Introduction
Last week, Radiohead's newest album "In Rainbows" went on sale - not at record stores and major retailers across the globe but on the band's own Website. Even more compelling is that Radiohead decided to let fans set their own price for downloading the new album - and that includes paying nothing at all. Yes, it's true: enter 00.00 into the album's purchase site and you can download the digital version of "In Rainbows" for nothing. There's no digital rights management or copy protection software standing in your way.
In what has to be one of the riskiest economic experiments in entertainment history, Radiohead has employed the honor code with its fans, crossing its collective fingers in hope that people will pay a fair price for the music rather than ripping the band off without remorse. Fans can also order the deluxe-disc box version of the album, which includes the physical CD of "In Rainbows," an extra CD of additional songs, two 12" vinyl records and other material for £40, or approximately $82. But since the disc box won't be shipped until early December, the downloadable version of "In Rainbows" is the only option for fans who have eagerly awaited the band's next album.
Radiohead's new album "In Rainbows" can be downloaded from the band's Website. Fans can pay whatever they want for the album - including nothing.
The simple act of faith from Radiohead - making an album that's potentially free of charge - will likely enamor many music lovers and earn the band even more fans that it already has. On the other hand, you don't need to go very far to find "In Rainbows" on popular torrents such as The Pirate Bay, where the album was listed in the Top 100 for the site's music category. According to a report in the "Chicago Tribune," "In Rainbows" surpassed 1.2-million downloads last week. And according to a survey of 5,000 fans by Telegraph.co.uk, about a quarter of the participants paid nothing for the album, while more than half paid up to £10 and a small percentage paid the extra £40 for the disc box package.
Will the fact that the album can be downloaded for free legitimately give people an excuse to rip and download the album across the Web with impunity? Or will Radiohead ultimately be rewarded for extending trust to its fans? One thing is for sure: gamers would certainly appreciate a similar gesture of goodwill from publishers. Sadly, that hasn't quite happened. In fact, one could argue that DRM restrictions for gaming - and perhaps all digital entertainment - have steadily grown more draconian over the last year.
The best example of heavy-handed DRM measures is the notorious launch of Bioshock, which involved the controversial SecuROM copy protection software that limits the number of installs. Gamers were incensed that SecuROM prevented them from installing the game on more than two different computers. And even after BioShock publisher 2K Games upped the limit to five activations and corrected the uninstall process, customers were still furious that difficult-to-remove DRM software had been installed on their PCs, which restricted how many times the game could be installed even on the same machine.
BioShock's DRM upset many PC gamers, who were informed they could only install the game a limited number of times.
In the weeks following BioShock's launch on Aug. 21, 2K Games and BioShock's developer 2K Boston/2K Australia promised to release a "revoke-installation" tool designed to allow BioShock owners to uninstall the game and retain a free installation rather than have one of the five installations be used up. The revoke installation tool did arrive, but not before last week, more than seven weeks after the game's launch. For many PC gamers, it was too little too late. The FAQ for the revoke on the BioShock community site Cult of Rapture featured a simple question: what if I need to increase my installation? The answer below may disappoint PC enthusiasts who have a penchant for upgrading and reformatting their machines.
"For most people, you will never encounter an instance when you will need to increase your activation limit. Cases may include having five hard disk crashes or formatting your computer five times without revoking your license. However, in these rare cases, we have a support division set up to help increase your limit so that you can always play your game, no matter what the circumstance."
Thus, the controversy continues. Software piracy no doubt led to Radiohead's decision to release its newest album online, potentially free of charge. Piracy also led to 2K Games using SecuROM software to prevent BioShock from getting cracked. But the game still got cracked, and many people obviously downloaded BioShock for free, just as many Radiohead fans are now enjoying "In Rainbows" without having paid a cent for it. Both cases illustrate extremes examples of the issue. So where is the middle ground for DRM, intellectual property and piracy? We take a quite look at the history of DRM and analyze potential solutions to the double-edged sword of software piracy and intrusive copy protection software.
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