Music lovers: Today is digital download day

Can you believe how quickly it's come around...?

Digital music service OD2 has declared today Digital Download Day - and is marking the occasion with a free offer to music lovers which will enable them to download 50 tracks, absolutely free of charge and all above board. Everybody in the UK is eligible for the offer which gives them £5 worth of credit to spend online with OD2 between 3 October and 9 October 2002. For their £5 music lovers can stream 500 songs at 1p per track, download 50 for 10p each or burn a CD with five songs at £1 each - or any combination of the three. The cross-industry initiative, being spearheaded by OD2, which was founded by musician Peter Gabriel, has been planned in an attempt to encourage listeners to try out paid-for services and move away from the illegal file-sharing model which has proved so popular in the past. Stuart Rowe, ecommerce director at HMV, which is joining in with the venture, said: "It is only right that the industry takes all appropriate measures to protect its copyright and its artists' interests. However, it's also apparent that along with the stick we need to offer a carrot so that over time we help develop a new culture where music consumers come to recognise the value of paid-for downloads and don't automatically expect to get them for free." Although Napster suffered a high-profile demise, hundreds of other services have filled the void left by the peer-to-peer pioneer. As such, all music available as part of Digital Download Day is encrypted with digital rights management technology, ensuring the free offer doesn't come back to haunt the industry as people redistribute the music they downloaded. High street music giant HMV and major ISPs msn.co.uk, Tiscali and Freeserve will make the music available via their websites for Digital Download Day. Music fans will be able to download tracks from a catalogue of more than 100,000 songs.