Just like its competitors, Tower Records is having a hard time selling music at its stores. Unlike its competitors, Tower has a novel response: It's going to give its music away on the Internet.

The 90-store chain plans to open a new online service this summer that lets consumers create their own podcasts--audio and video shows designed to be downloaded onto a computer or portable media player--using a catalog of some 6,000 songs, which Tower will provide free of charge.

Tower intends to generate revenue from the podcasts by selling ads on the most popular ones: Any money generated, the company says, will be split up among a large group that includes the user who created the podcast, the artist, the label and the publishers who created or own the music, as well as Tower itself.

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