Thom Yorke’s BitTorrent album ‘experiment’: 1 million downloads

In less than a week since it was revealed, Thom Yorke's new solo album “Tomorrow's Modern Boxes” has been, well, unboxed more than one million times.

The Radiohead frontman put the new set up for sale digitally via BitTorrent for a $6 pricetag (more, obviously, if you purchased the as-yet-unreleased vinyl version). Fans could also download the song or the video for “A Brain In A Bottle” for free.

Go to the “Tomorrow's Modern Boxes” bundle page now and see for yourself: 1.1 million downloads (at press time) of either free or paid content has been accessed.

BitTorrent did not say what percentage of those downloads were for free or pay content, but consider this: even if one-tenth of those 1.1 million downloads were for the $6 bundle, that's more than $6 million made (then split however Yorke's camp and BitTorrent's decided it'd be split).

Yorke said this about his and producer Nigel Godrich's “experiment” when it hit the 'net last week: “If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of Internet commerce back to the people who are creating the work.”

To which BitTorrent replied, today: “One million downloads later, it”s working.”

Did you download “Tomorrow's Modern Boxes” by Thom Yorke? Do you like the album, and the BitTorrent concept?

×