The other experiment came from a collaboration between Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Saul Williams where the public was offered the opportunity to grab free downloads online, or pay $5 for higher-quality downloads. Each experiment was hailed by industry watchers as the “future of the music biz” and “the end of the recording industry as we know it.”

So, how did things go?

You’d have to be living on the same island as the Oceanic flight 815 castaways in the TV series “Lost” not to have heard about Radiohead’s download adventure. Having recently split with EMI, the band offered name-your-own-price downloads for their new album In Rainbows. And, if you didn’t want to pay for it, entering a big fat zero in the order form got you the downloads as well.

Although Radiohead hasn’t released its download numbers, the Nielsen SoundScan U.S. figures for the album’s CD release three months after the download promotion began are positive. Fans bought 122,000 In Rainbows CDs, propelling the album to No. 1 on the Nielsen SoundScan charts.

Of course, 122,000 is a perfectly respectable figure for any band, but how does it compare to Radiohead’s past efforts? In CD form In Rainbows‘ first week of sales wasn’t nearly as high as the 300,000 copies of the band’s 2003 album Hail To The Thief, which eventually sold about 1 million copies. But was the lower sales figure for In Rainbows due to the download campaign, the time of year or a combination of both?

Perhaps a little bit of both.

It doesn’t take much of a stretch to imagine that some people who downloaded the Radiohead album for free only did because they could. It was a chance for free music, and some of the people who took Radiohead up on that offer are probably the same people you see cruising supermarkets on Saturday mornings scooping up the free food samples. Their motto is, “If it’s free, it’s for me.”

But chances are the real Radiohead fans, despite what they might have paid for the online In Rainbows, probably purchased the CD when it landed on store shelves. For them, Radiohead isn’t just a great band, it’s a way of life.

Of course, Radiohead is a band name known throughout the world, and name recognition definitely helps sell music. Which makes you wonder what would happen if an artist or band that isn’t quite as well known as Radiohead was to try a similar promotion.

An artist like Saul Williams, for example.

The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust is a Saul Williams album. However, Trent Reznor worked closely with Williams on the album, and when it came to trying a different way to market the effort, it was Reznor’s name that made the media sit up and take notice.

Reznor described two options for acquiring Niggy Tardust downloads in a message posted October 25 on the Nine Inch Nails Web site.

The first option was labeled, “I want to directly support the artists involved in the creation of this music.” Clicking on the option pre-ordered the album for $5.

The other option was labeled, “I’m not concerned about that. I just want the music.” Clicking on this option ordered the album for free.

Other than the money, the main difference between the Niggy Tardust downloads priced at $5 and the free downloads was that fans choosing to pay the 5 bucks got their choice of three different digital formats – 192 Kbps MP3, 320 Kbps MP3 and FLAC lossless audio, while the freebies were encoded only at 192 Kbps.

And the result?

During the first week of January, Reznor told CNET’s News.com that 80 percent had chosen the free option, and called that result “disheartening.”

But is it a disappointment? Williams does not yet have the name recognition that Radiohead enjoys, and it’s conceivable that a lot of those free downloaders may have been hearing the artist for the first time. Since one of the arguments in favor of file-sharing is that it helps music fans discover new music, it would appear that many people might have “discovered” Saul Williams through the free download option. That may not be money in the bank for Williams and Reznor, but it might lead to bigger sales in the future.

Along with discovering new music, the proponents of free music on the Net are often quick to cite Radiohead’s In Rainbows promotion and point to other big name acts, such as The Rolling Stones or U2, as bands that don’t need labels to sell their music.

That’s probably true, but it’s hard to imagine someone as business savvy as Mick Jagger handing out free downloads of The Stones’ next album. Although free downloads can work to an act’s advantage and can result in more concert tickets sold as well as increasing a fan base, it’s the labels, both major and indie, that have the promotional machinery in place to take new and up-and-coming bands and artists to the next level.

Back in the day, Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio was the label for artists on their way to glory, a starting point for Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and, of course, Elvis. But even Phillips knew those artists would someday be snapped up by the major labels.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the labels evolve into something whose only purpose in life is to nurture a band or artist until the act grows so big that it no longer needs a record label?