Radiohead - is this the future for commercial creativity?

The music world and the online world in general is abuzz with Radiohead's decision to let fans decide how much they pay for the bands new album In Rainbows before being allowed to download it via their web site.

This simple act has allowed the band to bypass the need for a record company. It's estimated, on average the band will still make about the same amount of money from downloads as they would have going the usual CD release route after the record companies have taken their cut. On average, I've read people are paying about US$8.00 for an album which you can, if you choose, download for free. It's up to you.

If you would like to read a deeper article on the repercussions then Maki from www.doshdosh.com has written a great article about Radiohead and Anti-marketing in the music industy.

What's clever about their decision is that it completely legalizes the free sharing of music. Something that is very web 2.0 where the new words for sharing on a grand scale is going viral. People love getting stuff for free. If the music is good people will share it and pay to see it performed live. By all accounts this is where the real money is for bands and musicians.

What interests me is, could this approach work for other forms of creativity or does this model only work if the sharing by optional donation approach leads to a pay per unit style revenue stream down the line?

For example, could a painter give away, by optional donation, print quality, digital scans of artworks to raise awareness and generate buzz that could lead to people wanting to own the real, original works?

My own business model of uploading free videos of me creating my art in order to raise awareness of my web site, through which I sell merchandise and original art via ebay is a similar idea.

Giving the people what they want so that they may be interested to purchase something later that they perceive as having real value, worth paying for. Which is not to say the free stuff doesn't have value but we all know, at least with digital files, it costs virtually nothing to make a copy.

I don't know. In a sense the idea of people choosing to pay what they want is like busking. It's kind of honorable but at the same time kind of sad. It's like saying I'll take whatever you can give. I don't put a value on my creativity. I'm leaving that up to you.

In theory, if I do a really good job, the next time I release something and ask for people to donate what they like, they may just pay more second time around because their first experience was much better value than they originally thought. I guess that's called creating demand.

Perhaps it's just me but the donation model doesn't sit well with my psyche. I don't mind giving something for free but taking a donation feels like accepting charity or begging.

Radiohead's business model is a good one for a modern world where everyone seems connected. It's a fantastic way to interact directly with your audience (known as your market in business terms). However it's going to take a little more time to see if it really is the future for commercial creativity.

Is there really money to be made by giving your creativity away?

Comments

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

The Dukes of Hazard Movie - My Thoughts

The Dukes of Hazard is a movie that I wanted to see when it was released in 2005 but didn't because, well, I just didn't get around to it. Not only that but when I heard Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson were in it my expectations were immediately lowered to "it's probably not going to be what I hoped it could be." Which is why I've never been pro-active about hiring the movie on DVD. Last night I saw it was being shown on free to air TV. I happened to have the time to watch, so I did. To sum up my experience... I didn't get fired up by the movie until I watched the 'bloopers' in the end credits. The Dukes of Hazard signature is the car. The General Lee flying through the air in some flat out impossible jumps. We know they're impossible jumps but they're just so cool you kind of want to believe the General Lee can do them. The point is, in the TV series, you never (or rarely) saw the General Lee not land safely and undamaged. Thus, seei...

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...

Making the Ukulele Cool Again By Inventing One That Transforms Into a Guitar Mid-Performance

Mattias playing the Ukulele that turns into a guitar in ukulele mode. Y ouTuber, Mattias Krantz , set out to solve one of the biggest problems with ukuleles, and that is, they are ukuleles. As he points out in his video they're one of the only instruments that people respect you less for the better you get at playing them. As someone who bought a ukulele because I wanted to learn an instrument, and I couldn't really afford a guitar (plus I found a ukulele that I think is pretty cool, but only in comparison to other ukuleles) you can imagine my interest would be really piqued by a ukulele that transforms into a guitar. Anyway, there is not much that needs to be said other than, a ukulele that transforms into a guitar isn't a thing you can just buy off the shelf, which is why Mattias set out to invent one. Nothing I say will be more interesting than just sitting back and watching his video below. It's a fascinating journey that I wanted to share and, maybe one day, eith...

Who Even Reads This?

W riting this blog is largely both a labor of love and a discipline. Since about 2006 (the blog started in 2004) I have written a minimum of two posts per month. Sometimes I've posted more, particularly in the last 4-5 years, where I've tried to write and post at least one article a week without fail. Unfortunately it's not a niche blog, unless the niche is things that interest me. Which means my blog is either too broad to have regular readers or too niche to have anyone other than my mum reading it. Which she does (hi Mum) as we established back in January of 2014 in the post Ya Mum Reads it... That said, this blog overall regularly gets 6-7k views every month, mostly through people finding various articles through search engines. By far the largest traffic source is 'Other' which is basically unknown sources. I'm willing to bet a large percentage of that is the dead internet. Bots testing my comments to see if they're spamable or Illuminati spammers. Whil...

Try My Free Solo and Multi-player Game of SKATE App - A Skateboard Session Score Tracker for Mobile Devices - gameofskate.tet.life

My skateboarding time is often limited to short solo sessions in my driveway and I wanted to make that a little more fun. O ne thing I've wanted for a long time is a solo version of Game of S.K.A.T.E. As someone who mostly skateboards in my driveway, by myself, it can be a bit tedious to run through the tricks you know every session, then maybe spend time learning something new. I've often thought, what might make a solo session more fun is an app that gamifies practicing the tricks you know, and allows you to add tricks as you learn them, or encourages you to try tricks that are pretty much skateboarding basics any skateboarder would aspire to learn. The idea has been in my head for more than half a decade at this point. While I was a computer programmer back in the day (we're talking late 1980s) I haven't kept up with coding. At least nothing more complex than HTML and Java script bashing. I did try to learn one of the many game creators ( Construct for a different ...

Movie Review: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) Spoiler Free

F rom the moment it was announced, I knew I was probably not going to see Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu in cinemas. The Mandalorian Disney+ Series finished it's story with no real pointers towards where a future story might go, beyond 'the further adventures of...' There was nothing to really hook me in. I did enjoy the series but it never got me invested in the title character or his cute prodigy so much that I wanted to see more. Unlike the original Mandalorian, Boba Fett, who I was eager to see more of, until he got his own spin off series. Then I just wondered who wanted this particular story, that clarified everything about such a cool and mysterious character until there was no mystery left? Then we got the trailers for The Mandalorian and Grogu which confirmed it was just a new adventure as a standalone film, with the purpose of introducing the characters to people who hadn't watched the series. I don't regret not seeing this in cinemas. It's a ...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog