What exactly do you see as the legal basis of the suit? I don't see any suit as having a legal leg to stand on.
Andrew
· 2 years ago
I have the same question. What specific charge could be brought against Radiohead? Under which country's laws? Which labels would have standing in the suit?
Nick Schmidt
· 2 years ago
The suit could be for the agreement with the record companies? Plus the suit could be with RIAA.
In the 1980s or so the RIAA didn't even like tapes because you could record albums and give them to other people (re record). So what they did was worked with the blank tape companies to receive a certain % of the sales.
I wonder what the RIAA can even do? Because it is the musician's discretion to do whatever they want with their music. As long as they have 100% of the copyrights of their music.
My question is . How is Radiohead (& other artist that do this) going to make money? Are they just going to increase the price of all their concerts, clothing, and memorabilia?
cuffshark
· 2 years ago
@Andrew
Exactly. Just because the Bushies /say/ everyone is suing everyone doesn't make it so.
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
Musicians make the majority of their money on live shows and merchandise already. Radiohead's $2.26 per download is about 2.26 times what they would have made per album if it weere on a label everyone who had a copy of it paid $17.95. Except now, way more people have the album and can recommend it to friends and might be interested in a show. More money, more ears. Win-win for Radiohead.
Now, the idea that the industry is responsible for Radiohead's success is crap. The industry creates a massive filter on what you hear and what gets marketed. They do not create good music, they just control the distribution. Who's to say that Radiohead wouldn't be at the top of the heap of a completely organic/uncontrolled music selection process? Judging from the music they have put out, I would guess that they'd be up there anyway.
Mike
· 2 years ago
The industry IS responsible for Radiohead's success. The major label is the best at what they do and that's marketing a band. By your statement about Radiohead being at the top w/o label support - name one artist on the same level to compare then your argument can be proven as valid.
AlexMerced
· 2 years ago
The label in an antiquated business model, you don't really need them anymore except for musicians who havn't done their research.
Most of the services you need from them can be handled by a decent management team of `1.
The margins can't be the same, mean production costs can't be the same. I've seen great albums made for almost nothing and real crap made for million in production cost. The major labels in order to survive just need to stop wasting so much money in production. It's called free market pressures, it breed innovation.
AlexMerced
· 2 years ago
other methods of revenue:
- Donations - Recording Vblog ads show them the music before they even have chance to steal it, and sell ads - give a portion to charity, it'll shorten margins but increase sales - abandon the cd - subscription, new songs every month emailed eight to you for small monthly fee - Live Show subscriptions, this could be bad - Licensing & Endorsements
GIVE all content away, and focus on merchandise sales, but you got to cut production costs.
mundochis
· 2 years ago
I wonder if that 62% that did not pay for the album wouldn't have paid for the album anyway if it was available only as a physical medium out in the store...
Paul C
· 2 years ago
I can't think of any possible basis any record label would have for a suit against Radiohead. Radiohead is now the sole owner of its copyrighted material, and can distribute it as they see fit. The fact is, if bands can support themselves via this business model they should and will.
DigitalHobbit
· 2 years ago
I have heard from several people that first downloaded the album for free and later went back and chose to pay for it after listening to it for a few times and deciding that they liked it. I wonder what percentage of the 62% can be attributed to this, which might be skewing the results. Either way, they must be reaching a significantly larger audience than with traditional CD sales, and of course they're getting a much better cut from each sale, so I would guess that they're doing quite well with this new approach.
Lewis Zimmerman
· 2 years ago
I also think that a large reason why there was so much "success" in what radiohead did has to do with a couple little externalities (which I wrote about here: http://blog.sawce.net/2007/10/22/inrainbows/). I mean, it was a giant public case, people liked what they saw in a possible trend, so isn't there an incentive there to at least try to make it take off so they could expect the same from other bands in the future?
I mean, it only makes sense that the incentive of a possible future filled with more "pick-your-price" downloads would help boost sales of In Rainbows at least a little bit. Its important to really discount that out of what Radiohead accomplished with its $10million or whatever they're at in sales from this thing if you want to make a case out of it.
ildella
· 2 years ago
What I think today is exactly what I thought two years ago. Music industry as we have known in decades ios going to fail. Just waiting for the inevitable.
