For years people have wondered why music labels set the prices too high for new releases Mainstream artists, first Radiohead with their album In Rainbows, and now Nine Inch Nails and The Charlatans are giving away their newest albums for free as digital downloads.

Nine Inch Nails uploaded their own album to some torrent sites. The album is available in many DRM-free formats under a Creative Commons license which states that the music is free to distribute and you can use it for all purposes except commercial use.

Also, the band released a note along with the album, which you can find in this site, along with links to the songs.

The album is called Ghosts and is comprised of 4 parts, all instrumental. The first one, Ghosts I is available for download on their own website, but the site has been down since this morning, maybe because excessive traffic as this news are flying around fast. Anyway, you can still download it if you want from a torrent site here. For just USD $5 you can download the whole 4 parts.

The other album i saw that is being given away for free is You Cross My Path by The Charlatans. For more information on the album and links to download it, read this XFM (UK radio station) article. It has news from the band manager as well as download links to get the album.

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