There has been talk this week of just how well Radiohead did with their free giveaway offer.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/04/1730201&from=rssAccording to the Financial Times, the music industry should embrace illegal file-sharing websites. A recent study of the recent Radiohead album release found that huge numbers of illegal downloads actually helped the band's popularity and, by extension, concert ticket sales.
"Radiohead's release of In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis last October generated enormous traffic to the band's own website and intense speculation about how much fans had paid. He urged record companies to study the outcome and accept that file-sharing sites were here to stay. 'It's time to stop swimming against the tide of what people want,' he said."
You cant buy enough free positive publicity it seems and Radiohead are likely to gain from their actions again and again, it seems a pity they can look forward as many artists or bands are taught to fear filesharing when in fact its been shown to significantly enhance sales, after all it stands to reason, if you cant hear an artist or groups output your unlikley to purchase any of their work.
