October 15, 2008

By By Antony Bruno, Denver

Radiohead's direct-to-fan digital distribution experiment for the release of "In Rainbows" last year made more in publishing revenues from the first licence, for the band's Web site, than the band's digital publishing revenues for the rest of their catalog, according to Warner Chappell head of business affairs Jane Dyball.

However, Radiohead's digital publishing income had been low because they had not licensed their music to services such as iTunes, until Jan. 2008.

Speaking at a conference in Iceland, Dyball provided few other details about the distribution strategy, other than that the band sold a total of 3 million albums - digital, CDs and box sets, which also included the eventual iTunes sales as well.

Dyball declined to shed any light on the average price fans paid under the pay what-you-want model, but said early sales from die-hard fans were greater than sales made later on in the three-week offer.

Warner Chappell made a one-stop-shop publishing arrangement with Radiohead, licensing all digital rights including digital master recording rights.

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