Radiohead $2.26 on every album download

Remember when I commented on Radiohead making their album available online and allowing their fans to pay whatever they wanted?

After 29 days, some numbers are in, $2.26/album, with about $2.7 million in total sales. The coverage, of coursee, is that this is a pittance compared to the $19.95 for a CD, but that's not what the band gets, that's what the studio, retailer, record executive's coke dealer and worthless brother-in-law, etc. get, not the artists.

Radiohead mad a lot more money in a few weeks than than they would in a few decades doing this. I recall hearing an interview with Aimee Man, formerly of 'Til Tuesday, and she releases under her own label now, but her old stuff, the stuff that made the top ten and hit MTV forever, it was still "not recouped", i.e. she had gotten no royalties.

The phenomenon is going to move down the chain, and I won't shed a tear to see the demise of the record distributor paracites.