In April 2000 while touring in support of the first Machina album, Billy Corgan gave Smashing Pumpkins Fan Collaborative creator Eric Agnew a 60-minute cassette with explicit instructions to circulate the recordings.
The online distribution was so successful that when Virgin Records refused to release the follow-up to Machina due to that album's poor sales, Corgan made the decision to follow the previous route of the original Friends & Enemies and released Machina II in a similar manner.