English rock band Radiohead announced a month ago it will experiment by letting users pay what they want for their latest album. Radiohead made its latest album “In Rainbows” available to fans for a sum established by the purchasers. “It’s up to you” to decide how much to pay for the band’s songs and the fact that they haven’t fixed any minimum threshold may encourage fans to be more generous.

However, ComScore reports that freeloaders outnumbered by 62 to 38 percent the fans willing to pay for the British band's new album. The statistics apply for the period between Oct. 10 and Oct. 29. The 38 percent who did cough up cash paid an average of $6 each and a total of 1.2 million people downloaded the album, the research firm reported. ComScore's initial figures put the average price at a little more than $2 for an album, less than the $5 previously estimated by Billboard senior editor Jonathan Cohen.

Users can place the album in the online checkout basket and fill in the price they wish to pay. To help those unfamiliar with the new concept, a question mark pops up next to the price box, which displays the message "It's Up To You" when clicked. A completed transaction showed the album can be bought for as little as one pence (2 cents), plus a 45 pence (90 cent) charge for using a credit or debit card.

The band raked in so far almost $3 million, a lot less than the nearly $12 million in sales the band may have seen from selling its album at the regular album price on iTunes. However, the band gets to keep all that money.

"We estimated that $2.50 or $3.00 per album would've been their royalty rate [had Radiohead put out their album through a label.] Most of the purchase price of an album is money that is recouped by the label for what they spent on promotion, studio costs and administrative costs," Cohen said.

The band also offered a special edition boxed set priced at 40 pounds (82 dollars) on the website, which includes two vinyl albums, a CD version of the new album and a second CD with additional new songs, artwork and photographs of the band.

Radiohead's novel approach comes as the traditional music industry model of CD sales has been decimated by unauthorized downloads that have seen total sales of albums drop for seven straight years. The success of Apple's iTunes and other online music stores is scant comfort as downloads, including ringtones still account for less than 20 per cent of the overall music market.

In the decaying sales of record industry, an initiative like this will boost sales in concerts, as it was the precedent with Prince’s free album 3121 in UK that helped him attract more in his concerts. So the band’s profits won’t be affected by album sales and their popularity will augment more and more.  

Radiohead, founded in 1991, consists of Thom Yorke (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, electronics), Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, other instruments), Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Greenwood (bass guitar, synthesizers) and Phil Selway (drums, percussion). The band plans to issue 'In Rainbows' as a standard CD in early 2008.