You set price for new Radiohead release

The great riddle facing the record industry in the digital age has been pricing. As downloading (both legal and illegal) has increased, major labels largely have clung to an average of around $15 for CDs despite plummeting sales.

Now, one of the most acclaimed rock bands in the world, Radiohead, is answering that riddle with a shrug.

“It’s up to you,” reads a message on the Web page where fans can pre-order the band’s seventh album – and pay whatever they choose, including nothing.

The British band that twice has been nominated for a best-album Grammy will sidestep the conventional industry machinery Tuesday by releasing “In Rainbow” as a digital download with no set price. The album will be available only through www.radiohead.com, the band’s official site.

“This is all anybody is talking about in the music industry today,” says Bertis Downs, the longtime manager of R.E.M.

“This is the sort of model that people have been talking about doing, but this is the first time an act of this stature has stepped up and done it,” he says. “They were a band that could go off the grid, and they did it.”

Its Web site also will sell a deluxe edition of “In Rainbow” that comes with versions in three formats (CD, vinyl and download) along with eight bonus songs and a lavish hardcover book with lyrics, photos and a slipcase. That package cost 40 British pounds (about $82).

In upcoming weeks, Courtyard Management, which represents the band, reportedly will negotiate with labels about a conventional release for “In Rainbow” that would put it on store shelves in 2008.