Many have tried to measure the success of Radiohead’s experiment. 
For those of you that have been following the story you will have noted the magic, “1.2 million” figure. 1.2 million downloaded in the first day*, 1.2 million in the first week**, 1.2 million hits in the first 29 days***, and in time I’m sure there will be those who speculate on “1.2 million suicides”
Speculate is of course the keyword. While Internet data analyst’s comScore Inc were taken and beaten like a redheaded stepchild for their assumptions, they were not alone in making wild guesses at the success of the endeavour. There have been emphatic statements issued from all areas of the press and the Internet as to the amount of revenue produced, the average price paid and the percentage of people who paid for the new album; some would have that in the first twenty-four hours Radiohead made 4.8 million pounds (about 11.2 million dollars Australian).
These are the facts; we don’t know how much the band has earned. In a statement issued by Radiohead to NME, they stated,
“In response to purely speculative figures announced in the press regarding the number of downloads and the price paid for the album, the group’s representatives would like to remind people that, as the album could only be downloaded from the band’s website, it is impossible for outside organisations to have accurate figures on sales,” they explained.The statement added: “However, they can confirm that the figures quoted by the company comScore Inc are wholly inaccurate and in no way reflect definitive market intelligence or, indeed, the true success of the project.”**** The true measure of the success of “In rainbows” could maybe be better measured in terms of publicity; a quick search in Google yields a total of “About 1.49 million articles relating to the album while Leona Lewis’ album, which has been claimed to have soared through the charts registers a mere 0.86 million articles- this is with the backing of major marketing from “X-factor” and Sony BMG. Radiohead has claimed publicity money literally cannot buy.
So what does this tell the independent artist?
First, the Internet is a valuable tool for publicity and marketing. Second, you don’t need big dollars and a huge marketing campaign behind you; Radiohead has generated this interest not in spite, but because of their silence; they’ve left the hard work up to the press; we’ve speculated, written, are writing, guessing and second guessing with every article only serving to reinforce the publicity monster that is rumbling and lurching about the world, absorbing peoples cash at their request and spitting out more and more copies of the album.
By maintaining their silence Radiohead have maintained their anti-consumerism stance while at the same time being financially rewarded for it; people get a kick out of giving the band money because they don’t have to. The Album itself is DRM (Digital rights management) free, which means you can copy it, hand it out to friends or even peer to peer share it.
In one fell swoop they have not eliminated the peer-to-peer sharing of the album, but made it unnecessary; why file share the album when you can download it yourself? How can you deride a band as “selling out” when they’re giving they ask you how much you think it’s worth?
The Radiohead model is beyond the ken of economists because you cannot predict tipping with any degree of certainty; the model has left economists wondering, does 2+2=5?
* http://www.gigwise.com/news/37670/exclusive-radiohead-sell-12million-copies-of-in-rainbows
** http://www.ateaseweb.com/2007/10/17/in-rainbows-tops-virtual-charts/
