With school kids burning CDs to sell to friends before the official release date, the threat to the already beleaguered music business is understandable. So record labels are now taking unprecedented steps to protect their merchandise. Perhaps no disc has been more heavily protected than Linkin Park’s Meteora due March 25th.
None of the copies have left the custody of the band members, management and executives at Warner Bros. When the album was being mastered, the band had security guards on hand in the studio twenty-four hours a day to prevent any leaks. As tracks were finished, all earlier CD versions were destroyed. Press, radio programmers and retailers can only hear the album by going to the company’s offices. The same level of security will likely be in place for new albums by Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Madonna and Staind.
NEWS EDITOR’S NOTE: So none of you get confused, this article dates back to March 14, 2003. The ironic part about this is that the bootleg was widely available before the album’s release date. Now who’s the idiot?
Related
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- Linkin Park hits iTunes, new album not ready yet
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- U2’s New ‘No Line On the the Horizon’ Album Leaks to BitTorrent
- After BitTorrent Leak, U2 Offers Free Album Streaming on MySpace
