Two Out of Five Paid for Radiohead's New Album

Radiohead's music download experiment got a lot of mixed reviews, but a recent ComScore study gives us a better idea of how the experiment actually fared. According to the study, more than 1 million copies of "In Rainbows" were ultimately downloaded in the first 30 days. Only 38 percent paid for the download, while the other 62 percent downloaded the album for free. Downloaders spent an average of $6 per album, with 17 percent paying less than $4, 12 percent paying between $8 and $12, and only 4 percent paying over $12 per download. Not bad for an album that could be downloaded for free.

Still, most will consider this experiment a success despite the high number of "freeloaders." An anonymous source told MTV, "Whatever that 60 percent of people were going to do, they weren't going to buy the Radiohead album anyway...Just consider those 60 percent to be gone already — except now Radiohead have their e-mail addresses and they can market to them."

The same source adds, "Radiohead likely quadrupled their take on what they would have made had the record been racked in traditional record stores. Now Radiohead are getting the retail, label cut, distribution, and manufacturing margin, as well as the mechanical and artists' royalty. Of that 40 percent, they're getting a much higher figure [from sales] because they're using the Internet and the cost of distribution is so much less."

Maybe that 60+ percent of freeloaders will get emails alerting them of the limited-edition Radiohead 4GB USB drive featuring the band's box set collection. Crunchgear says the bear-shaped USB stick contains all seven albums in WAV form, and includes digital artwork for each album as well. The USB stick will retail for 80 Euros at the Radiohead store starting December 10. A CD and digital download will also be available.

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