The Charlatans are to give away new recordings free on the internet in a radical move that threatens to shake up the music industry.

The band's manager Alan McGee, the music mogul behind Oasis and the Libertines, believes that future income in the music business will come from performing live concerts and merchandising rather than from record sales.

So he has decided to experiment with The Charlatans by making their next single - You Cross My Path - available free to download off the internet.

A second single and forthcoming album will also be given away free in the same way from the website of the radio station Xfm. Mr McGee said today that the decision was reached after the band's previous record company Sanctuary offered a deal that was less than satisfactory.

Mr McGee said: "I thought, 'Well nobody buys CDs anyway'. If you talk to a 19-year-old kid, they don't buy CDs. In eastern Europe nobody buys a CD - everything is digitally downloaded from the internet for nothing. I came to the conclusion, 'Why don't we just give it away for nothing?'

"We increase our fan base, we sell more merchandise, more fans talk about the band and we get more advertising... More people will get into the Charlatans and will probably pay the money to see the show. I presume it will double the gig traffic, maybe even treble it."

•You Cross My Path is released later this month and can be downloaded from www.xfm.co.uk