• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, March 3, 2008

Nine Inch Nails just released its latest album online, Ghost, free of DRM restrictions and at pay-what-you-wish pricing.

The group is offering nine of the album's 36 instrumental tracks for free. Fans can purchase all tracks for as little as $5 or as much as $300 for an autographed set. There's also a $10 version and one for $75.

For frontman Trent Reznor, the initiative marks the second time he has experimented with letting consumers set the price. Last year, he produced "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust" by Saul Williams, which he made available online. Consumers could opt to download the album for free, or pay $5 for higher quality tracks.

Results were mixed. An estimated 80% of people took him up on the free offer, while an estimated 28,000 downloaders opted to pay -- numbers that Reznor said he found "disheartening."

But the good news: it greatly increased Williams' exposure. His previous album, released in 2004, only sold around 34,000 copies.

Reznor has long criticized the music industry for setting unfairly high prices. Last year, at a concert in Australia, he urged fans to download his group's tracks from file-sharing sites rather than pay what his label charged.

Reznor isn't the only musician looking for new pricing structures. Last year, Radiohead made its latest album, "In Rainbows," available on a pay-what-you-wish basis. In the first three weeks the tracks were online, six in 10 downloaders didn't pay anything, according to comScore. Of those who paid, the average contribution was $6. (Radiohead disputes these figures, but hasn't yet issued its own.)

Despite the offer of free tracks, "In Rainbows" quickly rose to No. 1 on the music charts when it was later released as a CD. While it's possible some of the people who purchased the CD did so because they don't have broadband, that can't be the only explanation.

Some consumers -- especially fans -- simply want to own a physical product. They are apparently willing to pay for one -- even if they can get the tracks for free.