The Negative Voice
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2001-05-03 - 3:21 p.m.

Marillion and Anarchy

I got the new Marillion CD, _Anoraknophobia_, in the mail yesterday. I had pre-ordered it quite a while ago, and apparently so did 12,000 other people.

Marillion did something really cool with this disc. They recorded it without a contract. They used the money from the 12,000 preorders to record the disc, and then went into contract negotiations with a complete CD already in hand. I wonder if that model wouldn't work for lots of other bands. If it did, it would kick the RIAA's legs out from under them. Bands could make their money on presales and *not care* that their music got pirated like mad.

Granted, Marillion has a weird and fanatical fanbase, and other bands would see different results. On the other hand, Marillion has a tiny fanbase. If only a tiny fraction of the people who bought the last No Doubt disc pre-paid for the next one, I think they'd do fine out of it.

I doubt many people actually care about the fortunes of Marillion. I wanted to write about this because stuff like this reminds me how sadly wrong businesses often are about consumer behavior. When Ebay created their feedback system, they expected people to use it to trash-talk each other. Instead they almost always say nice things. Marillion probably expected that the idea of using pre-paid sales to finance the making of the album would go horribly awry and leave them in the studio on their own dime, but it worked fine.

Knowing that, I sneer at people who want to pass laws to force people to be good. People usually *are* good. The real intent of those laws usually boils down not to "be good", but "be good to me" or "be good, according to my personal definition". Be good to the movie and record industries by buying their lousy product at inflated prices. Be good according to some deranged preacher's idea of "Christian family values." Be a good little wage slave.

We don't really need any of it, folks. We do just fine on our own.

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