@Dan
"Nine Inch Nails experiment is a lot easier to take seriously. That's because Reznor has made the album available in both lossless and high-bit rate formats. Radiohead's In Rainbows, by contrast, came as only a 160 kbps MP3, which hardly seemed worth the time it took to download it."
And CD and Vinyl were also available from the site at a cost of £40 (not too far off the $75 that Trent is charging for his mid-range product). So you are wrong - it wasn't "only" released as a 160kbps MP3.
"Oh, and the album is no longer available as an online download. Radiohead singer Thom Yorke later dismissed a net-only album paradigm, saying people want to buy a tangible object rather than a download. Makes you wonder why Britain's favorite navel gazers bothered in the first place."
Apart from the fact that the album sales vindicated Thom Yorke's decision to release the album in the stores, let's compare this to the next statement:
"And just in case this net distribution thing doesn't take off, Ghosts I-IV is also available as a regular CD in retail stores."
Makes you wonder why Trent bothered in the first place? No, it makes me wonder why you bothered writing this junk Dan.
Dan, you're obviously not a fan of Radiohead and obviously a fan of NiN. I personally am a fan of both yet don't appreciate seeing your prejudice here attempting to taint the views of others. I wonder what your motivation is as you seem more interested in decrying Radiohead's efforts than reporting objectively.
Radiohead did what they did. I applaud them for it. Trent has just done this, obviously influenced in some part by Radiohead and learning from the feedback that Radiohead got over their distribution method, he has improved on it and I applaud him for it. Why do you choose to state that what Radiohead did was somehow wrong?
I'll quote The Strangler's (who never gave an album away online): You're brain's exposed and it's starting to show your rotten thoughts yeuch.
More facts and less subjective opinion in future please Dan.