Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has said the band will not be repeating its In Rainbows experiment which allowed fans to download the album at a price of their choice - allegedly nothing, in most cases.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Yorke said: "I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation. Yes. It was a one-off in terms of a story. It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do. I don't think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time."

A subsequent traditional release of In Rainbows saw it top the UK and US album charts, supporting Yorke's opinion that fans want a physical "object". In January, he dismissed the idea of net-only releases as "stark raving mad".

Nine Inch Nails were taking no chances on being dubbed stark raving mad earlier this year when they released Ghosts I-IV online for prices ranging from absolutely nothing for a nine-track, cut-down version of the "instrumental collection" in 320 kbps MP3 format, or $5 for the remaining 27 tracks "in lossless formats including FLAC".

However, the band also offered the album on CD, DVD, and vinyl - just as well, since the download stampede floored the website's servers.

Earlier this week, Coldplay's site suffered the same fate when the Brit band handed out a freebie version of Violet Hill from the forthcoming Viva La Vida. ®

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• Nine Inch Nails slam Radiohead's 'bait and switch' (12 March 2008)
• Nine Inch Nails cracks net distribution (maybe) (3 March 2008)
• Brit violinist does a Radiohead (8 January 2008)
• Radiohead top UK album chart (7 January 2008)
• Thom Yorke dismisses net-only album paradigm (2 January 2008)
• Radiohead lets fans price new CD (1 October 2007)