[Smithy]

The songs of all three of those artists leaked, to reduce the amount of illegal downloading that would have occurred between the initial release date and the day it leaked, songs are rush released.

There's not really much you can do once a song falls into the wrong hands because it's almost impossible to trace where the leak originated or how it got from someone who was supposed to have the song to someone who wasn't supposed to have it.

[Z]

Originally Posted by Smithy

The songs of all three of those artists leaked, to reduce the amount of illegal downloading that would have occurred between the initial release date and the day it leaked, songs are rush released.

There's not really much you can do once a song falls into the wrong hands because it's almost impossible to trace where the leak originated or how it got from someone who was supposed to have the song to someone who wasn't supposed to have it.

I don't know if I buy that excuse though, it happens all the time, surely there is a network of people frequently distributing songs before they're released within the music industry? If that's the case, why is it so difficult to trace who these people are? It seems trivial when you consider the mega bucks that the big stars earn, but for most singers it must be soul destroying to spend a year working on an album only for it to be leaked and plenty of people deciding to download it and not buy a physical copy when it's released, most pop stars are actually pretty poor. I just think it's mean spirited really, I guess.

[Smithy]

Originally Posted by Zee

I don't know if I buy that excuse though, it happens all the time, surely there is a network of people frequently distributing songs before they're released within the music industry? If that's the case, why is it so difficult to trace who these people are? It seems trivial when you consider the mega bucks that the big stars earn, but for most singers it must be soul destroying to spend a year working on an album only for it to be leaked and plenty of people deciding to download it and not buy a physical copy when it's released, most pop stars are actually pretty poor. I just think it's mean spirited really, I guess.

It happens a lot yeah, but normally it'll be a day or two before a release, If a single leaks a week or even more in Beyonce's case theres not much else you can do. And it depends on the record label I suppose, if you look at a lot of artists, they never have leaks, because the record label keeps songs tightly under wraps, but if a song is sent via email to be reviewed it's pretty easy to hack an address and leak the song.