Thom Yorke Released New Album on BitTorrent

Thom Yorke has decided to distribute his new solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, via the new BitTorrent bundles – direct from the musician to the listeners. Thus, the artist refused to sell his music through Apple’s iTunes, Amazon or Spotify streams. BitTorrent bundles differ from the traditional methods of purchasing and downloading creative works – they function through another system shared between users just like the pirated music. The difference from illegal downloading it that users pay for it.

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BitTorrent protocol became hated by the entertainment industry for the illegal sharing of pirated content. However, the network is actually the technology allowing for more efficient distribution of files across the web. BitTorrent system allows people to share files between their devices on a P2P basis, instead of downloading them directly from the server of the company. In other words, use of BitTorrent technology leads to faster downloads and significantly reduces cost for the file distributor.

Thom Yorke distributes his new album via BitTorrent bundles. Unlike most files shared over peer-to-peer network, bundles are links to the files that can be controlled and sold in a legitimate way. All BitTorrent bundles used to be a collection of free files from the content creators, who offered to sign up with a mailing list to get access to more. Now Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes becomes the first paid-for album to be distributed via BitTorrent bundles.

You can purchase the album via the BitTorrent website by entering PayPal or credit card details – the system will give you a torrent file. The benefits of BitTorrent are clear for artists or publishers, as the music distribution there is much cheaper due to savings on the server costs. Moreover, this method allows artists to sell their works directly to the listeners without involving intermediaries like Apple, Amazon or a record label.

However, for Internet users the advantages are less clear. You can get your music on a smartphone or tablet, but in most cases a desktop PC is needed. In the meantime, the files will not be automatically available on your devices like in the case of using cloud services. Besides, the downloading process could take longer, because the speed depends on other users who are seeding the files you need.

On the other hand, due to the savings of Tom Yorke, his new album costs only $6, much less than on other platforms. You can also download it without having to sign up for a service.

Tom Yorke was not the first artist to use BitTorrent bundles. They reached 100 million legal downloads and streams a few months ago, being used by various musicians, including Madonna, Public Enemy, Moby, and De La Soul.

Madonna didn’t use BitTorrent to distribute music but rather other content, like her documentary film. Moby shared 3 songs and audio “stems” from his new album to allow fans to make their own remixes. Public Enemy did the same. De La Soul distributed a digital mixtape and documentary movie about pioneering hip-hop producer J Dilla. Finally, Cut/Copy shared a music video and the 3D printing files to make the video’s characters.

Industry experts believe there’s a chance for BitTorrent to become the future of music downloads. However, Thom Yorke is the first artist to seriously try and sell music with its help. Now we should wait and see how many people will embrace this technology and download the album. This will make clear whether BitTorrent bundles can work for the mainstream music audience.