40. (with egg)

Welcome the new age of intellectual property delivery. Radiohead is releasing a new album, named In Rainbows, and as widely publicized the price of the downloadable album ("A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s") is up to you. Literally. Don't want pay? Put in £0.00. How about $10? That'll be £4.91 please.

How are they going to make money? Physical copy value adds! Radiohead is also selling a Discbox containing all kinds of cool stuff:

THIS CONSISTS OF THE NEW ALBUM, IN RAINBOWS, ON CD AND ON 2 X 12 INCH HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL RECORDS. A SECOND, ENHANCED CD CONTAINS MORE NEW SONGS, ALONG WITH DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND ARTWORK. THE DISCBOX ALSO INCLUDES ARTWORK AND LYRIC BOOKLETS. ALL ARE ENCASED IN A HARDBACK BOOK AND SLIPCASE.

The hardcore will eat all of that value-add content at a cool £40 Sterling ($81.32). This is brilliant, daring, marking an epoch. Digital content is unrestrainable, ether-suspended -- one cannot contain it. The old business model of guarding the IP within a phisical form in order to extract money from it is dying and has been since Napster. But Radiohead is taking a cue from other innovators, such as Sean Combs, Dre, Snoop... don't sell music, sell shit. It doesn't really matter what it is: shirts, shoes, hoodies, 2 x 12 inch heaveyweight vinyl records, artwork and lyric booklets incased in a hardback book and slipcase. The margin is huge. Oh yeah, and tour like crazy.

I bought the digital. I figured $10 was fair, so I rounded up a bit to £5.00; after a transaction fee, I'm happily shelling out $11.08. Here's the email I received:

Discbox customers.

You goods will be shipped on or before 3rd December 2007 by post. Information regarding the download (included with the Discbox) as per below.

Download customers.

YOUR UNIQUE ACTIVATION CODE(S) WILL BE SENT OUT LATER THIS MORNING 10th OCT(UK TIME).
THIS CODE/LINK WILL TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO THE DOWNLOAD AREA.

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOWNLOAD:

THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.

MOST COMPUTERS NOW HAVE ZIP SOFTWARE AS PART OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM; IF YOUR COMPUTER DOES NOT, YOU NEED TO GET WINZIP OR ZIPIT >INSTALLED PRIOR.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THEM HERE:
PC: http://www.winzip.com/
MAC: http://www.maczipit.com/

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS DOWNLOADING YOUR FILE, PLEASE CONTACT OUR DOWNLOAD CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM AT downloadinrainbows@waste.uk.com

We value your custom.