Ten Pounds...so roughly $20.00 US... since it's whatever I want to pay and that I value Radiohead as an artist and applaud this experiment, I thought it was a fair value.

I'll pay $5.00 for the download. If I knew that the download was lossless (i.e., not some lossy format like mp3) I'd be willing to pay more. I'm also less likely to pay full CD retail price for a download because I value the booklet and album art. I will, however, order the actual CD when it's released (unless the album stinks).

I obviously haven't purchased yet, but I'm so marvelously filled with righteous dignation (I'm not even a huge Radiohead fan) that I'm gonna buy on 10/10 and pay a buck a song. Nice work carrying the banner, lads.

10 pounds.

5 or 10 bucks, depending on the quality of the files. I'll wait to decide.

I *don't* p2p music, but the record companies deserve to get overthrown after doubling the price of albums in the 80's (in the transition to CDs) and never turning back. I'm sick of those ghouls laughing all the way to the bank on the backs of everyone (artists and consumers) who make their business possible. I'd rather they cried their way to their grave.

BTW, I'd completely endorse iTunes (and don't mind the easily-worked-around DRM) for giving 65% to the indie artists, if only they'd offer the best possible quality for the 99 cent rate. Generally, I hope any artist would bail on every other middleman and go the 65% route with iTunes. Win+Win+a big "in your face" to the parasites who deserve it.

Good show, Radiohead. Viva la revolucion.

Paid 6 pounds. Plus .45 for credit card transaction.

worth every penny. I would've paid more. it's gonna be a real beaut, folks.

Why are people being so stingy? What in the world makes you think that $5 or even $10 is a generous amount to pay for an album? Why is it that music seems to be the only art form where people expect to pay less and less for it as every year goes on?

Do you have any idea what goes in to making an album of music? It's massive. Record label or not, art deserves to be treated as such. This is something you get to have and re-use for the rest of your life.

When are people going to realize that the less and less they pay musicians to create, the less and less music will exist in the world?

$10.00.

Radiohead (in my opinion) deserve it and are worth every penny. Seems like a ridiculously small price to pay for a record I'll have for the rest of my life. And the people who made the record keep the lion's share of the profit. Isn't this one reason why we have technology?

i figured that i used to pay about $16.00 for new releases back in the day when i shopped in a record store (hasn't happened for literally 3 or 4 years now)... and one of the last things i bought in a store at full price was "hail to the thief". i really admire the band musically and i love the idea of how they're selling this album BUT i'm giving up liner notes, album art and CD quality. i figured $15.00 was fair: still way more than i pay downloading from emusic, but not throwing money at the music either. 7.5 pounds plus shipping made it 7.95 pounds. now i just hope it doesn't suck.

I'm not a music person, in fact I will often have the radio off in my car so I can listen to the purring tone of my well maintained mid-80's Toyota. I've heard of the band, but can't say I've ever even heard any of their songs, and despite that I'll buy the digital download myself for $5.00 just out of respect for their tenacity, and out of spite for the labels.

Go Radiohead!

I decided to pay 5 pounds. I think $10 sounds about fair for a record these days.

The record company covers all sorts of cost that now have to come out of the band's take, so the purchase price has to be more than $1.50 for the band to actually get that amount after paying expenses. How much more? I've no idea.

As KK said, it ain't that much. The record company recoups the production, marketing, distribution, and promotion costs before the band gets a dime. That's why in the vast majority of record contracts, the only money the band makes is in the advance.

Not to mention that Radiohead will retain the masters and copyrights, which will yield more money in the years ahead. Usually the record company gets those too.

I have to disagree with kings comment "he points out that if selling the same volume at better profits was that easy, many big acts would be fleeing the labels, and that's not happening". With the focus of music slipping into a digital format as opposed to a physical retailer it is much easier for a band to distribute their own material. One of the biggest drawbacks for bands the size of radiohead is manufacturing millions of cds is very costly. With downloading becoming more popular the need for actual cds lowers, thus removing one obstacle. The other drawback for bands has been promotion. I daresay that a band like radiohead is better at promoting themselves to thier fans than the label has ever been. They are technically profficient enough to reach thier own audience, do they really need a billboard? While I don't think that every band will be able to follow this blueprint, I deffinately see more established artist following suit.

I've long defended my downloading by claiming that the bands didn't get enough of the sale price of a CD, and the industry's cut was going into churning out the next Britanny Spears. Its a self-serving argument because I'm justifying not paying for music, but I think it holds water. The current model the music industry is using is broken, and giving them more money is just going to prolong their inevitable slide into irrelevance.

A capitalist system - of which I'm largely in support of - dictates that a company will prosper if it's able to sell a good or a service at a price that reflects the demand. The music industry is trying to spin P2P as stealing, but the reality is that they're just trying to defend a monopolistic, anti-capitalist market strategy to keep the dollars flowing into their pockets. Since music is essentially free, sell me a service that means I don't have to jump around Bit Torrent sites wondering about the integrity and quality of what I'm downloading. Sell it for a reasonable price, where the artist is getting paid a reasonable cut, and you have a business model that might be profitable.

Record labels added value when recording, promotion and distribution required huge capital investment. With the advent of cheap, high-quality recording hardware and software, as well as P2P and decentralized information systems that are just coming into their own, the recording industry has ceased to add value. Sure, they claim that they help new bands get established, but the facts don't support these claims. The industry has manufactured one-hit wonders at the expense of independent and original artists so they can realize economies of scale. They have hurt music, not helped it.

Radiohead might not be the first, they might owe much of their commercial success to the traditional model, but still, this is going to change the rules of the game. Who knows where this will end up, but even if they don't make a penny at this, its going to change the debate, this will have a huge impact.

In comments most people have focused on how the $1.50 figure is too low, because of the additional costs. But the total revenue is: cost per download * # of downloads. The biggest obvious difference isn't what the band will net per album, its whether the number of downloads will be significantly larger than if people were forced to pay $15. If Radiohead ends up making more money than they would have with EMI, even Metallica is going take notice.