Editing Kid A (section)

=== Internet ===
{{quote box
| quote  = Everything in the industry at that point was like, "The internet isn't important. It's not selling records" – everything for them had to translate to a sale. I knew the internet was [generating sales], but I couldn't prove it because every record had MTV and radio with it. [After ''Kid A'' was a success], nobody in the industry could believe it because there was no radio and there was no traditional music video. I knew at that point: this is the story of the internet. The internet has done this.
| source = – Capitol executive Robin Sloan Bechtel, 2015<ref name="Grantland"/>
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Though Radiohead had experimented with internet promotion for ''OK Computer'' in 1997, by 2000 online music promotion was not widespread,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9890-internet-explorers-the-curious-case-of-radioheads-online-fandom/|title=Internet Explorers: The Curious Case of Radiohead's Online Fandom|last=Jeremy|first=Gordon|date=12 May 2016|website=[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160512175336/http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9890-internet-explorers-the-curious-case-of-radioheads-online-fandom/|archive-date=12 May 2016|access-date=21 October 2019}}</ref> with record labels still reliant on [[MTV]] and radio.<ref name="Grantland"/> Donwood wrote that EMI was not interested in the Radiohead website, and left him and the band to update it with "discursive and random content".<ref name="Donwood-2019" />

To promote ''Kid A'', Capitol created the "iBlip", a [[Java applet]] that could be embedded in fan sites. It allowed users to [[Streaming media|stream]] the album, and included artwork, photos and links to order ''Kid A'' on [[Amazon.com|Amazon]].<ref name="COHEN" /><ref name="Grantland" /> It was used by more than 1000 sites, and the album was streamed more than 400,000 times.<ref name="Grantland" /> Capitol also streamed ''Kid A'' through Amazon, MTV.com and [[heavy.com]], and ran a campaign with the [[peer-to-peer]] filesharing service [[Madster|Aimster]], allowing users to swap iBlips and Radiohead-branded Aimster skins.<ref name="COHEN" />

Three weeks before release, ''Kid A'' was [[music leak|leaked online]] and shared on the peer-to-peer service [[Napster]]. Asked whether he believed Napster had damaged sales, the Capitol president, Ray Lott, likened the situation to unfounded concern about [[Home Taping Is Killing Music|home taping]] in the 1980s and said: "I'm trying to sell as many Radiohead albums as possible. If I worried about what Napster would do, I wouldn't sell as many albums."<ref name="COHEN" /> Yorke said Napster "encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do".<ref>{{cite news |last=Farley |first=Christopher John |date=23 October 2000 |title=Radioactive |url=http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1023/radiohead.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110311074531/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1023/radiohead.html |archive-date=11 March 2011 |access-date=22 March 2007 |work=[[Time Europe]] |volume=156 |issue=17}}</ref> 

The commercial success of ''Kid A'' suggested that leaks might not be as damaging as many had assumed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Harvey |first=Eric |date=2015-01-28 |title=A History of Digital Album Leaks, 1993-2015 |url=https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/652-a-history-of-digital-album-leaks-1993-2015/ |access-date=2024-02-07 |website=[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]] |language=en-US |archive-date=4 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240204044710/https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/652-a-history-of-digital-album-leaks-1993-2015/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The music journalist Brent DiCrescenzo argued that the Napster leak profoundly affected the way ''Kid A'' was received, surprising listeners who would patiently download new tracks to find they comprised "four minutes of ambient noise".<ref name="Billboard" />