BitTorrent Bundle Boxes Clever

As you’ll all no doubt be aware from the sheer amount of opinion pieces already churned out about it, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke this month released a new album as a BitTorrent Bundle.

Yorke’s solo LP, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes was made available on the platform on September 26th, causing mild hysteria and the creeping realisation that the method of release was marginally more interesting than the music. The ‘bundle’ consisted of eight audio tracks and a video and cost $6 (£3.68). Users needed a BitTorrent client to manage the download, in much the same way as illegally downloading an album through a torrent site. Of course, the crucial distinction is that instead they are paying the artist directly, with BitTorrent taking a cut. Other artists to use the platform include Moby and Lady Gaga and in June this year, BitTorrent bundles surpassed 100 million downloads.

The release also resulted in this interview in The Guardian in which Chief Content Officer at BitTorrent Matt Mason stated: “Major labels have really given up on selling music, it seems. Pushing Spotify to an IPO is what most of the senior executives at the major labels are concerned with, which might be something to do with the fact that they own a piece of Spotify, and will participate in that IPO. But it doesn’t bear any relation to an artist trying to make a living from their work on the Internet”.

In a press release, Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich called the approach: “An experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around” and suggested it “could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work”.

The bundle reportedly reached over one million downloads in a week.