Working towards some conclusions

The results of our research and interviews indicate that making money in online music may mean creating a more direct relationship between artists and fans. If this can be established, fans may be more willing to shell out in order to sustain the careers of their favourite musicians.

Take Radiohead’s latest album In Rainbows, for example. Radiohead released the album independently of any record label, and told their fans that they could pay whatever they wanted for it. While a lot of people paid nothing, many did pay for the album, and paid generously. The result was that Radiohead made a significant profit, which ended up being virtually as much as they would have made for an album under their old labels Parlophone & EMI. While only a successful band like Radiohead could afford to undertake a project like that, it was a clever way of engaging directly with fans by putting the value of their music in the hands of the consumer. And the results show that this worked to Radiohead’s advantage, bringing them publicity, respect from fans, and a substantial profit.

Nine Inch Nails undertook a similar project with their album Ghosts I-IV (2008). In an article on Wired.com entitled Nine Inch Nails Gets Creative With Radiohead-Style Release, Eliot Van Buskirk states, "The band took Radiohead’s In Rainbows project further by leveraging BitTorrent and releasing songs under a Creative Commons license that allowed purchasers to remix the tracks. As with the Radiohead experiment, dedicated fans looking for something more substantial than a zip file full of music tracks could choose to spend more on a box-set version of the album, or buy inexpensive CDs."

While this process creates a positive connection between artists and fans, it also means cutting out record labels altogether. This may not necessarily be in the best interests of artists, who still need funding for tours and recording.