• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 15, 2007

One of the last holdouts to digital music, classic rock group Led Zeppelin, has decided to makes its catalog available online starting next month.

The group, whose catalogue includes the radio favorite "Stairway to Heaven," will start selling ringtones this week, via a deal with Verizon Wireless, according to The New York Times. Then, beginning Nov. 13, two weeks before a planned reunion concert, digital tracks will go on sale at a variety of online music stores, including Apple's iTunes, according to the Times.

"The addition of the digital option will better enable fans to obtain their music in whichever manner they prefer," guitarist Jimmy Page said in a statement.

What's surprising here isn't that Led Zeppelin is going to sell tracks online, but that it took until now to make that decision. Consumers have shown that they intend to seek music on the Web -- at peer-to-peer sites that offer it for free as well as at paid download sites.

Given the efficiencies of digital distribution, it's hard to see a business case for refusing to sell online. It's not as if offering tracks for download will increase the possibility of piracy. If anything, giving people more opportunities to legally purchase music should lead to more sales; consumers who balk at shelling out more than $10 for an entire CD might well be willing to pay 99 cents for "Rock and Roll."