I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was last week when I got to hear the new Angels and Airwaves album. It was everything I expected it to be and more, and I highly recommend you head to your local record store right now and pick it up.
Oh wait, you can’t. The album doesn’t come out for another month.
How was I able to hear the album? It was all thanks to an illegal process called album leaking, a practice traced all the way back to the days of Napster. With all the wonders and powers of the Internet, bands and record labels now have to worry about their records being prematurely leaked onto Internet message boards and Web sites. The record industry has come to accept that there will always be someone illegally uploading and sharing music on the Internet. The main concern isn’t whether or not it will happen, it is when.
In the case of Angels and Airwaves, most of their new album, “I-Empire,” leaked online at the very end of September. This album isn’t supposed to hit shelves until Nov. 6.
Premature album leaking can have a negative effect on the record industry. Not only are they losing sales for every record that is downloaded for free, but also, if the album is a flop, fans can find out weeks beforehand and decide not to purchase it.
The record industry is currently coming up with new ways to eliminate the problem.
For one, labels are beginning to drastically limit the distribution of advance CDs. Most CDs now are also being encrypted with watermarks that enable the record companies to trace where their music is being uploaded.
Indie rock group Radiohead is taking a bizarre approach to album leaking with its new album, “In Rainbows.”
The album was announced nine days before its release date, and will only be available for download on the band’s Web site for the cost of nothing.
If you want a physical copy of the album though, you need to drop a whopping $82 on the “discbox” that comes with other loads of goodies.
What the smart boys of Radiohead are doing is pretty much making album piracy useless for their album.
The die-hard fans can drop their hard earned money on the box set, while others can get the album for free through the band themselves; leaking the album online won’t be saving anybody money.
Not every band will adopt this unorthodox method. But be smart and just wait the two weeks to shell out a measly $12.
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