I was going to write about this over the weekend, but I got distracted with my D&D group, and 4am Ihop pancakes (Mmmm, 4am Pancakes…). Anyway; so apparently about 2 weeks ago, Radiohead put out the album In Rainbows for free and let anyone download it if they want, and told them to pay what they think is fair. 1 week later, they sold 1.2 million albums(which is more than their last three releases combined), and made, on average, $8 per download (about $10 million dollars). The really impressive bit, is that most of that is pure profit and goes straight to the band, minus maybe $500,000 for recording, and $1,000 for hosting and bandwidth. Normally with all the money taken out by the labels for marketing and to line their own pockets, the band only gets about $1-$2 per album sold. The music industry is changing; back in the day (we had to walk uphill both ways barefoot in the snow!) to get an album sold to even a few thousand people, you’d need to pay for marketing, get DJ’s to play your stuff, play in concerts (which itself meant more ads, and paying to rent the space and equipment), unfair distribution contracts with the labels. Now all you need is a MySpace page, and place to record your stuff. If you want to sell, rather than just distribute, get an iTunes account. Heck, I didn’t have the musical ability of a mute snail, I could probably start a band and get myself some cash, but that would require talent, and effort, and we all know THAT will never happen to me. Where was I? Anyway apparently the Tip Jar strategy works for music, and this album has confirmed that humans aren’t very rational. Like THAT’S news… Zettageek PS Oh and apparently Dumbledore is gay. *shrug*