Saul Williams’ most recent album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, has been released online in a high-bitrate mp3 format, giving consumers the choice of downloading the album for free, or paying 5$ for it. Which would you choose? The album’s producer, Trent Reznor, says that out of the 154 449 people that downloaded the album, 28 322 paid the five dollars. That’s 18.3% of downloaders paying up front. Since that works out to just over $140 000, I wonder if that is considered by him to be a success.

Williams’ last album sold 34 000 copies, according to Ars Technica. While that works out to $408 000 if the average album sale was $12, there is still little information on how much Williams would have received out of that total. Data from one analysis indicates that Williams could have received about 39% of his album sales when sold in CD format through Amazon. That works out to about $159 000 (without considering the possibility that most of the sales were made in brick and mortar stores like HMV). So, without even taking into consideration the non-economic benefits of Reznor’s new music sales model, the amount of income generated for the artist is pretty close to the traditional sales format.

That has to make you wonder whether all the bluster about how online ‘illegal’ downloading hurts music sales, is more a problem of accessibility and quality than it is about piracy.

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Eliot Che is a researcher and web developer. He studies the political implications of technological transformation and the social effects of virtual space. His other interests include human rights, art activism and untraining his dog, Max.
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