Radiohead Donates Money to Climate Change Group Instead of Paying Ransom to Hackers

Authored by gq.com and submitted by masstrip

Last week, an unnamed hacker stole a cache of unreleased Radiohead recordings. Lead singer Thom Yorke had 18 MiniDisc recordings, mostly an hour long each, of music the band made while working on the seminal 1997 album, OK Computer, and the hacker threatened to release the recordings online unless they paid a ransom of $150,000.

Instead of paying the ransom, the band put all the music online themselves. In a statement, Radiohead guitarist and keyboardist Jonny Greenwood described the 18 hours of recordings as, "Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue) it’s only tangentially interesting. And very, very long. Not a phone download. Rainy out, isn't it though?"

The recordings are available for £18 (approximately $23) on the website Bandcamp. All of the proceeds will go to Extinction Rebellion, an activist organization dedicated to fighting man-made climate change, biodiversity loss, and "a mass extinction of our own making." The group has hosted talks on climate change in local communities across Britain and has helped push for mass mobilization and elaborate public demonstrations, like when activists chained themselves to a boat hauled into central London.

Any aspiring hackers should probably take note: If you're going to target musicians for blackmail, maybe try something more embarrassing than some unreleased studio recordings and a group that's less likely to use it as an opportunity to raise awareness for worthy causes.

RunDNA on June 11st, 2019 at 18:54 UTC »

That's not quite accurate.

The original fan with the recordings gave a copy to someone else. That second fan offered to sell copies of the 18 discs to other Radiohead fans online, so the original fan got pissed off and leaked all the music six days ago. Radiohead fans have been listening to the music for the last few days.

So now Radiohead is selling the music officially online, with sales going to charity.

Edit: the group of hardcore fans who produced the Google Doc Tracklist of the Leak have now confirmed most of these facts in their new Updated Document where they lay out the whole story in detail. Here's some of what they said:

Stories about the discs being held for ransom are untrue, and it seems that even the band believed them. The band may be misinformed, or they may intentionally be crafting a legendary version of events. It was incredibly frustrating reading the articles that got it all wrong.

But there is also one final twist in the story: it is revealed that the Second Fan was the one who finally leaked the music, but he leaked it under a fake account pretending to be who he falsely claimed was the Original Fan. Or something like that.

LyleTheMosquito on June 11st, 2019 at 18:40 UTC »

Which once again proves my theory, that hacking musicians reduces climate change.

Studsmanly on June 11st, 2019 at 18:07 UTC »

Any aspiring hackers should probably take note: If you're going to target musicians for blackmail, maybe try something more embarrassing than some unreleased studio recordings and a group that's less likely to use it as an opportunity to raise awareness for worthy causes.

Kudos Radiohead.