The Price of Everything - Eduardo Porter [62]
To economists, whose understanding of civilization starts with the assumption that people are hardwired to seek value for money, what was perplexing was that 38 percent of those who downloaded In Rainbows, by comScore’s estimate, chose to pay even though they didn’t have to. Could these fans have been overwhelmed by some altruistic urge to give money to rock stars, rich though they are? Maybe they believed it was unjust to pay nothing for something they coveted, made by people they loved. Maybe they appreciated the novelty of the experiment.
ComScore estimated that the band made $2.26 per download; a decent sum considering the audio file available for download was of fairly low quality. Moreover, the band didn’t have to share any of the money with a record label. And there was more money to be made. Fans rushed to buy a higher-quality version of the album when it went on sale a few months later—pushing it to the top of the American and British charts. In the United States it remained on the charts for fifty-two weeks, longer than any other Radiohead album. By October of 2008, In Rainbows had sold more than 3 million copies, according to the band’s publisher, including 100,000 of a special boxed set that retailed for about $80. This surpassed the sales of the previous two albums, Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac . Pumped by the enormous publicity surrounding the album’s release, the subsequent concert tour was a smashing hit.
To believers in the transformational potential of the Internet, Radiohead’s experiment suggested that the information economy could revolutionize capitalism by allowing creators to make a living while giving away their creations for free. This new economy might require people to radically change their approach to property. But In Rainbows demonstrated that if creators would free themselves of the capitalistic shackles represented by record labels, Hollywood studios, and other representatives of corporate greed that siphoned off a big slice of their revenues, this new paradigm could work out for everybody.
No longer would it be necessary for creators to hide behind the walls of copyright erected to protect “intellectual property.” The production of information goods would be supported by consumers’ altruism, much like philanthropy or tipping. Artists could stoke consumers’ sense of fairness and reciprocity by giving away the product of their toil to anybody who wanted it for free.
Yet despite the utopian feel of Radiohead’s implicit proposition, In Rainbows was less a product of communitarian idealism than of stark, urgent necessity. The nexus between creativity and commerce that has powered capitalism for hundreds of years is under increasing threat. Computers and the Internet have made it so easy to copy and share information around the world that its creators have lost their ability to charge for it. Radiohead was looking for alternatives to survive in a world in which, like it or not, its fans could listen to its music at will, free of charge.
Music is the tip of the iceberg. Over the past decade or so, most young people have come to believe that news is a free commodity too, readily available online. Google scanned millions of out-of-print books and, if the courts accede, hopes to create a vast free library online. Movies are available gratis to those with a broadband connection and a modicum of computer chops. VoIP technology allows anyone with an Internet connection to make free phone calls around the world. And corporate software giants now must routinely compete with the “freeware” designed by thousands of engineers,