Found Around: The Skinny on Album Leaks
Written by Aidan Rush Posted in: Found Around on July 30, 2010
When an album leaked back in the day, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Without computers or the Internet, the illegal duplication and distribution process was painfully slow due to several terrestrial limitations. The only real worry was if a promo copy got into the hands of a DJ who would then play it for his or her entire listener base (that was back when people still listened to the radio, and playlists weren’t programmed). The problem is, computers and the Internet do exist, and the issue of album leaks is no longer a question of if, but rather when and how. Time Magazine recently wrote an article chronicling different leak tales over the years, but mentioned that artists’ material leaking out to potentially hundreds of thousands for free before it hits shelves isn’t necessarily always a bad thing. Read why below!
-Aidan
(Time Magazine) Album Leaks: A Nightmare, or Opportunity?
By Claire Suddath Outkast member Antwan "Big Boi" Patton's first solo album came out July 6, but if some of the songs sound familiar, that may be because you've heard them before — two years ago. In March 2008, "Royal Flush" — the first song to leak off Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty — began appearing on music blogs and file-sharing sites. Since then, the rest of Sir Lucious has been slowly seeping out; by the time the entire record appeared online June 29 (still a week early), a third of it had been available for more than a year. Antipiracy companies estimate that Big Boi's tracks are currently being downloaded an estimated 45,000 times a day.
