Tiscali uses a sledgehammer to crack Napster

Tiscali has joined up with ageing rocker Peter Gabriel's music download service OD2 to provide a legal alternative to outlaw Napster wannabes.

Tiscali will market and provide access to OD2's music, which includes songs from BMG, EMI, Telstar, Mushroom, and V2 as well as the former Genesis frontman's Realworld label.

Punters will be able to download 30 tracks per month for around £5, encrypted with a Microsoft technology that will prevent the files being copied and erase them once the month is up.

Alternatively, customers will be able to buy music outright for between 99p and £2 per track.

The portal will also be used to distribute some free tracks on a promotional basis, Gabriel told silicon.com.

Tiscali is following the lead of BTopenworld as an ISP which has launched a music downloading service for its customers.

However, it remains uncertain how popular these services will be among users who can download all these songs for free from a number of sites, such as Audiogalaxy and KaZaA.