No. All the marketplace downloads are available on the non-costing Silver service. I haven't had Gold since January 2006, and I've downloaded plenty of free demos, and trailers since.
However, as a silver member, you have to wait ~1 week for the demo to become available to silver members. So there is a slight advantage there to be a gold member.
So again, you can download bwithout gold:
Demos (must wait 1 extra week)
Downloadable Content
XBLA Games
XBLA Demos
Movies
Trailers
Themes, Gamerpics, ect
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.







