What is "Radiohead style"?

The article below bothered me. Or, rather the headline did. What does "Nine Inch Nails Release New Album Radiohead-style" mean? And why I have I seen this same headline above different bylines?
Does "Radiohead Style" mean that the album is offered for whatever price consumers want to pay? Because that IS what Radiohead did, but it is NOT what NIN did.
Does "Radiohead Style" mean that the band is experimenting with various modes of distribution? It seems like NIN is doing this.
Does "Radiohead Style" mean that NIN is trying to jump on the Radiohead publicity bandwagon and make some hay of their own? Again, I'd say this is the case.

Anyway, the bottom lines are these - NOW is the time for experimentation. There is no ownership in the digital age - there is no "Radiohead Style" or anyone else's style, for that matter. There are merely a bunch of ideas floating around, being experimented with, and new ideas coming along every second. We are all trying to figure out how to deploy these ideas for our customers/clients/friends/selves in ways that help make the artistic economy a viable "ecosystem" (see, i _was_ paying attention at the digital music forum east last week). Those seeking a silver bullet, or magic idea, will NOT find that single solution. Each project will have its own rules, its own definition of success, and its own benchmarks. No More Cookie Cutters!

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Nine Inch Nails Release New Album Radiohead-style
Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 3, 2008 - 12:59pm.

Los Angeles - Nine Inch Nails has launched a Radiohead-type release for its first offering since the band's major label contract with Interscope expired last October, including a mix of free and paid downloads, regular CDs and various limited edition versions. "I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point," Reznor writes on his website. "I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference."

The instrumental "Ghosts I-IV" album is a four-volume collection of 36 instrumental tracks, which Reznor says are "the result of working from a very visual perspective -- dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams."

The first nine tracks are available for free download as high-quality, DRM-free MP3s, while $5 delivers all 36 tracks in a variety of DRM-free formats.

The album will also be offered as a $10, 2 CD set; a $39, four-LP vinyl edition; a $75 limited edition CD set; and $300 ultra-deluxe edition four-LP vinyl set, limited to 2,500 copies signed by Reznor himself.

"Ghosts I-IV" is being released under the Creative Commons license -- a less restrictive copyright scheme -- and fans will be able to access multi-track versions of the songs on the album for remixing purposes.

DRM is Dead!!

today is the day! drm is dead! it was very exciting to turn on today and read these kind of headlines:

* Napster Goes DRM-Free on Downloads, MP3s Ahead
* Sony BMG Confirms Initial DRM-Free Strike, Retail Play Emerges

Amazing stuff. i think that iTunes is going to be the only place to get DRM'ed tracks (except for some SOL little independent sites) within 6 months. and that (DRM on iTunes) only because the majors are pissed at apple/jobs and won't give them their catalogs fully DRM free.
Imagine how much further along we'd be if this had happened 5 years ago?!?
Instead of this rapid downturn of sales, maybe we'd be that much closer to actually developing a working market for artists.
I know people who still haven't downloaded music, think that it is too complicated, haven't opened up to paypal or putting their credit card info in online, don't use itunes, have been scared off by "DRM" talk (either it is too hard to use, or that someone will be tracking them), or any number of other reasons/excuses. Now that they know that their music will play everywhere they want it to, maybe they'll try buying something somewhere. Imagine if the 844 million tracks bought in 2007 is just from the early adopters! wow. that is some power.

allofmp3.com are crooks!

i have posted on other blogs about this as well, but you know i got to talk about it here on my own blog. the site allofmp3.com was a site based in russia that supposedly was "legal" under russian law (according to the site and its defenders). however, as the article in the header link details, "Russian prosecutors are targeting Denis Kvasov, former owner of controversial MP3 store AllofMP3.com, with copyright infringement charges that would include jail time, according to published reports."

now, allofmp3.com was an amazing site from the perspective of a consumer, but awful from the artist perspective. as a consumer, you could get cheap music delivered quickly to you in your choice of format, all without DRM or copy protection. brilliant. however, they didn't pay any artist anything, so forget about it from the artist perspective. the challenge in my mind is how a company can deliver something like the service of allofmp3 while paying out to artists and labels. apple ain't doin' it now, nor is emusic, nor anyone else. calabash is trying to develop a download manager, and we are spec'ing the project of encoding everything in a variety of formats, or writing some scripts to dumb down lossless files on the server on demand. amie.st is doing some good stuff with delivery, and if you get stuff early, you get it cheap there. so a reputable answer will arise sooner or later.