious bunch, if they like it theyll download it from the website next time and might even pay for it

Whatever, the server was working fine when I got the album.. less than 3 mins.

I can’t get Bodysnatchers out of my head.

If you were a casual fan - wouldn’t it
be better to download the album where no
one was looking? - eg not have to type in
email, name etc. even if they weren’t keeping
tabs, wouldn’t it make people feel more at ease?
even if they would have paid nothing for the
album from inrainbows.com

did that make any sense?

what Adam said

Problem is, I newer got the mail from W.A.S.T.E. And yes, radiohead should have used bittorrent for the spreading themselves. Regardless, it is still a success.

In response to Khristopher…I bought the boxset (via my home email), but wanted to download the album on release day and listen to it straight away (at work). I entered £0.00 for the download, and was not asked for any credit card info. So saying that teenage kids with no credit cards could not access the download is not strictly true. Maybe these P2P using teenage kids were overcome with a moral panic attack…they couldn’t possibly legally ’steal’ an album from a website. I just think that people cannot be bothered registering personal details…blah blah blah blah whatever…

Um, I thought the files are DRM-free for a reason? So the following statement “Radiohead might be pleased that their work is being downloaded as a whole, but would no doubt prefer that people get it from the band’s website” is obviously wrong as well as the constant use of the word “steal”. If the band went for revenue they would have protected the files, which they didn’t do - so that the album could spread out quicker. The journalists should get their facts straight instead of interviewing some outside “experts”.

My roommate downloaded “In Rainbows” from Radiohead’s website and paid a small amount for it. I was going to do the same until I found out that the music had been compressed to 160kbps. I’m a major fan of Radiohead and somewhat of an audiophile. Their music is full of so much distortion and echoing bass that it demands to be encoded at a lossless rate. I wasn’t about to pay for that quality, yet. So I bummed the copy from my roommate and plan to buy the album once they release it with a proper label. The box set is too expensive - as much as I’d love to give Radiohead that much money - because they deserve it - but I can’t.

I have not downloaded it from the Radiohead website on purpous. I do not yet have a credit card, and could therefore not buy the digital version together with the boxset at the same time. Since I did not want to give the impression that the album was woth 0 dollars, I chose to download it elsewhere. Apart from that, it saves Radiohead costs probably, because they will have less traffic on their website.

Pretty sure copyright exists independent of whether they have a record label, and yeah, the cost is 90 cents (USA) and the time/effort it takes to register to enter your info.

Also I am surprised how many people can’t read. If you bought the discbox you got the download with it, yet I read of many who did two transactions (i.e., bought the discbox and then bought the album for 0.00). Wonder how many people like that bought it “twice.”

Anyway I am more interested to see how many discboxes they sold.

no copyright?
don’t be so ignorant.
You don’t need a record label to own copyright. The author owns copyright as soon as it is created.
Registering with the Library of Congress helps with legal disputes but THEY ABSOLUTELY OWN THE COPYRIGHT!
Idiot

Oh, and I paid for the box set so I wasn’t paying nothing. They still get my cash and I’m very happy for them too. I’ll always buy if it’s worth purchasing.

Mike, if you choose 0.00 as price, also the transaction is free.

“Lichtman speculates that users may have interpreted Radiohead’s offer as a giveaway and so felt more comfortable downloading the album from other free sources. Fans may also have been turned off by the band’s requirement that users register by providing their name and e-mail and postal addresses.”

But that doesn’t really make sense.

If anyone does a simple search, most of these p2p sites require one to join. One must submit an email address, and password. Thus, if those who are stealing the album are worried about identity theft, (which is unlikely) they’re mistaken. When one enters an email address, it’s easy to track back and eventually find out the offenders home address, phone numbers and all the rest.

I say these people are just looking to rip off all the music they can. We are not as innocent anymore as in the early day’s of home computers and downloading music. Thus, in my opinion, these people know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re doing it because they can. It’s as simple as that.

It ticks me off because I paid full price for the discbox. There is no justice when a terminally ill person (that would be me) does the right thing by paying, and the healthy rip-off what they want.