Charlie Maffitt

This is not a music review.

But you rarely get to find out what's coming out of people's headphones. However, I happen to know what at least a few Plexus employees have been listening to for the past couple of days. It's called In Rainbows.

It's significant because it is being distributed entirely over the internet (without the aid of a record company) by the band Radiohead, at a cost of whatever the listener decides to pay for the album. The website, www.inrainbows.com, allows listeners to choose between a high-quality digital download or a limited-edition discbox with a second disc of additional material(a marvel of graphic and packaging design, to be sure), to be shipped to their door by the 3rd of December. The discbox costs £40.00 ($81.36) and includes a free download.

The download by itself costs whatever you want to pay for it, allowing the consumer to set their own value on the luxury we know as recorded music.

Several of us at Plexus have gone to the site, named our own price for the album, downloaded it and listened to it. Whether the record is good is beside the point -- the point is that the internet yet again changed the way we as consumers did business.

Each of us decided what a new Radiohead album on our iPods was worth to us, and worked out a deal directly with the band, via their website. We paid in pounds Sterling with our credit cards, and the band didn't have to split any of it with the suits at the record label (Radiohead recently decided not to renew a contract with EMI Records and are essentially free agents at the time of the album's release).

How is it? This is not a music review.

It's a daring move, and probably best reserved for bands with established, loyal fan bases, which is exactly what Radiohead has. But it represents a kind of individual freedom and economic liberty that I think the world needs more of.

I therefore give them credit for setting a new standard for economic exchange between musicians and their fans, the artist and the consumer -- all made possible by one little website. It's not the first time they've been ahead of the curve: I just hope that this time they split some of what they make with the web developers who made it all possible.