Everyone knows how it’s supposed to work: a band records an album, their label circulates a few advance copies to music reviewers and industry insiders, and after a carefully calculated buzz-building period, the record goes on sale and, roughly simultaneously, reviews are printed in various publications. For years, this has been the preferred mechanism for generating publicity prior to an album’s release, but advances in technology have started to undermine the system by putting illegally leaked copies in the hands of consumers weeks or even months before official release dates.
“Leaks are a product of the inefficiency built into the old way of doing things,” says Ross Pryde, a University of Ottawa law student who has immersed himself in the legal aspects of the rapidly changing music business. “Record labels feel they need to get the album out six weeks before the (official release) so that it can be reviewed by the time it hits the CD shelves. That’s the window of opportunity that exposes them to leaks.”
The recent explosion of low-cost, high-bandwidth Internet connections, the tremendous popularity of easy-to-use peer-to-peer file-sharing systems and the emergence of music blogs offering by-the-minute updates have all contributed. Many record labels are taking measures to fight what they see as a huge threat to their industry. Some use watermark technology to imprint each promo copy with a unique digital signature, others retain the services of third party companies that scour the web looking for leaked copies of their client’s intellectual property. In spite of the industry’s best efforts, the effectiveness of these techniques has been trivial at best: across the board, from obscure indie bands to household names, their albums continue to leak.
Although major players in the music “blogosphere” almost never expose themselves legally by actively distributing unauthorized music, leaked or otherwise, they do very little to actively dissuade the process. Stereogum.com, which is among the most widely visited of such sites, maintains a “premature evaluation” section that offers brief, off-the-cuff reviews of recently leaked albums. Incidentally, a cursory glance through its archives illustrates the severity of the problem: Random Spirit Lover by Vancouver’s Sunset Rubdown, which was released last week, made an appearance on August 23.
“The big-name blogs have transformed themselves into places that ‘leak’ news about bands,” says Pryde. “It seems like a lot of them are just writing in response to record company requests. Somebody e-mailed them a song and a quickie press release or put them on the guest list at a show and they’re getting something in return. In a sense, they’ve kowtowed to the industry from the very beginning.”
Meanwhile, major labels continue to seek Old World solutions to their New World problems. Just last week, a U.S. federal court ruled in favour of the plaintiff in Capitol versus Thomas, ordering a single mother to pay the whopping sum of $222,000 for the crime of sharing 24 recordings via Kazaa. Although this is orders of magnitude larger than the record company’s own estimates of the actual loss involved, the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry’s trade group, insists it is defending the rights of the corporations it represents in a “fair and reasonable” manner.
Of course, some members of the music establishment have decided to be proactive. In a pre-emptive strike against their new album’s inevitable leak, Toronto’s Stars released In Our Bedroom after the War to online retailers in early July, over two months before its release date. Furthermore, the band packaged the retail version of the disc with a bonus DVD, keeping them in step with countless other musicians who feel compelled to offer consumers “value-added” incentives to choosing purchase over piracy.
Without question, the most interesting gambit played by a band in recent history is Radiohead’s free-form release of In Rainbows. Although a conventional release is said to be in the works, the only current way to obtain the album is through the band’s website. In what appears to be an unprecedented thumbing of the nose at the established record industry paradigm, there is no set price for the album — the downloader is given the option to pay whatever amount they feel is appropriate. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that the band kept all plans regarding the album under wraps until 10 days before the “release” — an inconceivably brief promotional period by current standards. Online rumour-mongers have pegged first-day download totals for In Rainbows around 1.2 million, or in industry terms, “platinum and then some.” Whether or not this figure is accurate, the whole thing is quite impressive.
While it must be said that there are very few bands with pockets deep enough and fan bases broad enough to finance the recording, production and release of their own albums, Radiohead’s feat makes a very clear point — the music business has changed drastically, and bands willing to adapt stand to reap major benefits. Even humble Stars managed to find a creative way to fight the threat of piracy, which is why the Capitol versus Thomas verdict seems downright barbaric, if not anachronistic. Although there is no question that stealing music with no intention of reimbursing the artist is both illegal and unethical, it is an unfortunate fact that the musicians themselves — not the businesses that claim to represent their best interests — are the ones devising an innovative new framework for conducting the commerce of music in the 21st century.
