Advancements in technology have made song and album leaks universal. The rise of BitTorrent, a p2p protocol that makes it very simple to download entire albums in high-quality audio. Public torrent sites such as the Pirate Bay, TorrentReactor, and Torrentspy have become the hotspots for pre-release leaks. The music industry already has its problems with torrent sites, but they should not be blamed for leaks. These sites are hubs for spreading leaks, but the songs are not leaked directly to a torrent site, there is usually a middle man. The middle man often is someone within the industry or someone that received a promotional copy of the album. A former leak insider (see Ripped) gave some examples of how albums can easily get leaked: “I heard a member of one ripping crew was dating the daughter of the president of some label—that’s how he was scoring advances.” Or, “If you were a studio guy making $10.50 an hour, and you had the new Eminem album, and someone was offering you money for it, what would you do?”
More recently, services like YouSendIt, Megaupload, and UserShare have made it simple to upload anything from a single song to an entire album as a single zipped file, available to the masses. These services have created a new generation of music sites, specifically blogs, which are dedicated to new, often leaked, music. This advancement has also sparked change within the music industry in the battle over leaks. Many artists, majority hip-hop artists, have begun releasing a steady trickle of material on the internet as soon as it is recorded, while working on their albums. Which is exactly the case Kanye West has gone through over the last week, who still fell victim to leaked tracks.
Kanye, as well as the other artists, producers, and executives, will currently have to live with the fact that some songs will be leaked. The Vice label manager, Adam Shore, speaks for most in the music industry saying, “The problem with leaks is that people don't necessarily know what they are hearing—if it's the entire album, finished tracks, etc. There's incredible rush to judgment. People grab an album, listen to it one time, and they immediately want to post about it. That sets a tone for people who haven't heard it yet.” But fans will continue searching for newer, and newer material, as those in the music industry will continue searching for a way to protect their unreleased material.
Check these articles out (used as resources):
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2002094,00.html
This is a great article! I give an accurate description of how times have changed with music piracy. With most of the former popular p2p downloading programs shutdown. The masses have turned to sites uploading sites like usershare or my favorite hulkshare! These sites allow quick access to new music content. The other day I seen a tweet that kayne's cd leaked. I immediately type in the album name followed by hulkshare and there it was. So easily accessible and often the first option google give me when I search. Its unfortunate for artist who are trying to make a name for themselves and earn a living. Unless there is a way for music to be encrypted for only the purchaser to read piracy will live on.
ReplyDelete