In a twist on the Radiohead experiment, the third album by fiery political poet and rapper Saul Williams was released last November via the Web because no major record company was interested. Listeners could download the music for free as mid-fidelity MP3s, or pay $5 for one of three higher-fidelity formats.
The difference was that while the majority of Radiohead fans are thought to have paid an average of $10, his patron and producer Trent Reznor eventually revealed that only 18 percent of the people who downloaded Williams’ album paid for it. The rest took it for free.
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