fair music weblog

The announcement of british band Radiohead to release their new album as download first and letting the fans decide how much they want to pay caused a lot of blog entries and comments. People are discussing if this was a good idea or not, whether it will be an example for other bands or kill the business all along. Bob Lefsetz, authority in music analysis, says very directly what he thinks about this news.

First he wonders in his The Lefsetz Letter if this news could be true, then thinks about the reasons and comes to the conclusion that Radiohead are playing by a different rule book “that says the money flows from the music, that people have to believe in you, that you’ve got to treat them right.”

Radiohead’s decision, writes Lefsetz, is industry’s worst nightmare:”This is big news. This says the major labels are fucked. Untrustworthy with a worthless business model. (…) This is what happens when you sell twenty dollar CDs with one good track and sue your customers for trading P2P. This is what happens when you believe you’re ENTITLED to your business. This is what happens when music is a second-class citizen only interested in the bottom line.”

“Mittelfinger für die Musikindustrie” - ORF Futurezone

Picture of Johnny Greenwood made in Avenches 2006 by hardtoexplain, released into the public domain. For details see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Radiohead-Jonny.jpg