radiohead gives away free music

yes you read it right. the band radiohead is giving away free music. I first heard the news on npr on my way home from work and decided to give it a try. apparently, the band recently broke away from its record label and as a way of protesting against big record labels and their fixed pricing, the band is "giving away" their music. well, there's a catch... they aren't really "giving" it away. when you enter their website at www.radiohead.com you'll be asked to click enter to enter their site. then you'll need to click continue. you'll then be given the option of either pre-ordering the discbox or the digital download. the discbox comes with the usual CD, an ehance CD, a vinyl, some cool artwork, and a hardback copy of the lyrics. the downside? it costs about 40 GBP or approximately $80. if, however, you click on the download option, when you check out where the price should be you'll see a question mark. you can put ANY amount you want in there...even free! I wound up putting 5 GBP in there (the equivalent of $10). as I see it it's a win-win situation for all. Radiohead gets higher profits (they get all of the profits as opposed to having to pay a percentage to the record labels) and the fans get what they want - great music at a great price. now a couple of caveats: 1)the currency is in GBP so if you have any hesitancies about ordering stuff online internationally, this deal is probably not for you. 2)the download isn't officially released until Oct 10, 2007 so you can't download the songs until then. 3)there is a 0.45 GBP (approximately $1) processing charge so the CD download officially cost me $11.14 (5 GBP donation + 0.45 GBP processing fee). so if you like good music and sticking it to big record labels give radiohead a try. if you do wind up doing this, drop me a comment about your experience on the radiohead website. peace.