Advanced

Radiohead knows more than Microsoft about security

Posted by Sander_Marechal on · 12 comments
Tech Republic; By Chad Perrin
Mail this story
Print this story

Music fans, recording artists, journalists, the RIAA, and digital rights activists have at least one thing in common right now. I’m speaking of the intense interests some people from each group have in the outcome of Radiohead’s recent experiment in business models for musicians, of course. The point is that security is, among other things, a matter of picking your battles well. There are some things that just cannot be protected in the long run and ultimately, if your business model depends on protecting such things, either your business model will change or your business will fail. It’s really that simple.

[Not Linux related, but interesting nonetheless - Sander]

Full Story

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: Editorial; Groups: Community

» Get new stories by e-mail: nightly or as they are published

« Return to the newswire homepage

  Related stories
» More like this

Comments (12)

I have played Drums semi-professionally for the last 20+ years and the band I am in now we are in the midst of copyrighting all of our songs which we will then be able to form a publishing company around. Once that is done we will be able to sell and distribute or if we choose, give away copies of our own music like Radiohead is doing.

The reason that the MPAA and the RIAA are so pissed is because Radiohead owns the publishing company that controls the rights to their new album, and their is nothing they can do about it. They attempted to stop its distribution but could not prove that had a right to distribute it because they do not own the publishing company for that music. They have been cut out of the piece of the pie that they never owned anyway.

By the way, the record companies take is usually 50% or more, just to promote and distribute music. So even if 60% of the people who download their album do not pay for it Radiohead will still easily make more money than if they had gone the "traditional' route.

This is a good first step but I think the real tectonic shift will happen when a new band gets discovered on the internet. When bands vie for their big chance on youtube rather than their highrise offices the traditional "promoters" will be seen to promote mainly their own money interests.
Quoting:I think the real tectonic shift will happen when a new band gets discovered on the internet.


Already happened. I don't remember the name of the band (not my kind of music. I'm into 80's heavy metal) but it was in the UK IIRC. Some band stormed the #1 position in the charts purely from downloads and word-of-mount on the internet. They didn't have any association with the music labels.
moopst, you're right. That's a different game than going independent after already being famous and successful.
>it was in the UK IIRC. Some band stormed the #1 position in the charts purely from downloads and word-of-mount on the internet.

"Crazy Frog Axel F"?
Hahaha, no :-)
Quoting:Already happened. I don't remember the name of the band...


Arctic Monkeys is probably the name you're looking for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_monkeys

Also, Esmee Denters serves as a fine example; she always sings on Youtube and owns a Myspace, Hyves etc. profile where everybody can become her friend, and through that friend network she 'distributes' her music, most of the times for free. In the beginning, she never made any money out of it; this also wasn't her intention. However, when Justin Timberlake saw her sing, he asked her to join him on stage; and this was the result:

http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v99/64/120/62...

Remember, the girl had never been on stage before, all her clips were recorded in her 'girlish' sleeping room! OK, to be honest, Esmee ended up at a recording label, but it was Justin Timberlakes own label, not a RIAA-label, and since Justin himself is a fan of Esmee, he's probably not going to rip her off.

Also worth mentioning is Stacey Records, founded by the then 16 year old girl Stacey Rookhuizen who was unsatisfied with the lack of attention from major labels for new artists, and therefore, she founded her own record label. The major labels didn't do their best for 'unproven startup-bands' because their revenue was decreasing as a result of p2p-downloading. After a fair bit of media-attention, Stacey's collection-albums 'Dutch Delight' were kind of successful. This didn't go unnoticed, and SonyBMG asked her to join BGM - which means they do see her as a threat. She did for a while, but last year she quit because the liked to be her own boss. She's also doing adds via Myspace et.all. I believe, so though she is a 'regular' record label, she uses new media a lot, and therefore also is a threat to major recold labels.

These three examples I mentioned are only from the West-European region and the ones I am aware of, so there must be a lot more of these 'threats' to major labels out there. So I'm curious to see how this evolves; and thinking about it, it is interesting to see the RIAA is as desperate as Microsoft at this time.
Don't forget Magnatune "We are not Evil" at http://www.magnatune.com/
What a great example tracyanne,

I have bought and then immediately downloaded several albums from there. Magnatune will most likely be the only other place besides our own website that you will be able to buy our music from.

They have so many great artists on their website, its incredible.

Quoting:Arctic Monkeys is probably the name you're looking for


Yup, that's the one.
I'm on Magnatune's Song of the Day list, so I get a daily email from them with all sorts of musical genres and artists. It's all good.
Also check out http://www.mindawn.net I haven't bought anything from them, but there's some stuff I might when I get around to it. Everything is provided in ogg, flac, or both.

Post a comment

A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.

Your message:
|||||
10
Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help

Sign up and post (it is free)  or  Log in and post