Radiohead’s pioneering pay-what-you-like In Rainbows album was bought three million times across all formats and sold more physical CD copies than the band’s last two records, despite its initial availability online at potentially no cost. That startling fact came from from Jane Dyball (via MusicAlly), head of business affairs at music label publisher Warner/Chappell, which administered the record’s digital rights on an unusual “one-stop shop” basis.

—Physical sales: Speaking at the You Are In Control conference in Iceland today, Dyball revealed that, despite being available potentially for free online, the record still sold 1.75 million physical copies (2001’s Amnesiac sold just 900,000 copies, 2003’s Hail to the Thief shifted 990,000; each less loved than the latest). The band even managed to make £4 million from the 100,000 people that bought the lavish In Rainbows boxed set at £40 each.

—Web income: The juicy bit: before physical CD copies went on sale, publishing income from In Rainbows’ pay-what-you-like digital experiment reached higher than the band’s entire previous digital sales publishing income. Remember, this is not sales income but licensing revenue. It’s also true that, before In Rainbows, the band had made scant little from digital anyway, as it refused to sell via iTunes. Even so, the album scored more retail sales from digital than Hail to the Thief did across all formats.

Dyball confirms what the big music labels had believed, or perhaps feared: it was a success for all involved. What these figures don’t quantify is free downloads from the official site - the number of people who now own the album is much higher, and is pushing some 1.2 million paying fans to Radiohead’s current tour, to which some say music retail revenue is migrating. According to MusicAlly, despite their artistic silence on the issue, Radiohead were monitoring the daily average price of the digital download while it was available and were prepared to pull the plug on the whole thing if it got too low.

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