If the downtrodden global record industry has a common foe, it is the millions of illegal filesharers who treat copyrighted music as a free commodity. So a new attempt to harness peer-to-peer users as a revenue stream is bound to court controversy, even if it is entirely legal.

The instigators of this bold move are no up-and-coming musical innovators: they are veteran British rock band Marillion. Though past its 1980s heyday, the band retains a loyal fan base and each new album sells between 80,000 to 90,000 copies.