Yesterday I read Brian Doherty claiming that Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want scheme for their new album would undercut piracy and thought “Not so fast!” In my experience folks will upload any content that’s even marginally relevant to a site. I’ve certainly seem freely-available content redistributed through pirate channels before.
But in this case he may actually be right. Oink doesn’t have it, although I suppose that makes some sense given that downloading an album from Oink comes at a cost (users have to maintain an upload/download ratio to keep their access to the site). But Isohunt hasn’t got In Rainbows either. Huh.
UPDATE: Rich pointed out in comments that the band’s preselling the downloads, but that nobody’s actually got the files yet. That makes sense, and I feel dumb for not realizing that was how the whole thing was supposed to work. So: torrents in t-minus eight days!
Unless I’m mistaken, no one will be able to even hear the album to Oct. 10 even if you buy the digital download. Check back in 8 days and see inevitable torrents.
Ahhhh… of course. I guess I should’ve actually visited the website instead of just reading breathless press accounts about what the band was doing. Okay, that makes sense.
I’m not sure it’ll be allowed at Oink, anyways—it’s against the rules to upload something that is freely available elsewhere.
Yup, the madness begins:
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3836344/Radiohead_-_In_Rainbows
Current stats as of Wed, Oct 10, 2008 at 10:30am:
Seeders: 480
Leechers: 313