Radiohead: It's Up To You Sales Data Published

There has been a lot going on in Iceland of late: street press wars, environmental protest songs, something about a financial crisis, and this week the You Are In Control conference hit Reykjavik.

The conference focused on distribution and income models for artists in the age of social networking, free downloads and diminishing attention spans.

On day one of the conference, some statistics on sales of Radiohead’s In Rainbows were revealed, and it is pretty amazing.

• The album was a No. 1 in five major markets.
• The album went to No. 1 on US iTunes selling 30,000 downloads in the first week.
• The physical CD has sold in excess of 1.75 million copies.
• Including 100,000 copies of the premium box set.

All this after being available as a free (It’s up to you) download for a full two months prior to its proper release.

Is this evidence enough to encourage others to use similar release models, not sure? Does it prove that downloads don’t kill sales, I think so.