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[bff]

So now the RIAA wants to lower the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters from 13% to 8%.  So much for U2's managers proposal that ISP discontinue service to P2P users to protect the poor songwriters.

[valley_parade]

Have fun finding bootlegs of those percussion jams in the early middle ages, dude.

[Inlander]

Pretty sure those weren't recorded.

[valley_parade]

I traveled back in time. *nods*

[Spinless]

I had to learn to throw a punch SO fast that my fist would cut through time itself. One I had perfected it, I send Shane back to into the past to record such classic bands as  The King Leonidas' Lonely Spartans Club Band.

[soatari]

I think that more bands should go the way of Radiohead's latest release "In Rainbows"; digital self release with no DRM. They made more money than they would have releasing through a label, and they even managed to debut at No. 1.

I'm not really a fan, but this sets a precedent that I think musicians should follow. Cut out the middle man.

[Hat]

Please explain to me how it is fucking over to release something for free and then to release the same album later commercially with more material.

People who donated money knew that the album would be released commercially later with a bonus disk (which isn't that fantastic anyway), I'm not really following your train of thought here.

[Spinless]

Uh...the people who didn't download it for free, which was a LOT of people, probably believed they were going to get the entire album? Some people even paid around the cost of the CD.
I know, I struggle with the fact that people payed for the low quality downloads too.
These people are known as 'fans'. Fans pay to support their favourite artist. Then, they had to pay a second time, the full retail price, as the mp3s they had payed for were finally revealed to not only be rather terrible quality, but missing part of the album.
"Bonus Tracks" was a nice way of saying "The version you payed for first isn't the full album, but if we say it like that, there will be a riot."

People seem to forgot about that Saul Williams album, that was also free, but offered the entire album at 192kbps, 320 kbps or FLAC lossless. I think that was taken down after 100,000 downloads, but I still believe that this was far more noble than what Radiohead did.

[a pack of wolves]

There's also http://www.quoteunquoterecords.com/ and http://www.moshpit-tragedy.com/ who exclusively do downloads for donations at 192kbps with full artwork. They've both got much better music than Radiohead and Saul Williams too.

[Spinless]

Awesome! Find more treasure troves like these guys! Spread the word! Help to stop good publicity traveling in the wrong direction!

[a pack of wolves]

Can do. Craw have had mp3s of all their albums up on their website for years at 192kbps, and these are no bedroom recordings, they were all done by Albini (and totally kill it). http://www.craw.com/

Higher Council of Mars don't even ask for donations, they just want people to hear what they do. The record's actually pretty good, it's in that Hydrahead/Old Man Gloom/Jesu/all that kind of thing vein but it's produced by Kev Pupilar so he's messed around with the songs enough and added enough oddness to make it interesting. http://www.myspace.com/xhighercouncilofmarsx

I really highly recommend the Cheeky EP on the Quote Unquote website. Best pop-punk I've heard in ages and I think they're only asking for donations of $3 or something silly like that for it.

[Johnny C]

I like how everyone thinks a bonus disc is a full part of the record. Someone let Spoon know to avoid something like Get Nice in the future!

Radiohead did the downloading thing while saying that the diskbox would be coming later, as would a proper commercial release. You were paying for a leak of the album and you knew it. The vast majority of downloaders did so for free.

Besides, I listened to 128kpbs for years and years and never knew there was a difference, and that's likely true of a number of people here. The fact is that it literally does not make the music any better or worse, just the sound quality. If you want to look for a way to chastise a band, please try to find something legitimate, hey?

[bff]

to me it sounds like Radiohead have a very strong grasp on the brave new world of the recording industry.  give the music away for free, if you do want to make money on cd sales include stuff you can't get on a download, and if you want to make oodles of money you better tour your ass off. 

[Trillian]

@ Johnny C:
Spot on.  I was pretty much going to say something along these lines. 

To add to that, I think that Radiohead was ingenious with how they chose to release the album.  For a good while micro-payments have been discussed by so many different people, and it seems to be the general consensus that it would be far more effective for something to be offered that can be obtained for free prior to releasing the paid content.  People are more willing to pay for more if they are offered a sort of test run.  The best way to support bands and also pay minimum for the music is to cut out the middle man.  I was definitely happy that someone had decided to take matters into their own hands and do it themselves. 

Plus I watched a really hilarious interview with them.  People kept asking them if they were trying to stick it to the man by releasing their album like this, so their response was that they had done it because they wanted to make it harder for homeless people to get it.  It made me giggle a little bit. 

[Cire27]

Despite Radiohead, this whole RIAA thing is amazing.  Just goes to show you how desperate they are.