"It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do," he said. "I don't think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time."



Speaking as Radiohead was promoting its pro-social initiative with MTV against sex- and labor trafficking, Yorke said successful bands have new ways to communicate directly with fans.



"We are about that direct relationship (now) because we are big enough to establish that," he said.

The band has a new video for "All I Need," which was produced jointly with MTV Europe for its anti-human-trafficking MTV Exit campaign. According to Thom, it's all "about exploiting a situation while you have the chance." In more ways than one, dude.

Thom Yorke: Radiohead's stunt was 'one-off' [Hollywood Reporter]

as for radiohead= they didcnt jump off a REAL clifff, they bungee jumped you KNOW the kamikaze pilot in me wnats to do the same dfamm thing excapt wuith my a lsit mnaterial, with the real thing- theyve made 9.7 m,illion in 3 weeks this way and its live junk-= not junk as radioheaddoesnt really amke JUNK but its live - most of it heard before( wich youve all heard liveversaionbs of things veryvery different than non live versions of things) i really think it couldf work do all my magazine covers in january - so the lead time in there kamikaze thropugh my junket my oprah my tv shit n the 2 week leaD UP and just jump of f that cliff i love doing things really first im greatful for radiohead for making the first move- id do it differentlyt -= thats why b sides are no longer b sisdes but have to be a sides to an extent-= cos theyre EXTRA TRACKS now wich can mean up to 500k to such and such sponsor coty./my space etc. ... i justthinjk offering about 10 songs but your best for "free" witha what am i worth sign not just NINs cast offs i mean yopur a sides- i don t know im percolating- i love risk and most everything ive ever done well has been because everyone said iw as crazy to do it-= thazts why words liek "risk management" and Rime management:" are4 resonating with me now.

Not that I know what "rime management" is, but hey, I'd kick Courtney some money for a self-financed album. Especially now that she's trying to fashion herself as the Suze Orman of the rocker-chick set, as evidenced by the title of the post where she floats her Radiohead idea:

Fica/Radiohead [Courtney Love's MySpace Blog]

ComScore, "a leader in measuring the digital world," has apparently kept an eye on just who was paying for In Rainbows and how much they were forking over. The answer? As little as could be squeezed out:

During the first 29 days of October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the "In Rainbows" site, with a significant percentage of visitors ultimately downloading the album. The study showed that 38 percent of global downloaders of the album willingly paid to do so, with the remaining 62 percent choosing to pay nothing. The percent downloading for free in the U.S. (60 percent) is only marginally lower than in the rest of the world (64 percent).

Everyone who foresaw this development can now give themselves a gold star. Of course, no one has obtained any firm numbers directly from the band or its management just yet—a rainbow-colored grain of salt for the time being—but even if this data pans out and Radiohead's point has been somewhat undermined by their "freeloading" fans, as ComScore's Gian Fulgoni told the Chicago Tribune:

He noted that an e-commerce Web site typically converts about 5 percent of its traffic into sales in a given month. The conversion rate for the Radiohead album will be "substantially higher," he said. "You can see this getting up into the millions of dollars."

See, not a total failure. Champagne for everyone, then.

For Radiohead Fans, Does "Free" + "Download" = "Freeload"? [ComScore]

There will be no advances, promotional copies, digital streams, media sites, etc. of RADIOHEAD's In Rainbows.

Everyone in the world will be getting the music at the same time: Oct. 10. That includes us. We don't have anything to play anyone in the nine days until the record is available. Everyone at nasty has put his or her order in and just to clarify: you are not being asked to pay for a promo (as some have inquired). you can pay nothing or as much or as little as you want.

There will be no promotional copies of the discbox either, as each discbox is being made to order. Sorry.

I'm sure that a bunch of e-mails from frazzled editors/high-on-their-horse bloggers necessitated this response from Nasty, and I'm sure that this response is making some of them climb the walls right now. (Especially the part about no free discboxes. How many "packaging specialists" do you think asked for that as their advance? Talk about chintzy.) Yes, you can argue that bands that don't have the press clout/name recognition that Radiohead do simply can't afford to gamble like this and potentially piss off the people who they want to cover their stuff, but at the same time, you know that there's going to be no way this thing leaks before the band wants it to, even if it is free.

Not to mention that the news that In Rainbows will be coming out as a plain ol' CD next year kind of makes this whole run-up seem like a very, very well-executed advance marketing strategy, one that Kanye West will no doubt be paying homage to when he releases his next album.

Earlier: Hey, did you hear that Radiohead has a new album coming out?