Commentary

Freeloaders Didn't Hurt Radiohead Sales

Radiohead kicked off a trend last year when it released "In Rainbows" at pay-what-you-wish pricing, but whether the initiative gleaned more than just goodwill wasn't clear. Until now.

This week, Warner Chappell said that people purchased 1.75 million hard copies of "In Rainbows," making the album more successful than either of the group's previous two releases. The 2003 "Hail to the Thief" sold 990,000 copies, while 2001's "Amnesiac" sold 900,000.

One hundred thousand of the "In Rainbows" sales were for $80 deluxe box-set editions that also included vinyl records, photos and other art and a hardback book.

Most of the CD purchases took place after Radiohead made "In Rainbows" available for free downloading last October. While it's possible that Radiohead would have sold even more copies had it not made any available for free, the decision to let people download without paying for the tracks clearly didn't leave the band without paying customers.

Still, not every musician will have the success of Radiohead -- which has a huge fan base dating back to at least 1993, when the band released its first record.

But music industry executives who insist on blaming falling revenue on file-sharing should also take note that some people will pay for music and add-ons even if tracks are available for free.

Still, the record labels would rather litigate than pursue new approaches. The record industry has spent millions and millions of dollars pursuing lawsuits against individuals who allegedly shared music on peer-to-peer networks. The group has targeted nearly 30,000 individuals in five years, and apparently intends to continue along this path.

In the latest news on that front, the record industry just filed an appeal of a ruling that overturned the verdict against Jammie Thomas, the first person in the country found liable of copyright infringement for allegedly uploading tracks to a peer-to-peer network.

A jury ordered Thomas to pay $220,000, but the judge who presided over the trial set aside the verdict last month. He said he wrongly instructed the jurors that they could find Thomas liable simply for making tracks available on Kazaa -- when he should have told them that the record industry had to prove that someone actually downloaded those tracks.

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