Monday, October 01, 2007
Is Radiohead starting a new trend?
Have you heard the latest that the rock group Radiohead is allowing its fans to download their entire new album from their website for whatever price you feel is fair? NPR ran a segment about this and said that since most bands get little or nothing from the labels from the royalties on their songs, they have little to lose. If the fans pay anything it is a win for the band. Plus it helps promote new fans who may actually pay money for concerts. This seems like a perfect nitch for Apple to promote the bands on iTunes for minimal fees. Will this trend continue?
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2 comments:
Stitch, if the record labels felt swept up in the digital revolution before, this would sweep them out to sea! I'm not so sure that the artists get negligible royalties - maybe I don't want to believe it! However, if that's true, then this could really be the wave of the future. As technology has become ubiquitous and easy to use, people are being freed of having to deal with mega corporations to produce their own material. If Radiohead ends up with success, then the record industries really will do down in flames. But I still think this line of reasoning is based on the notion that artists don't benefit appreciably from they partnership with the huge labels, and I'm not totally convinced that is true.
Here is the link to the NPR story.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/01/radiohead_album/
They state that less than 5% see a royalty check beyond their initial advance. Plus I have seen other stories which say the musicians only get less than 10 cents per song in royalties.
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