According to Ars Technica, In Rainbows is still going to be released on CD via one of the big four labels. Apparently, online distribution alone is simply not broad enough to support Radiohead’s worldwide audience (some of whom don’t have broadband, don’t like buying online, don’t like MP3 distribution, etc).

This is really quite brilliant: Radiohead convinced Gen-Y to pay for their album they would have otherwise downloaded for free. Mainstream media outlets (Time, NYT, etc) hyped up In Rainbows as the first big brick to fall in the process of tearing down the major labels… Fans who typically Bittorrent albums wanted to support this innovative distribution model, and thus bought an album they would have normally downloaded for free.

I’m not trying to say that Radiohead intentionally subverted their fans… but, I wonder how many people would have bought In Rainbows if they had known that it would eventually be distributed via a major label? Based on all the blog buzz I’ve read, I think Gen-Y found something romantic about supporting the disintermediation of the record labels, and buying a copy of In Rainbows was like buying a giant foam middle finger to wave at the Big Four. Now that In Rainbows will be carried by one of the Big Four, it really kills the romance. In Rainbows is no longer something exclusive… it’s just another MP3 album, except I suspect this MP3 album was acquired legally far more often than the average MP3 album.

Also, it’s funny to note the implication for DRM based on Radiohead’s experiment. Radiohead’s DRM-Free release will likely generate more revenue than releases from equivalently large bands on major labels that released DRM’d files. Yet another nail in the coffin for DRM.