A Leak In The Industry

As I am sure most of you out there know, the leaking of tracks and albums before their set release dates happens all the time.  Take Tha Carter III (which is due out May 2008) as an example.  Pretty much every single track that was supposed to be on that album (when it was due out for release in December of 07') was leaked onto the internet, and heard by everyone. Think about it this way, if you had an album due out for a December 2007 release, and all your tracks got leaked, what would you do?  As any normal person would think to do, they would pull the album, and start a new.  Weezy, not your typical music artist, saw this leakage as an opportunity to help himself and his 08' album.  He decided to take all the tracks that were leaked, throw them onto a disc, call this disk The Leak E.P.  What a genius thing to do, don'tcha think?

So what is the big problem with tracks leaking onto the web, and people listening to them? The answer is short and sweet.  Artists suffer big time from major leaks because their album sales will go down severely.  So you have to be thinking right now, if thats the case, then how come artists can't do what Young Weezy did, and put out an E.P. with the leaked tracks and then release a different set of tracks for the album.  What Weezy did was unheard of, and truly magnificent!  If you have the ability to ditch an entire album plan, make it an E.P. and release a totally new L.P.  I give Weezy props, but I personally feel for artists whose material leak before they can get the release out and get paid for their respected efforts.  Artists like Nicole Scherzinger are currently fighting this problem.  Her album was supposed to be dropped a long while ago, and yet, still no set release date!  Why do you think that is the case?

Look at Mario Barrett's album Go!  The guy had over sixteen release date changes.  I don't know if they all had to do with tracks being leaked, or what, but from what I saw around the web, his tracks were leaking left in right.  Not to mention the amount of left over tracks that had leaked from this album that were floating around the internet.  It is very possible that those tracks that had leaked on the web were originally on the slated track listing for the album.  Another artist you can look at is Chris Brown.  When Exclusive came out, over twenty-five tracks had leaked which were not featured on the final track listing.  Coincidence?  Maybe. The chances of it happening due to the amount of leaked tracks for the album is a more likely answer.

So as you see, this so called "leak" problem is a pretty big issue.  It is clearly hurting tons of artists out there, especially because they are losing so much money, and fame from people stealing the music before it is released.  So as I sit here on my computer, listening to unreleased tracks on YouTube, I wonder if it is even worth typing up a post about this common problem in the music industry.

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