said by SRFireside 
:said by Nightfall :How much did Radiohead make from selling their album this way compared to going through a label? That is what they should be focusing on.
Nothing official has been released just yet, but speculation puts the sales figure at least around $6 million. If they are keeping all of the proceeds then Radiohead really came out ahead since album royalties hover around $1-$2 (depending on copyright ownership of the songs, length of song, number of tracks, etc) with the record label keeping the rest.
On top of that record labels tend to tag on production and promotional costs on their contracts, which means the label gets a lion's share of the profits while at the same time taking the artist's share of the album royalties. Essentially they are getting paid back their costs to produce (sometimes even promote) the record by the artist.
If Radiohead did all of their own production and distribution on this little project (which can't be more than a million... and that's a gross over-estimation) then they definitely netted more on this than with the label. On top of all that Radiohead will still get their share of the album sales from the label when the physical disk is released.
The cheapskates got their free album with no fear of copyright infringement, the band got millions of dollars from the people who like supporting the artist, fans got to buy the album at a price they felt was fair, the record label got zilch. It's a win/win
It will be interesting to see how unsigned artists do with this. For as much as the RIAA sucks balls, they do advertise and get artists airtime. Radiohead is popular because of their past popularity.
·
·
·