Radiohead gave first punch. Now, after some months of daze, there will be the general flee from the sinking boat. When the best band of the last 10-15 years leave, then everyone will follow, artitst but also poducers and other that work in industry, the smartest one will try to recycle themself where there is business, where people go nowadays.
So we will listen some big music star that will follow Radiohead move, just to follow the hype or to revamp. What I hope is that a year from now the youngest one will stop go around chatting about protecting their property, finding a publisher and a video on mtv and just put their music on the web and see what happens.
Evan Lloyd
· 2 years ago
This could also have some negative effects in the way that desperate bands might enter into bogus lifetime contracts with record companies. Imagine you are still wanting to make it big and some label says we'll help but you will always be our band...keyword always! The only way to go is to steamroller on over the RIAA dinosaurs and release music yourself. Bands like Radiohead and others that have made the migration should start sharing their knowledge of how to market via the web and help other fledgling bands in the process. Being free isn't just a $$ figure.
Ryan
· 3 months ago
Wow, horrible recycled journalism. Seriously... this was someone saying "hmmm what to write about... what to write about... oh I know! We wrote about this cool business model thing Radiohead did a while back, I'll just reuse that content but try to put some contrived spin on it where they "could" get sued and then write a headline that makes people think Radiohead did something new to upset the industry since the last story we wrote, even though they didn't".
News should be NEW! Say the word "News"... sounds a lot like "NEW" with an s on it doesn't it? OR... if it's an editorial opinion piece, it shouldn't be so contrived.
All Comments
In the 1980s or so the RIAA didn't even like tapes because you could record albums and give them to other people (re record). So what they did was worked with the blank tape companies to receive a certain % of the sales.
I wonder what the RIAA can even do? Because it is the musician's discretion to do whatever they want with their music. As long as they have 100% of the copyrights of their music.
My question is . How is Radiohead (& other artist that do this) going to make money?
Are they just going to increase the price of all their concerts, clothing, and memorabilia?
Exactly. Just because the Bushies /say/ everyone is suing everyone doesn't make it so.
Now, the idea that the industry is responsible for Radiohead's success is crap. The industry creates a massive filter on what you hear and what gets marketed. They do not create good music, they just control the distribution. Who's to say that Radiohead wouldn't be at the top of the heap of a completely organic/uncontrolled music selection process? Judging from the music they have put out, I would guess that they'd be up there anyway.
Most of the services you need from them can be handled by a decent management team of `1.
The margins can't be the same, mean production costs can't be the same. I've seen great albums made for almost nothing and real crap made for million in production cost. The major labels in order to survive just need to stop wasting so much money in production. It's called free market pressures, it breed innovation.
- Donations
- Recording Vblog ads
show them the music before they even have chance to steal it, and sell ads
- give a portion to charity, it'll shorten margins but increase sales
- abandon the cd
- subscription, new songs every month emailed eight to you for small monthly fee
- Live Show subscriptions, this could be bad
- Licensing & Endorsements
GIVE all content away, and focus on merchandise sales, but you got to cut production costs.
I mean, it only makes sense that the incentive of a possible future filled with more "pick-your-price" downloads would help boost sales of In Rainbows at least a little bit. Its important to really discount that out of what Radiohead accomplished with its $10million or whatever they're at in sales from this thing if you want to make a case out of it.
Radiohead gave first punch. Now, after some months of daze, there will be the general flee from the sinking boat.
When the best band of the last 10-15 years leave, then everyone will follow, artitst but also poducers and other that work in industry, the smartest one will try to recycle themself where there is business, where people go nowadays.
So we will listen some big music star that will follow Radiohead move, just to follow the hype or to revamp. What I hope is that a year from now the youngest one will stop go around chatting about protecting their property, finding a publisher and a video on mtv and just put their music on the web and see what happens.
News should be NEW! Say the word "News"... sounds a lot like "NEW" with an s on it doesn't it? OR... if it's an editorial opinion piece, it shouldn't be so contrived.
Rubbish.