I don't know if I believe it, or am completely sold on the topic, but this is an interesting read. It basically says that RadioHead is releasing a CD with bonus tracks. I guess it's not in very good spirit, but it's certainly not unexpected.

(Also, sorry for the volume of threads lately. I've been sitting on 4 thread ideas for the past week, and tried to space them out over the last 2 days.)

Yeah, I've heard those rumours too - I can't say I didn't see it coming: the mp3s were in fairly low quality so you'd expect a "premium" release.

(Which sounds filthier than I intended)

Meh, bonus tracks don't really mean much to me.

I paid nothing for In Rainbows on their site. I then listened and decided the album's value - went back and got it again for £5.00. I don't feel cheated out of bonus tracks because I paid the amount I wanted for the amount of music I got. The quality of the files was 160kbps, which is fine by me. I cannot tell the difference between a 320kbps or 160kbps audio file.

Those of us who can found it a little annoying, though.

I spent $5 on the album. So I guess since I already paid I can just pirate the hi-quality release when it comes out?

Maybe it sucks, but that's what you get for rushing out and getting the new CD when it first came out.

Technically, not legally. You paid for the content that they gave you to download. No more no less.

I had real respect for this experiment of theirs, and I believe it's a great step in the right direction. But they kind of messed up with this decisions. What about the people that bought the album for $15+ out of support for this idea that now get told, "Oh yeah, for the rest of it, you have to buy this CD too!" My problem with this is that when people bought the album to download, they expected (and were told no differently) that they were receiving the whole album.

Um, they're called "bonus" tracks?

It's not like they left 4 songs intended for the album off just to release now.

Look at CD's that come out in Japan compared to the rest of the world. They almost always have exclusive bonus tracks. That's just part of the business to get people to buy.

Besides, didn't 60% of the people end up just downloading the album for free?

DVD's do this as well. They release a bare-bones DVD and then release a special edition 6 months later - while never announcing they intended to do a special edition.

Uh... Radiohead always intended to release a physical CD. I'm pretty sure this was known when they announced they were releasing it online. As for "bonus tracks," Demon_Nightmare's got it right--it's not like they are a part of the album that was left off. It's like complaining that singles come with B-sides. "YOU MEAN I HAVE TO BUY THE SINGLE AND THE B-SIDES AREN'T ON THE ALBUM?!?! AHHGHGHGH!"

What part of bonus in bonus tracks does the writer not understand?

That article is making a mountain out a molehill. I don't think the CD is even coming out in time for Christmas (at least in the US) as the writer implies. Talk about getting outraged over what amounts to nothing.

The Lord of the Rings DVDs are a perfect example. I know people that bought the theatrical edition when it first came out, and then went out and bought the Extended Edition (the proper edition, as I see it) a few months later. They forgot about this the year after, and ended up doing the same again for Two Towers. And again the next year with Return of the King. That's probably about €100 worth of Lord of the Rings DVDs.

Comparing Theatrical Cut to Director's Cut is not the same as comparing crappy quality to high quality. Both versions of the films have their merits. Only one version of the album would be worth getting.

No, that's not a good example at all. Extended editions for Lord of the Rings were known to be in the works when the first DVDs were made available.

A proper example would be Star Wars.

I don't know about you guys. but if online music commerce worked this way with everyone... we'd have a good business model here.

Also I was reading somewhere that not very many people paid for the album. Although there was a dispute about how that fact was decided.

Scam would be if they made you pay for it before you got it :p.

I think the numbers reported for the online version are skewed. A majority of people downloaded, then paid later. Besides, you can't look at the ratio of who paid what and who didn't, you have to look at overall sales. Did you make as much as you would have as far as a CD goes?

Also, I don't think its a scam, just that it isn't in good spirit of why a majority of people liked the idea.

Source, or just your gut feeling?

More people downloaded from illegal sources than people who downloaded legally and paid nothing.

So was it really illegal?

The people who are upset about this are retarded.

The fact that Radiohead is going to release a CD with bonus tracks was widely known even before the album was made available for download. In fact, the discbox, which you could pre-order on the same page where you could purchase the download, is the one with the bonus tracks. So, I pretty much agree with Rob.