Radiohead Proposes Bandwidth Throttling For Downloaders

In an interesting interview with ITN News, Ed O'Brien of Radiohead suggests that bandwidth throttling (the practice of limiting the quantity of data a sever transmits and/or accepts within a specified period of time) may be a viable method to combat illegal downloading and filesharing.

Radiohead made waves in the worlds of music and technology by initially releasing their last record, In Rainbows, through their website as an optional 'pay-what-you-want' download. The move, initially thought by many to be a sign of sea change in the industry, was quickly revealed by the band to be a stunt thought up by their management, and the band drew more criticism when they elected to sign with another traditional label for physical distribution of the record, and then disappointment when the band revealed they would not reinstate the 'pay-what-you-want' option for their next record.

What do you think? Is bandwidth throttling an answer in the fight against illegal filesharing, or is it just a way of punishing everyone for the actions of the few?

Thanks for the report to Punknews.org.

Comments

[alano99]

You know, I love Radiohead as a band and they make great music, but who the f*** cares what they think about bandwidth throttling?

[EiutS]

Lovely misleading title, Radiohead themselves didn't say this, Ed did, and no doubt he'll be saying it on behalf of the FAC and not the band.
I can't see illegal downloading disappearing unless ISP's monitor exactly what people do on the internet, which will probably never happen.

[paddypadman]

Its better than having you being banned from the internet!

[poipoi]

paddypadman wrote:

Its better than having you being banned from the internet!

Can't happen anymore, it's againts human rights (or something like that, read it this morning).
Download throttling (kinda) exists in my country (Belgium). I can only download 15 Gig a month, but depending on your internet supplier (or whatever it's called) it can be less or more (I know a guy who has 1 Gig a month). But still, if you do download throttling, there will still be downloading... only less, so it's kinda useless.

[the_hoodster]

I wonder if he is related to Dara O'Brien

[ScottElwood]

Stupid idea from someone who probably doesn't use the internet at a great length

[JordanDH]

the_hoodster wrote:

I wonder if he is related to Dara O'Brien

I doubt it. They spell and pronounce their names differently.

[damien89ash]

the_hoodster wrote:

I wonder if he is related to Dara O'Brien

Maybe he is related to Ed Byrne

[strat0blaster]

Pretty soon they'll be people throttling when someone burns a cd for a friend.

[thirteenburn]

Ed O'Brien is a f-ing tool. Evidently it was A-OK for a filesharing free-for-all when it came to the then novel approach of marketing one of their useless, techno-noodling albums (I've hated everythign after 'Pablo Honey'), but now it's a heinous crime that needs to be destroyed?

I wish that both Ed O'Brien and Radiohead would just go away once and for all. They've long overstayed their welcome.

I'm just sayin'...

[AlexMacky]

Do they not realize that promoting this sort of shit is helping "big brother" accomplish all the things they speak against in their music? But who cares what Ed O'Brien has to say? Unless it's from Thom Yorke or Johnny Greenwood, I'd say you can't even use the name Radiohead in the tag!

[emphaticleech]

thirteenburn wroteI've hated everythign after 'Pablo Honey'),

Do what now?

[JohnnyNutman]

this is a stupid idea. this is not the best way to do this.

[Morning Star]

thirteenburn wrote:
I've hated everythign after 'Pablo Honey'

Well that's certainly a unique point of view if nothing else.

thirteenburn wrote:
Evidently it was A-OK for a filesharing free-for-all when it came to the then novel approach of marketing one of their useless, techno-noodling albums...

How is that 'free for all' different from releasing a hard copy album that gets put on the internet? You missed the point it was making and besides it says in the article it wasn't Radiohead's idea.

[ZeGuitarist]

Checked.

[strongsadguy]

Who wrote this article? This isn't a review of an album or a band, this is a news article. I don't understand why they are trashing the band. "quickly revealed by the band to be a stunt thought up by their management" "the band drew more criticism" "then disappointment when the band revealed they would not reinstate..." None of this is true. They didn't do any research on this at all. It was not a "stunt thought up by their managment", no one was angry at all when they put the album out in physical form, and the "pay-what-you-want" thing was just a something they were trying out, and made no promises about it for the future.

If I was writing about a band that I don't like, but it was a news article, I would do my research and remain UNBIASED to the music genre. I am very disappointed in u-g.com. How did this even get on the site? Really disappointing.

[axemanchris]

Well, nobody at UG wrote it. It's just linked (and I don't know by whom) from another site. When you go to that site, there is an interview with Ed O'Brien where he talks about his views on throttling, which substantiates the claims in the article.

Now there is a link to a BBC interview about the whole "just a stunt" thing, but the link points to a file that is no longer available on the BBC website. Hoax link? Truth? No proof either way, but I'd be surprised if the people at that site would attempt to give the illusion of a substantiated claim by putting up a deliberately hoax link.