Questions about using fileshare +custom games

I’ve been using Xbox live silver with Halo 4, and playing campaign and custom games against my brother (he has a second controller). I was wondering whether a silver membership allows you to play custom games with people at a different location.

Also, can I download custom forge maps by gamertag with Silver? My brother and I wanted to play some Halo CE maps, but when we tried to change our network setting from My Xbox to Xbox Live, the game gave us this message that our accounts did not have permission to go online? Can you not connect to live whatsoever if you don’t have a gold membership?

If you do not have a Gold membership then you cannot play with people on other consoles unless you are connected via system link, nor can you go online to download anything from others’ File Shares.