The former Warner Music UK chairman, who run the major from 1983 to 1998, made the suggestion yesterday at In The City in a panel with REM manager Bertis Downs.

Dickins, also a former BPI chairman, told the event in Manchester that initiatives like the Digital Economy Act would "never work for the music industry". And, while he added he was not an advocate of free, he proposed a micro-economy system where albums sold for as little as £1.

This ...