To Leak or Not to Leak: Is There a Question?
| Published 09/24/04

Graphic by: Doni Neel

As many of you college kids know, the "piracy" of music via the internet has become a major concern for the music industry in recent times. Major labels have been coming down on students across the country for distributing mass amounts of music free of charge. Of course, you know this already as it's in the news on a near-daily basis. This technology has birthed "internet leaks" (albums being available for download before being injected into the mainstream).

These leaks can sometimes be attributed to music just finding its way into the wrong hands. Often albums will leak, because record labels mail promotional versions of the record to magazines and radio stations for review. In most cases there might be employees who will upload these albums to the Internet and share them.

Albums have been found online months prior to release, often identical to what's on the store shelves (minus a tiny bit of sound quality). Programs such as mIRC are a source for making these yet-to-be released albums come into your possession.

What kind of effect do these leaks actually entail? The hype about a record's release loses a good deal of its intensity, because fans with downloading capabilities have access to music that the Internet-less do not.

Instead of eager fans lining up at a record store's doors on Tuesday (the day of the week that music is released in the United States), there may just be a trickle of those people who either refused to download the album, didn't have the power to download the album or didn't know that the option existed. When a record is "released" prematurely, people may lose interest before actually being able to actually buy a real copy, and the album could suffer a barrage of online criticism which is found in any typical music-oriented web community.

The upside, if any, is only for those of us who are too impatient to wait. For example, the three releases of 2004 that I had anticipated the most (which actually haven't been released yet) have already made their journey into and out of my head, heart and ears. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists' new album "Shake the Sheets" isn't due out until late October, but I've heard the record in its entirety many times over already. Since this is one of my favorite artists and the album is amazing, there's no doubt that I'll be buy the album when it hits the streets.

On the other side, the late Elliott Smith's posthumous release "From a Basement on a Hill" wasn't exactly what I was expecting.  There's no doubt that I'll buy the album, I won't be in a huge rush to do so. The same goes for "Crimes," the upcoming Blood Brothers disc. I can't say that I've heard Hot Water Music's "The New What Next," but a particular message board that I frequent can tell me exactly what to expect out of the record; the same goes for pretty much any album that's being highly anticipated.

So in conclusion, albums leaking on the Internet fall into that barrel of ethical questioning along with gun control, marijuana legalization, and abortions.  Okay, not quite, but I think you get the picture. The line has been drawn.  What side do you stand on?