From what i read - the physical release of "in Rainbows" was always scheduled for late this year/ early next.

I think the plan was always to give it away first, then launch it as a "real" product.  In fact i was just reading how the band loved a fan mash up of one of their songs so much, they sourced the guy and added it to the in-store version of the CD.

I reckon it'll still sell as well as most CD's do  - fans of the band will pay for the higher quality sound - and the moochers that got it for free off the web, well heck they would have gotten it for free off bit torrent/napster/mp3 blogs etc etc anyway.

Failure?  far from it i think - financially maybe not the best results - but in terms of challenging the standard recording industry bullcrap and taking a stand for their fans - huge successs - not to mention the amount of (mostly favorable) publicity and new traffic it got them.  I'm guessing they probably saw a decent movement in back catalog CD's from all of this too - people that maybe got the new CD for low cost or no cost and hadnt really heard much of them before.

And as for anyone that hasnt heard or bought a Radiohead CD - shame on you all :)

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