I just wrote RadioHead Download Metrics - 60% don't pay anything - Comscore a few days ago, when the Comscore study came out finding 3 out of 5 people downloading "In Rainbows", Radiohead's new album, did not pay anything - were freeloaders.

Now RadioHead speaks back with a message quoted on last100 saying RadioHead's fans are not cheapskates; take "that" Comscore (says RadioHead).

"…Radiohead claims that comScore, the Internet company which provided the initial numbers, is “totally inaccurate.” Radiohead said in a statement (via matthewingram.com):

“In response to purely speculative figures announced in the press regarding the number of downloads and the price paid for the album, the group’s representatives should like to remind people that . . . it is impossible for outside organisations to have accurate figures on sales.

“However, they [the band] can confirm that the figures quoted by the company comScore, Inc., are wholly inaccurate and in no way reflect definitive market intelligence or, indeed, the true success of the project.”

I saw what Comscore did with the Second Life Census numbers earlier this year (“Second Life” - Rapidly Growing with Global Base of Active Residents - Comscore) -  I don't doubt the panel data they use is very skewed and, even a panel of 2 million , is not representative enough of the behavior of may types of visitors or activities going on online.

To be fair, Comscore replied back -

"…comScore senior Analyst Andrew Lipsman, of course, defends his company’s results. “We’re confident in our data,” he said in an MTV news report. “There’s minimal margin of error based on the size of the sample we used and the narrow range of values.” (See comScore’s blog for more detail.)"

The only thing I'd say in RadioHead's case - their definition of "success" might be different than what Comscore is measuring; I don't expect excellent Web Analytics from a Rock Band - but then again, who knows?