Rock group Marillion to offer new album for free through P2P

Rock group Marillion to offer new album for free through P2P
The British rock band Marillion has announced that they will be offering their latest album as a free download through file-sharing websites.

The only catch, says the band, is that a pop-up will appear on your computer the first time the tracks are played with a link pointing to the band's website and encouraging them to submit their email addresses. Those who sign up would then be contacted with offers for concert tickets as well as other merchandise.



"We're willing to try new things and we want to see what happens," said keyboardist Mark Kelly.

"Everybody's aware of the effect of peer-to-peer file-sharing on CD sales and the music industry in general," he added.

"Up until recently we've felt fairly immune to that because the fans have been really supportive of the band and, I suppose, because of the age demographic, they do tend to prefer CDs to downloads."


Just like Radiohead before them, they plan to release the CD as well, on October 20th.

"People forget Radiohead were still number one in the album charts," he added.

"They also say they weren't very successful because they only got an average of £2 per download.

"But they wouldn't have got £2 per sale from [record company] EMI, so in those terms it was actually a big success, and they still sold CDs."


Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 11 Sep 2008 14:50
Advertisement - News comments available below the ad
  • 8 comments
  • DRokKer

    Big respect to marilion, even though i never really got into there stuff, they are telling it straight! *bleep* EMI

    11.9.2008 15:44 #1

  • PeaInAPod

    What exactly would be downloaded? It can't just be album art and mp3's because then how would the add's be displayed? I'm wondering what they did to do this? Mild Adware perhaps? idk.

    11.9.2008 16:49 #2

  • atomicxl

    LOL, Radiohead has like the worst record deal in history if after all this time they still make less than $2 per CD sale. Thats like one-hit wonder numbers. Soulja Boy probably gets more than that per cd... :(

    Also, wow @ people who would rather get adware/spyware than pay $7.99 and get the same great songs, with a cd booklet and a physical cd that you can make non adware infected MP3s from.

    11.9.2008 21:58 #3

  • susieqbbb

    Cool idea.. But i would like to know how my e-mail address will be used. And if the company when done will delete the information or are they going to sell my information to another company.

    12.9.2008 04:28 #4

  • oofRome

    Originally posted by atomicxl: LOL, Radiohead has like the worst record deal in history if after all this time they still make less than $2 per CD sale. Thats like one-hit wonder numbers. Soulja Boy probably gets more than that per cd... :(

    Also, wow @ people who would rather get adware/spyware than pay $7.99 and get the same great songs, with a cd booklet and a physical cd that you can make non adware infected MP3s from.
    No artist that I know of makes more than $2 per CD sale. You should understand that artists don't get their money from labels, but from touring and merchandise. Record labels pay for the studios, the distribution and things like that, but in return they reap the benefits of those sales.
    Also, you can remove adware for free. So really, it's free music, maybe 5 minutes on spybot, and you're set. Where are you buying your CD's from? Have CD prices really gone down to eight dollars for a new release?

    12.9.2008 15:23 #5

  • varnull

    Just gotta wonder how many times they will get invalid@nospam.com .. hahahahaha

    12.9.2008 15:34 #6

  • joe777

    Theres something fishy about this. No theres not, Fish left the band and they havent cut it for me since. Not gonna knock what their doing though, if, as said above the company responsible for running the site plays fair with my details. But hey maybe they are trying to build hits on the site and I will easily hit the site to ad stats and obtain a good quality mp3, which in turn I will pass on to a few friends and give them free PR. When will bands see the light and get us to share their work for them via BT for free. Donations and maybe an add supported site with the index's to all their stuff, bejesus we could even buy the concert tickets via the site as said in the headline and cut out all the middle peeps who claim only they can sellout your concert.

    Edit: Had a few beers and I gonna listen to misplaced childhood ( fav Marillion Lp) yes all young peeps start laughing now, I gonna put on the record, thats a big plastic disc for the really young.Lol.

    12.9.2008 20:11 #7

  • atomicxl

    Quote:Originally posted by atomicxl: LOL, Radiohead has like the worst record deal in history if after all this time they still make less than $2 per CD sale. Thats like one-hit wonder numbers. Soulja Boy probably gets more than that per cd... :(

    Also, wow @ people who would rather get adware/spyware than pay $7.99 and get the same great songs, with a cd booklet and a physical cd that you can make non adware infected MP3s from.
    No artist that I know of makes more than $2 per CD sale. You should understand that artists don't get their money from labels, but from touring and merchandise. Record labels pay for the studios, the distribution and things like that, but in return they reap the benefits of those sales.
    Also, you can remove adware for free. So really, it's free music, maybe 5 minutes on spybot, and you're set. Where are you buying your CD's from? Have CD prices really gone down to eight dollars for a new release?
    Alot of artists make more than $2 per CD. Let me rephrase that, established artists do. If you're coming from being a nobody or getting signed off a demo you have like zero clout and yeah, you get crummy deals. But if you're an indie act that has a regional following and you can sell out small venues on your own and you're moving over 100k units on your own, labels recognize that you're successful on your own your own and in general, they can at you with less insulting numbers or you at least have the clout to get numbers moved to your favor.

    Radiohead is like 8 albums deep and is critically acclaimed. If they still don't the clout to get a good deal or they just don't know how to negotiate... thats speaks for itself.

    As far as the $7.99 album... I shop on Amazon. I've purchased like 10 albums this year, the most expensive one was $9.99 but most of them are $8.99 or less. At Best Buy and Circuit City most new albums retail for $9.99 during the first week.

    When people mention CD prices and say numbers like $14.99 or higher... they shop at the mall. I thought EVERYONE knew that CD stores at the mall add like $5 to the price just because its in a mall. I think I was 14 when I found this out the hard way and have never purchased a CD from a mall store since then.

    13.9.2008 11:21 #8

© 2024 AfterDawn Oy

Hosted by
Powered by UpCloud