According to Paul Sexton from Billboard.biz, long-standing British rock band MARILLION is making its new double album Happiness Is The Road available for free, legal download via P2P networks from today (Sept. 10).

The potentially controversial move sees Marillion teaming with Internet technology firm Music Glue in the legal use of peer-to-peer sites for the initial distribution of its 15th studio album.

Music Glue has developed a "widget" pop-up as an interface mechanism, via which a video message from the band tells the filesharer about the album, its upcoming tour and other information. The user is invited to input their e-mail address, whereupon they are directed to a free download of a DRM-free, Windows Media version of the music.

The group is the sole rights holder for its current recordings and publishing, enabling it to sanction the fully-legal P2P launch, which precedes the full release of a deluxe two-CD version of the album via www.marillion.com on Oct. 20. The album will also available as two standard single discs.

Keyboard player Mark Kelly tells billboard.biz that the band in no way condones illegal file-sharing but is using the technology as a means to reach a potentially large tract of fans previously beyond its radar. "We liked the idea because [it means] we can get to all these people that are fans of the band that aren't buying our music," he says.

By driving this untapped audience to its Web site, Kelly says the band is not only able to expand a database of some 70,000 e-mail addresses gathered over the last five years, but is confident that many of those new consumers will then buy a concert ticket or merchandise. Marillion, which claims global career sales of 15 million albums in a recording career that began in 1982, will embark on a 10-date U.K. tour in November.

"Everyone knows file-sharing is going on," says Kelly. "We're just trying to make the best of [the situation]. The whole premise is that we had to do this early rather than wait until the album was already available, because we have to seed people's computers with the version we want them to have."

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