When Jay-Z’s newest album, The Blueprint-3, was leaked a week before its release date last Monday, September 1st, the enigmatic rapper was not phased. “It’s a preview. I’m excited for people to hear the album. I’m proud of the work I’ve done, so enjoy it,” he said to MTV News that morning.
On that same day, MTV posted a streaming version of the album to a section of its website called “The Leak,” a service on the site that allows members to stream full versions of an album through the Rhapsody music service for $12.99 a month.
Later on that same day, blogs reviewing the album dissected it for fans two weeks before the album was set to release.
Twitter account “diditleak,” an account with zero “following” accounts and 8,943 followers, reported the leak at 5:15 PM the following day.
But Twitter is fast becoming a medium through which music piracy can flourish. The old method of using a torrent file to share a file through others, which in turn is the successor of older file-sharing programs such as KaZaa, Limewire and Napster, is being replaced by a smaller, less organized system.
Whereas torrents involve a bit of technical expertise and internet know-how, the new system involves a double-click. Users simply post a link anywhere they wish to that leads to where a file is stored server hosted by sites that are often free to use. Rapidshare, Media Fire and Stream Matrix are only a few of the sites that have been created in the past year or two for the purpose of sharing files in this way.
Anyone can use social media to spread files to those looking for them.Chris Benton manages his own twitter account for this purpose, “leaktweet,” with a following of 427 accounts.
“It’s a natural progress to downloading music. There is no other model to download a data file, if you’re looking to download a movie or some software,” he said. “I started my twitter account because I felt like I had an idea that hadn’t been exploited yet; the perfect model to disseminate information.
“More and more of these hosting companies pop up every month. And accounts like diditleak are purely informational. Using these sites directly is the next step,” said Benton.
The Jay-Z model for turning around and posting the files to a large media site is a new one. When an album leaks before the release, there is little an artist can do. Companies like MediaDefender exist to track down where the torrent leaks and flood the sites with decoy files to overload them.
“Generally the albums leak a week before release anyway as distributors receiver albums,” said Benton.
While this is problematic for the record industry, established artists such a Jay-Z have little to worry about leaks, and new models of distribution are being explored throughout the industry.
Radiohead’s “In Rainbows,” an album that received much press for its unusual distribution strategy, gave consumers a choice to pay “anything they like” for a download of the album. The band made more in total from its download service than the physical release of their last album, “Hail to the Thief.” This was a method of distribution that many experts and critics said would cause the group to lose money.
On the other hand, Radiohead also put out hard versions of these same recordings on vinyl or CDs for fans who want a material copy of the music.
Smaller bands like Athens, Ga natives Of Montreal also provide incentives for those who want hard copies of the music. The band’s last album included posters, origami sets and even a paper lantern depending on which version of the vinyl one purchased.
“Indie artists never use albums to make money anyway. Rock artists use them to advertise, basically. One of the last groups of artists to make money off of albums is the hip hop industry, but that is composed of large, super star artists and not smaller bands who make money off of music shows,” said Benton.
As Twitter and faster, sleeker social media increases the flow of information worldwide, this chasm means that albums will become less important and the artists themselves will be sold to consumers. Media is becoming interactive and multi-faceted, and like news, music, too, may become the next medium to leave its material form behind for a more accessible and lucrative method of reaching everyone.
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Last week Ryan and I discussed his story and our writing processes, which have similarities and differences. Ryan has some experience with journalistic writing and the interviewing process after working at the Red and Black. As a result, he takes little notes on what an interviewee is saying word for word; rather, Ryan records the transitions in a speaker's discussion, the moments in which the talk turns from one topic to a new one, or when the interview moves in a different direction. His writing process involves rearrangement, in which he types out segments and trains of thought, and then orders them in a way to best give a piece its flow.
ReplyDeleteFor this story in particular, I had only minor suggestions for Ryan. I really enjoyed the opening structure of the piece--the way the first three paragraphs seamlessly moves in a chronological sequence that really demonstrates the instantaneous nature of the music leaking process. I made minor suggestions, grammatical and syntactical, and suggested he try interviewing an artist who's work had been leaked, or if at all possible, maybe even a blogger or someone who had done the leaking.