I Feel Guilty That I Paid Nothing for the Radiohead Album

I'm not a huge Radiohead fan. I like a lot of their older stuff, but have definitely not kept up - 'cept for buying Kid A at some point, I think.

But this new album is really good, actually. I think In Rainbows one of their best albums, and it's passed the acid test of 'more than just a few cool tracks' for me.

But, when I downloaded it I paid nothing. I paid nothing because that was an option given to me, and because I don't like the idea of paying for anything in British Sterling unless I'm in the UK - it creeps me out. But I want to focus on the former reason right now. Am I such a skeeze that, given the chance, I would stiff an artist who allowed me to name my own price for their work? Apparently. But I'm also likely not alone. Even though the spokesfolks for Radiohead described as "wholly inaccurate" an earlier story from Internet research group ComScore that asserted that less than 4 in 10 people paid anything for In Rainbows, I would expect the figures from the original article to be fairly close. And I'm one of the skeezy cheap bastards contributing to those statistics and creating an impression that there is no legitimate market for digital music if consumers are given the chance to get it for free. Sorry bout that everyone. What can I say, I'm a creep.

BTW - a friend did remind me that I could simply revisit the Radiohead site and contribute whatever I think is fair now, but that's just stupid. I already have the album. I don't feel that guilty. Radiohead doesn't really need my money. And besides, I'd still have to pay in pounds. Eww.