A major catch-22 with their otherwise clever idea is that it’s difficult to pick a price for something before you know your opinion of it. A convoluted solution would be to give away DRM-ed versions of the songs only later to offer DRM-free versions for a made-up price.

Of course, I hate DRM and that suggestion is only given to provide context for others to think of better ideas!

I suppose we don’t get to listen to entire albums before buying as it is right now, but the difference is that here picking the price is the point.

I have to admit that I’d be inclined to pick a higher price if it was after I had a listen (of course, that runs the risk of the price getting lower if the album sucks for me).

This is a very interesting experiment, indeed, and the pricing curve ought to be fascinating.

What other artists should take away from this is less the “let the audience set the price” model than the “hey, you don’t need a record label to make money” one. While an established artist like Radiohead no doubt has much better distribution than Joe and His Garage Band-its, the ability to sell digital content (which carries extremely low overhead compared to CD sales) means he can find success that isn’t defined in the ways it has been in the past. Getting a record deal needn’t any longer be the holy grail (especially since so many artists get pretty well shafted by such deals anyway).

I don’t think that this move is terribly significant, either, but it is another visible name setting an example by trying something different (a proof of concept, if you will), which is what it takes to turn the tide.

(One more thing – it is possible to get the download totally free.)