"In the future, all music, every movie, gaming and other forms of digital entertainment will be available for download. Users are hungry for it and they want it fast and easy." This is the motto of Prefueled, a Luxembourg-headquartered company that is spearheading a digital revolution with an online music store and sexy "fuel tanks" that offer the public instant access to music, movies and soon TV series.

Founders Christian Marstrander and Søren Broberg Johansen have a team of 34 people across seven countries, including "music spies" in London and Paris. Founded in late 2005, Prefueled.com is already one of Europe's fastest moving online music stores and the Luxembourg site is live and running.

The eye-catching "fuel tanks" make music and/or video download files available to people anywhere. All that is required is a memory card/USB stick or some other bluetooth and wireless application and you can have the song track, album or movie you want now. File formats are WMA/MP3. The company accepts all major credit cards as well as SMS payments. The mini tanks, set for hotel rooms, allow people to stream 1.4 million tracks for a very small fee.

The other sexy factor (considering the target market) is their pay-as-you-go "credit card" available at traditional outlets (petrol stations, corner shops, etc.). This allows young people to go on line and purchase up to a set amount without having to borrow their parents credit identity.

"We pay for the rights and for the use of credit cards," says Marstrander. "Currently it costs 1.19 euros for one song. That includes everything. An album is 11 euros. Soon we will have movies and TV series which will cost less than at the local video store."

The new technology enables 2.6 million tracks to be contained in one square metre so it eliminates the need for inventory or overhead and smart traditional vendors can evolve to encompass the format in their business strategy. Currently, Prefueled tanks are installed in 130 traditional music vending locations across Sweden.

"Speaking to the Luxembourg Government"

"The tax revenue alone could be massive for Luxembourg," says Marstrander, but he is eager to add that Prefueled is here for more than the VAT. "We are speaking to the Luxembourg Government about setting up the installation and configuration of the fuel tanks here," he says. "There are also tentative plans to set up a Prefueled café/showroom in Luxembourg's city centre - just coffee and music/entertainment download terminals." This would involve a smaller version of the 6-foot fuel tank model - more like the "jukeboxes" of old.

"The fuel tanks were a huge success at MIDEM," says Marstrander. "We had thousands of orders from the US to Cameroon." Their target group are the early adapters - 9 to 30-year-olds, but the concept and the touch screen technology are so simple it quickly becomes second nature. "The minimum speed needed for downloading is 512. Anything over 1 Megabyte is satisfactory. All computers bought in the last two years have this capability. Your computer is basically already a home entertainment system when attached to your TV."

"The music business now is about partnership and changing logistics." Prefueled already partners with Sony/BMG, Warner, Universal Music and EMI/Virgin. Fifty per cent of all music sold in Europe is by local artists and they have a vast network of indie labels and unsigned artists.

After leaving school at 19 to pursue a skiing career (well who wouldn't?), and later deciding business studies were just not for him, he started working in the entertainment industry at 21, first as a consultant at UIP Scandinavia. The perfect cocktail for today's entertainment industry - according to Marstrander - is someone who has knowledge of music partnering with an entity that has knowledge of how the distribution side works. "Prefueled's aim is to stay close to the music scene. We have world class DJs cherry picking the best tracks to make Prefueled compilations. But 50% of the business equation in this industry is IT."

Why are Scandinavian countries so advanced in innovative high-tech ventures? "We have a culture of adapting to new technologies and there is a high level of entrepreneurship - think of famous Finnish companies like Nokia or Ericsson in Sweden. I have lived in Luxembourg for 16 months, and what I see is that 90% of the people are in suits. They are in finance and banking. These are the people who are going to China and the Nordic countries, but there are no entrepreneurs on these commerce missions! Also, there is the driving power and speed of the infrastructure: ADSL and wireless broadband networks. If you want to develop the e-commerce here you have to build up the infrastructure."