While the music industry digs in its heels to battle online music distribution, quirky New York alt-popsters They Might Be Giants are charging straight ahead releasing their latest effort in the MP3 format.

TMBG rolled out the eight-song EP "Working Undercover For The Man" this week on Emusic.com, making individual tracks available for 99 cents and the entire album for $7.99. Users can download the songs in the MP3 format, and Emusic plans to ship a copy of the CD to the first 10,000 customers who buy the entire EP.

As the world moves towards MP3, this will show a lot of people how easy getting their music off the Net really is," TMBG guitarist John Flansburgh said in a statement announcing the move. "Giving our audience the music in both MP3 and CD formats lets everybody relax.

They Might Be Giants' move does in fact come at a time when music biz anxiety over online distribution is at an all-time high. After the four major U.S. record labels filed

suit against MP3.com, a court recently ruled that the site's downloadable music library violates copyright law (see [article id="1432447"]"Court Rules MP3.com Violates Copyrights"[/article]). That setback came after artists such as Metallica and Dr. Dre filed suit against the online music distribution tool Napster claiming copyright infringement (see [article id="1432071"]"Metallica Sets Legal Sights On Napster"[/article] and [article id="1428249"]"Dr. Dre Sues Napster"[/article]).

However, They Might Be Giants have long experimented with new ways to bring their music to fans via their official Web site (at www.tmbg.com) and their long-running Dial-A-Song service, which has also gone online (at www.dialasong.com).