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In some small English villages, it’s not an uncommon sight — a display of newly harvested vegetables and next to them an “honesty box” inviting you to leave some money.

On the face of it, Radiohead’s decision to sell downloads of In Rainbows — eight weeks before its physical equivalent — at whatever price you might care to pay for it, is not so different. Its timing, though, is charged with an almost political significance. The worth of music forms part of the crisis in the industry. But by taking that question to their own constituency, Radiohead have done something remarkably radical. Record company paranoia about the free dissemination of songs goes back to the days when album sleeves bore a skull and crossbones with the legend “Home Taping is Killing Music” on it. In the age of file sharing and free albums with newspapers, the problem has merely intensified.

Underpinning all of this is the assumption that, given a choice, people will steal music rather than pay for it. Radiohead are putting that to the test. There’s no doubt that thousands will hand over the price of a sherbet dip for the download. Presumably, though, Radiohead’s argument runs that those people would have obtained the album through file-sharing sites.

What this move relies on is the notion that there is between Radiohead and their fans a collateral of trust and, dare the term be uttered, decency.

This is the very thing that has propelled the band to unprecedented autonomy. If it works, it will — at the click of a few million mice — make them the most powerful band in Britain.

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