Radiohead's New Album Release a Publicity Stunt?

Recently, Radiohead decided to go against the music industry and do something completely different for their new album release. 'In Rainbows', their new cd, was offered only through Radiohead's website and it allowed users to pay whatever they wanted for the album. Yes, I'm serious. Most people paid $0. Well, why not? If you can get it for free...why should you pay, right?

As online cd sales decline due to illegal music downloads and distribution, people were definitely wondering if this offering by Radiohead was just a publicity stunt. I guess we can't be sure, but it would seem that musicians would have a hard time making a living if they are giving their music away for free. The article I read about it did say that on average (aside from the fans who took the album for free) it was purchased for about $6. That is a far cry from the usual $19.99 or more price you will pay for the actual cd in a music store and about half of what you'd pay on a place like iTunes for just the download.

I wonder if we will continue to see this trend. Before Radiohead did this, I heard Prince gave away his last cd for free. Does anyone know what is going on with this? If you do - or if you got either one of these albums free - post a comment to let us know about it!

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