Most chose to pay nothing for Radiohead's "donation-only" album

Though much has been made of Radiohead's decision to release their album for donations, the future use of this practice may be deterred a little by the results of a recent survey which found many people paying nothing or next–to–nothing for the album.

According to the survey, 62 percent of the people who downloaded In Rainbows in a four–week period last month opted not to pay a cent for the record. The remaining 38 percent voluntarily paid an average of $6. There were extreme outlier's of course – with Nine Inch Nail's Trent Reznor paying $5,000 for the record – but these numbers suggest that the band wouldn't have been much worse off if they had simply licensed the record to a major label.

In the face of internet downloading over the past few years, many have argued that people are opting not to support the major label system or wish to support artists directly. Unfortunately, these results suggest that for most, price is still the only real factor at play.