Editors' Tom Smith: 'Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' release was selfish'

Editors frontman Tom Smith has said that he believes that Radiohead's 2007 pay-what-you-like release plan for their 'In Rainbows' album was "selfish". He claimed it was in direct conflict with guitarist Ed O'Brien's current stance on downloading.

O'Brien, a member of the Featured Artists Coalition, has spoken out against file-sharing, calling for a 'three-strikes' rule for offenders before their connections would be restricted.

Smith told BBC 6 Music that he thought O'Brien's view was contradicted by the 'In Rainbows' release – for which fans could choose how much to pay to download it.

"It's a weird thing to say that but in giving it away for free, it didn't feel like it had any connection to the bigger problem and it was selfish," he said.

Smith did, however, say that he was backing the guitarist's anti-downloading stance. "It's like music is just background [for file-sharers], you can just grab bits and pieces rather than an album as a whole," he said. "But I think the big artists have a responsibility for the smaller artists, to speak up when things are going wrong.

"I also find it weird that they [Radiohead] gave their album away for free. I think that's in direct conflict to [taking a stance against file sharing]."

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