yeah i think it was a really smart move
they were kinda sayin "yeah we know that ur gonna get it for free anyway, lets just act like it not a real issue"
lots of people got it for free, true, but many paid, and it was a great "radiohead" thing to do
its quite like there band .... simply good experimentation
and 1 of their best albus btw

aaron peters, Cape town, South Africa

I paid nothing for the download because that's what mp3's are worth. Many people just don't want to pay for compressed, low quality audio, especially if the've spent thousands on Hi Fi equipment. I've been a fan since the start and will pay for the cd when it's released.

Steve, Swansea,

Radiohead made a $2 profit per download. I wonder what the profit comparison is between this album release, a proper CD, and ITUNES? In addition, the additional impact of the hype is somethig worth considering when examining the success or failure of this experiment. That being said, I would tentatively conclude that it was not a failure.

NJT, Newark, New Jersey, USA

Personally I wouldn't download a Radiohead album if you paid me...

Clive, Key West, FL

Just look at the numbers... 1.2 million people paid an average of $6.00, thats $7.2 million for this album; ANY artist would kill for that kind of money off an album, especially since the only expense that has to come out of that total is studio time fees (I assume... I'm not their accountant, who knows what they need for expenses). Most artists make their money touring, not from album sales. 7.2 mil is a huge success by any standard, and think about how many "new" fans got into radiohead for free: what % of them will go shell out for some of the older albums? I think this will, in the long run, be a huge success for the band.

Matt, NY, USA

The point is that Radiohead weren't trying to make a 'Brave New World' for music. They knew full well that the moment they put their album out there for review, etc. it would be leaked and those who wanted to hear it would get hold of a copy.

All they did was provide a method to get back some money for that download. As an experiment it proved that people will pay for something they could get for free. The real trick will be to see how many copies of the physical album sell. Certainly comments on a lot of internet message boards and the like make it clear there are people out there who grabbed it for nothing because they want a proper CD copy of the album, which they'll buy when it becomes available.

Theo Graham-Brown, London, UK

Totally bizarre conclusions thought up be record execs desperately trying to save their failing business model.

Of course people are going to download albums without paying for it if they can.

What they're missing here is, everyone could have downloaded it for nothing, but they didn't. People were willing to shell out money for something they can get for nothing.

The average price of a physical CD here is $9.99CAD to $14CAD (~5£ to ~7£) so let's get some perspective here.

Don, Edmont, Canada

Welcome to the Internet, Radiohead!

Craig, Ajax, Canada

It's bizarre that the tone of the overall article is so negative on the experiment. Radiohead themselves netted over $4million in a few weeks. This is far more than their share would have been through the traditional label channel, where they get less than 10% of the proceeds.

It is natural that the labels will spin this as negative, since they are being cut out of the loop: their business model is obseleted by this approach.

However, it would be surprising if the band themselves viewed a quick $4million as a bad thing.

One flawed assumption that always surrounds music downloads is that every free copy is a "stolen" copy representing lost revenues. In reality, many people who "steal" music would have forgone the music if they had to pay for it.

BTW, I paid 2 pounds sterling. More than Radiohead would have gotten via traditional chanels, but less than I would have had to pay any other way. This is a win-win solution.

Brent, Ottawa,

Maybe if Radiohead released their album at a bitrate slightly higher than that of an AM broadcast, they might have statistics to be a little more proud of. I think it's all a publicity stunt at the expense of the last few honest music consumers.

Strike, Winnipeg, Canada

One question though: when calculating that 62 percent didn't pay anything for it, does this take account of people who 'bought' it for free, listened to it, and then went back and paid for it? I only ask because if everyone did that (as many people in online forums have been saying they did) then the stats would say that only 50 percent paid for it, when in reality 100 percent paid for it, but downloaded it once for free.

Robert Thorpe, Reading, UK

This is a fantastic idea for established bands to do; many people cannot afford an awful lot of music and with the availability of music online to illegally download it is all too tempting to break the law. Radiohead are effectively saying 'have this album, leave a tip if you want', playing on the better nature of people; if people can afford it, naturally they should. I feel the experiment can be seen to have worked, as a little under £3.5 million has been brought in through online 'sales' according to the figures above, and all people who have downloaded it will have done it from there, as it makes no sense not to. As I have heard that there are 25 illegal downloads for every legal one, I think that this was a resounding success.

N. English, Birmingham, England