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The website of British rockers "The Charlatans" said the band will offer their newest album "You Cross My Path" as a free download starting March 3, 2008. You will able to download it on their site or the Xfm website.

While this is similar to Radiohead's "In Rainbows," it wasn't clear on the site if they were asking for whatever people wanted to pay, or if it was simply being offered for free with no pay mechanism in place.

After a period of time, up to May 19th, the band will then release a physical CD, as well as vinyl release in 33 countries, they communicated on their site. It'll be distributed through Cooking Vinyl.

Included with the offering will be a deluxe edition and limited number of vinyl 45's in a box set.

The Charlatans - You Cross my Path

Before the release of the album, on February 25th, they will also release a free downloadable single named "Oh! Vanity."

With the success of Radiohead in selling over 122,000 physical albums after their offer of paying whatever you wanted for the digital copy, many more bands and artists will be trying this out.

An interesting point to make about this for online marketers, is this isn't anything new, especially with those that have been offering digital versions of books for free, then coming back with print books of the same in a "classic" or "deluxe" version, or whatever it may be called. It has worked great for marketers and authors for quite some time.

Think of that and variations of it in your products and you'll find interesting ways to generate revenue. The key is adding something of value, similar to movies coming out in DVD form with all the extras with them.