Will Album Leaks Ever End? Doesn't Seem So!

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

As much as the music industry would love to see an end to music piracy and album leaks, I think we can confidently say that it's never going to happen, at least not until extreme measures are taken (which I doubt is going to ever happen). Take the last week's worth of news for example, which is in all regards hilarious, and ironic. Not one, but two albums were leaked early, and guess what? Neither were due to reviewers who were sent early copies, or any end-user who happened to score one.

Last Wednesday, TorrentFreak posted about U2's latest album (pictured below), "No Line on the Horizon", which was leaked onto P2P networks and quickly racked up 100,000 downloads (I'm sure the number is much, much higher by now). What's ironic about this story is that their record label tried hard to make sure no leaks occurred. They even went to such extreme lengths as to not send out a single reviewer copy, and rather flew the press in to take part in private listening parties.

That kind of dedication didn't accomplish much, however, as it appears that Universal Music Australia accidentally made the digital album available on their site. It was quickly fixed, but not before a few eagle-eyed fans noticed it. Although that's the more notable of the two stories, just this past weekend, iTunes Norway goofed up as well, by making Kelly Clarkson's latest album, "All I Ever Wanted", available for purchase. Again, a few fans noticed, bought it up, and then it was taken down.

I can't help but laugh... because the measures that these companies go through seems to be, and well, it is for naught. Despite their dedication, someone will screw up (although, it's also very possible that someone screwed up on purpose), and as a result, many will download. I'm still fully confident in the fact that many people who download early leaks are comprised of fans and people who will download anything. The music industry wouldn't have seen a dime from the latter regardless of whether the album was leaked early or not. The fans will always go out and purchase it, even if they managed to score an early leaked copy.
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[Kougar]

As usual Ars Technica had an informative piece on this: Link

Anything for the money. Forget being justified, it seems many would just use the excuse of piracy to get at potential new revenue streams. It's not like the ISP sells the music directly, but some major music publishers want them to sign agreements to pay regular licensing fees anyway due to piracy. Regardless I think the last line shows the mentality of many of those people in the music (and media) content industry.

McGuinness has also taken multiple opportunities to call on ISPs to implement filtering technology that would prevent users from downloading illegal copies of music, and even suggested that ISPs and record labels could come to revenue sharing agreements for legit music sales. He is not, however, a fan of ad-supported music, saying that it's beneath musicians to reduce themselves "to the status of employees working for glorified ad agencies."

 

[Rob Williams]

Good quote. I have to wonder if these guys are even music fans themselves, because they really don't seem to have a sweet clue about anything. It's all business to them. If they were in most people's position, and their favorite band's album was leaked two weeks early, they are sure as hell going to download it. I always download a copy of an album that I want if it's leaked early... I don't really care who knows it. I always end up buying the album when it comes out, and have a CD collection of close to 500 units to prove it.

There's another rumor that Last.fm gave the RIAA a huge list, so they could see who was listening to the latest U2 album. That to me, is incredibly stupid if true, and bothers me as I'm a long-time member of the site. Either way though, I don't think it's appropriate to target people who downloaded and listened to it. Most of those people are hardcore fans who are going to buy the album anyway. And do they really think that fans are going to sit there and IGNORE the fact that their favorite band's album is available NOW? That's not reasonable. Faux fans who download it aren't losing these companies any money. Most download it just so their e-peen feels better by the sight of their ever-growing collection.

 

[Kougar]

Good quote. I have to wonder if these guys are even music fans themselves, because they really don't seem to have a sweet clue about anything. It's all business to them. If they were in most people's position, and their favorite band's album was leaked two weeks early, they are sure as hell going to download it. I always download a copy of an album that I want if it's leaked early... I don't really care who knows it. I always end up buying the album when it comes out, and have a CD collection of close to 500 units to prove it.

I completely agree! Equating every single download to a lost sale isn't stupid, it just shows the music execs are deliberately choosing the best way to spin the data to their benefit and financial gain. Its funny, but I didn't realize they had so much in common with politicians before.

There's another rumor that Last.fm gave the RIAA a huge list, so they could see who was listening to the latest U2 album. That to me, is incredibly stupid if true, and bothers me as I'm a long-time member of the site. Either way though, I don't think it's appropriate to target people who downloaded and listened to it. Most of those people are hardcore fans who are going to buy the album anyway. And do they really think that fans are going to sit there and IGNORE the fact that their favorite band's album is available NOW? That's not reasonable. Faux fans who download it aren't losing these companies any money. Most download it just so their e-peen feels better by the sight of their ever-growing collection.

Very thankfully that rumor seems to be unfounded. Ars or DT ran a article on it stating Last.fm and even the RIAA each flatly denied any such data transferral occured... That would have been shocking for Last.fm to do and taken a huge chunk out of their growing popularity to boot.

The data wouldn't conclusively prove anything either, even Last.fm offers two or three of the tracks from U2's new album for full listening now. And it wouldn't differentiate between those that bought the album digitally (which was how it was leaked to start with) and those that DL'd it. It might as well be hearsay if they were going to use it in a court.

 

[Rob Williams]

it just shows the music execs are deliberately choosing the best way to spin the data to their benefit and financial gain.

That much is obvious... and it really doesn't matter. These guys know it's obvious, but as long as it's more money in the bank for them, that's all that matters. Kind of like politicians, as you mention.

As for the Last.fm thing, I forget where I first read that, but I did figure it was just a rumor. It's too bad nowadays... anyone who wants to start a completely false rumor... can. That aside though, I really don't think the RIAA could do much about it anyway. NOTHING would stop anyone from simply renaming their own music collection to mimic the names of the U2 album, to make it look like they were listening to it. Why would someone do this? It doesn't matter... they can, and it's that simple

 

[Kougar]

Obvious or not, it doesn't stop plenty of lawmakers from lining right up behind them in pushing for legislation that could force the issue, or against legislation such as internet neutrality that could hinder any such future plans.

I didn't think about someone modifying the music tracks to make it appear they were listening to something else, but its a good point. People on Steam do this all the time with their Friends lists. One person was playing "Half Life 3" just the other day.

 

[Rob Williams]

People on Steam do this all the time with their Friends lists. One person was playing "Half Life 3" just the other day.

Haha. I'm not even sure how's done... I thought that Steam read the process that was running? Did they just rename a real application to Half-Life 3 or something? Either way, that's funny. With Last.fm it's even easier... just rename the song and that's it. It's not like the service scans the song to see if it's the real one (that would be impossible given so many songs are not in databases like MusicBrainz).

Either way, I can't see them being able to punish anyone for that. If I was in that situation, I'd simply say I renamed the music to mimic it, because I wanted to make people think I had it.

Not sure if you can be charged on faking a "crime" like that.

 

[Kougar]

The Steam Friends list allows users to add non-steam game shortcuts (Or almost any shortcut) to the "my Games" listing. If you launch the program it'll state the user is in a non-steam game and then state whatever the title of the shortcut is below that.

 

[Rob Williams]

Ahh, I gotcha. Creative, immature, but still quite humorous. It's not like I haven't done such silly things in the past. I've also seen people who would run Solitaire constantly so that their "game time" would constantly increase... for whatever reason. Haven't seen it in a while though, so I'm not sure if it's been fixed or not.