Yorke was most legally-downloaded BitTorrent artist in 2014โ€ฆ

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Thom Yorke might have made $20 million from his solo album Tomorrowโ€™s Modern Boxes, which he released last September using new model BitTorrent Bundles.

The singer charged $6 (ยฃ3.68) per record when he released the album last September on Bundles, a new product launched by BitTorrent in 2013 that allows musicians and other artists to combine free downloads with paid products.

As Gigoam, BitTorrent has now revealed that Tomorrowโ€™s Modern Boxes was downloaded 4.4 million times, making Yorke the most legally-downloaded BitTorrent artist in 2014, and โ€“ presuming that everyone who downloaded the bundle paid for it โ€“ the recipient of around $20 million in profits.

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When the album was released, Yorke described it as โ€œan experimentโ€. In a press release co-authored with producer Nigel Godrich, he said: โ€œAs an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record. The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files. The files can be anything, but in this case is an โ€˜albumโ€™. Itโ€™s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around.

โ€œIf it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work.โ€

Tomorrowโ€™s Modern Boxes was Yorkeโ€™s first solo album since 2006โ€™s The Eraser. Last month, Nigel Godrich posted a picture of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood working on Radioheadโ€™s new album. Earlier, Greenwood had said the sessions for the new album were at the โ€œfumbling stageโ€.

Asked by BBC Radio Oxford whether the band are in the studio, Greenwood said: โ€œIโ€™m late, theyโ€™ve all gone there now. Weโ€™re currently playing and recording and itโ€™s fun to see everyone again, itโ€™s been a long time coming, weโ€™ve been waiting all of us for a long time.โ€