The Music Business Gets Leaky – Radiohead, Jay-Z, Muse and More

Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by in ARTISTS, NEWS

jay z the blueprint 3 300x300 | The Music Business Gets Leaky Radiohead, Jay Z, Muse and MoreIt’s incredible how quickly news bunches up these days thanks to the social web. Seems like only a week or two ago that the online music community was all a twitter about the leak of Radiohead’s new single These are My Twisted Words.This week Jay-Z’s new album Blueprint 3 was rushed out a week ahead schedule due to a full-length leak that has spread like wildfire. Then, just this morning I got word that the new one from Muse has now leaked in full as well. Leaks are the new reality, folks.

Initially, Jay-Z shrugged off the reports that his album had leaked, calling it a “preview.”

“I’m excited for people to hear the album,” he told MTV News last week, ”I’m very proud of the work I’ve done, so enjoy it.”

Based on the new release date it looks like Jay-Z has reassessed his approach. Not a big surprise – according to TorrentFreak the Blueprint 3 leak has been downloaded by “some 400,000 people on BitTorrent alone in the past days, making it last week’s most pirated music album.” Musformation.com reports another 100k+ copies being shared on filesharing sites, Usenet, and AIM. Those numbers must have had him very worried about lost sales. The original September 11 US release date was chosen because it would have been exactly eight years after the release of the original Blueprint in 2001.

Radiohead, on the other hand, turned out to be the source of their leak. They released an mp3 of These are my Twisted Words anonymously to drive buzz. It worked wonderfully as fans, bloggers and even some news organizations quickly picked up the story.

I have not seen any official reaction from Muse regarding the leak of their upcoming album The Resistance, but if you follow me on Twitter I’ll make sure to post something on it when I know.

Unauthorized (and authorized) leaks appear to be here to stay - we’d all better get used to them quickly.

Share it if you like it:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Technorati
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Netvibes
  • MySpace
  • FriendFeed
  • Tumblr
  • Posterous

Tags: , , , ,

One Response to “The Music Business Gets Leaky – Radiohead, Jay-Z, Muse and More”

  1. Tweets that mention The Music Business Gets Leaky - Radiohead, Jay-Z, Muse and More | creative deconstruction -- Topsy.com

    09. Sep, 2009

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Refe Tuma and James Channing. Refe Tuma said: Leaks, leaks and more leaks – Jay-Z rushes new release, new Muse album leaks, and more http://bit.ly/qOoNo [...]