How do albums leak online

Mooney points out how in Drake staged a faux "Twitter fight" with his label criticizing it for taking down the same music that he himself was sharing. But then there are cases in which songs or albums actually do surface online both early and unintentionally as it did in with Taylor Swift's "Mine. When leaks do happen, they can come through the press via review copies, for example, or even directly from recording studios.

Many file trading sites incentivize members to upload new and popular files in order to maintain their download privileges," said Mooney. However it is happens a lot of times we'll never find out , it does feel as though leaks are becoming more common in this social media-driven age.

This is a retroactive measure to stop leaks spreading, rather than a means of actually stopping a leak. The stickers do little except remind honest people of the situation. One option, though only accessible to artists of a certain stature, is having someone from iTunes come into the studio to upload the record straight to the store, cutting out the distributor in the process. Majors are smarter about this sort of thing that they used to be.

There are also emerging subscription systems like Drip, which has been embraced by Ghostly International and Domino. This was followed by tens of posts repeating the value that Drip was bringing to users and them not wanting to see it go away. Nobody quite seems to know. We buy a lot of music and we pirate a lot of music. I do think you can build supporting fans out of free, stolen music. That comfort does not take away from the fact those same individuals have completely screwed the carefully crafted marketing plan you had in place, or course, but focusing on the negatives is not going to do anyone any good.

Publicly recognize the fact your album has leaked and ask for support from those who chose to steal it. Will everyone who downloads your album eventually purchase a copy if they enjoy it? What may happen, however, is that a number of people who otherwise may have never encountered your art might come to appreciate your work as a result of the leak, and in time those newly converted followers will begin to show their support by attending a concert, buying merch, or possibly even picking up a record or two.

Remember: Your album is as much a product as it is a marketing tool for your brand, and like it or not your band is a brand at the end of the day. If you cannot sell your album to consumers, you might as well try and sell those who take it for free on seeing you live. A lot of artists believe that if they choose to ignore the leak of their album and forge ahead with their originally scheduled promotional efforts that their sales will not be hurt.

Depending on when your album leaks, there may be no changes to make. Albums that leak in the final days before release have typically already exhausted most of their promotional plan.

The best thing you can possibly do in the wake of an unexpected leak is to make your album available for purchase and consumption through channels you control. This means your official website, YouTube channel, Bandcamp, etc.

A lot has been written about the financial cost of leaks since the advent of sites such as Napster. Mutya Buena says she knows exactly where Jai Paul is coming from.

The former Sugababes singer and member of cult pop group MKS was at home for Christmas in when a demo version of a comeback album surfaced online.

We had paid people for studio time. We paid for beats. We paid for travel, for food. Having any sense of agency ripped away hurt more than the financial blow, she says. All the things we sang about were personal.