Last week, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke released a new solo album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, as a $6 BitTorrent Bundle, letting fans purchase the album directly via PayPal or credit card and then download it using BitTorrent software.
The unusual distribution strategy seems to have been successful, as BitTorrent Blog reports the album has been downloaded more than 1 million times in the first six days.
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It has to be noted, however, that this number includes the paid downloads for the album and the free downloads of the single and video; exact number of the paid downloads has not been released.
Upon the album's release, Yorke said the experiment could be “an effective way of handing some control of Internet commerce back to the people who are creating the work.” The math is simple: BitTorrent keeps 10% of the album's proceeds, while the artist keeps the 90% -- on paper, a much more lucrative scenario than going through a record label.
Radiohead is no stranger to experimenting with music distribution. In 2007, the band famously released its album In Rainbows as a digital download, letting users pick the price for the album themselves. And Thom Yorke criticized Spotify in Jul. 2013 for not paying enough money to artists.
You can purchase Tomorrow's Modern Boxes here.