Radiohead's manager calls the 1.2 million In Rainbows count exaggerated

Bryce Edge of Courtyard Management, Radiohead's manager, tells Billboard today that reports of In Rainbows selling more than 1.2 million copies as a download are exaggerated. He does agree that buyers are paying on average probably pretty close to £4, about $8, the one number the band have put out.

The band have not analysed the data, Edge says, because the servers are still busy delivering the record.

The 1.2 million came from Gigwise on 11 October, the morning after the download went out from the band's site. Its “exclusive” rested on a source close to the band, who put the total at well over a million. Neither Radiohead nor Courtyard confirmed anything. Many of the copies counted were pre-orders, taken since the announcement at the start of the month.

On 3 October the band's spokesman, Murray Chalmers, gave no numbers. Most people are deciding on a normal retail price with very few trying to buy it for a penny.⁷

On 16 October Forbes reported, from the download tracker BigChampagne, that about 240,000 people took In Rainbows from BitTorrent on its first day and roughly 100,000 a day after that. Edge's answer is that any record goes onto BitTorrent as soon as it is pressed or advance copies go to the press. Eric Garland, BigChampagne's chief executive, expects the unauthorised copies to overtake the paid ones because so many of those were pre-orders. People don't know Radiohead's site. They do know their favorite BitTorrent site and they use it every day⁴.