#FF00AA

I haven’t read all the articles about “how even free can’t defeat BitTorrent” (I haven’t read any single one in its entirety, actually, because I don’t care so much); has anyone at all noted that, if you do intend to get the album for free, it’s much less guilt-trippy to download it from Pirate Bay than to click the “I’m a low-life cheapskate who won’t give you a cent” button on the Radiohead site? Doing that feels like demeaning yourself and insulting the band; downloading on P2P is just treating them the same way you do with everyone else. (And there’s also fewer forms to fill before you get to downloading.)

A better test would have been for Radiohead to offer the album on BitTorrent themselves, and put a Paypal donation box on their site. And I’m not blindly defending the honor of P2P users — I do think the band would have made less money that way.