Correction: I paid 95 cents (after currency conversion).

My philosophy was this: how often in life does a commercial enterprise (artistic or no) offer you something essentially for free? Why not take them up on it?

Of course, I say "essentially" free because there is clearly a moral cost associated with this (intended or otherwise). I would suggest that leftover Puritanism might lead some -- (Richard!) -- to pay a "normal" fee out of guilt. I, however, ride the dark waves of existentialism and I will be enjoying my new Radiohead CD for less than the cost of a candy bar.

(Anyway, they're clearly doing this for the publicity......)
 

Oh, and two more things: 1) Why pay $8? Why not $10? Explain! 2) My Mexican loafers are the most comfortable pair of knockabout shoes I own.

WSBD
 

My philosophy is that they are allowing the market to determine what is a fair price, and those of us who believe that stealing music is bad but charging $18 for a cd is also bad have a responsibility to take the proposition seriously.

I arrived at $8 by using iTunes $9.99 flat fee as a baseline, then deducting $2 for the fact that the last couple of Radiohead albums suck.

I also think it's overly cynical, and intellectually lazy, to think of this just as a publicity stunt. Radiohead has expressed consistent and specific ideas about downloading for years; they won't sell their albums on iTunes, for example, because they refuse to let them be bought song by song. This seems to me a legitimate experiment in information distribution. Will they sell more albums and make more money, even at a lower cost per album? Will they make more money by cutting out the record company, whatever the mean price people pay? Will they profit from ancillary revenues such as concert tix that are fueled by album sales? These are all interesting questions, not publicity stunts.

Those shoes may be comfortable, but they are fugly.
 

Radiohead are not letting the "market" determine a fair price. They are subverting the market entirely by, in essence, seeking donations -- the commercial equivalent of a street musician passing the hat. You chose to structure your payment based on an irrelevant paradigm -- i.e., iTunes (minus a personal discount). But much as some would like to think it "revolutionary", iTunes is just an updated means of selling product, albeit in a form that has undermined the record companies' traditional approach. What Radiohead are doing is more of an artistic statement -- one focused not on the externalities of the purchase transaction, but on the motivations of the purchaser -- but you seemed to have missed the point with your questions about how this experiment will affect the band's revenue stream. That seems to me ultimately a more cynical way of looking at this than the suggestion that this is all a publicity stunt.
 

Nonsense. The creator of artistic content has every right to make money from it. We all have to earn a living. iTunes is hardly an irrelevant paradigm—what a silly comment, the kind of glib phrase that sounds clever but crumbles after maybe two seconds of consideration—given that it sells something like 70% of all the music that is sold online.
 

Enough economics already - how's the album, Rich?
 

Not downloadable till 10/10, actually.
 

Fascinating discourse but to quote a previous poster..."I don't care if this is a publicity stunt or not, it is so HOT!!! The very idea....."
Off to buy my own Radiohead album (luv 'em!) and thanks for the reasons to be cheerful, Richard,
eayny
 

the silly comment is yours, RB, since you clearly failed to actually read, or certainly digest, the comment. the point is what radiohead are doing and what its relationship is to "the market" (iTunes and otherwise). you assumed it was all about the market, and the comment took an opposite view. you're defensiveness about Apple blinded you to the question at hand. sure, artists have a right to make money. we all have to earn a living. apple sells 70% of the music sold online. the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. but is that all radiohead were really about here?
 

I agree strongly with 12:03 -- Richard, you completely misconstrued the comment you were responding to.
 

I think the Moby Dick prequel has been done already. Not that there can't be another one.