The remaining members of Queen are planning on combating the problem of the black market music industry selling bootleg recordings of their gigs by making them all available online for fiver a time.
The band's management reckon there are some 600-700 unofficial live recordings of Queen in circulation, sold illegally on CD and increasingly available via P2P networks. The band will make 100 of these recordings available to download via their website - each recording will be sold for £5, oblivious of length.
Queen's Brian May explains: "Playing the bootleggers at their own game seems an appealing prospect for most of us. Here we hope to do just that, and we hope that in the end it will lead to a sense of satisfaction all round."
The project has the full backing of the band's label, EMI. Tony Wadsworth, chief executive of EMI Music, told reporters this weekend: "Queen have always been innovative, and this latest idea harnesses the power of digital delivery to enable Queen fans to get the best of the many unofficial live recordings of the band inexpensively and legally."
The first three full concerts to be made available include a 1979 show from Sapporo in Japan, a US show from 1982 and a show in Osaka, Japan, from May 1985.