Advice for music industry execs who complain about it, but never seem to be willing to do anything tangible about it.
For the file-sharing community, BitTorrent in particular, courtesy of tracker sites like Waffles and What, leaked albums have been a mainstay of available content. Rock legend Bruce Sprinsgteen and his “Working on a Dream” album was the most recent artist to suffer from the phenomenon. Many artists have watched their albums appear online ahead of their scheduled release dates, but few, if any, have asked themselves why it happened and how it can be addressed. More importantly, their record labels, their supposed “partners” in the music biz, also have failed to adequately address the problem.
So what are they to do? Billboard magazine released a list of “Five Easy Steps to Plug Online Music Leaks” that actually make sense, safeguarding artists’ work with sensible policies that include meeting the needs of music fans and not just their own.
1. FIND THE SOURCE
Leaks infuriate managers and artists, because they usually occur after an album has been delivered to the label. The culprit is often someone in the production chain who’s gone rogue or a talent rep trusting the wrong person with an advance copy. So the label needs to take every step possible to determine where the leak occurred and take action against who is responsible. “You can’t unring the bell,” says Mike McGuire, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. “But if it is an internal leak, then somebody needs to be punished.”
2. STOP THE BLEEDING
Once the leak has sprung, it’s almost impossible to stop it from spreading. But targeting the top online sources of leaked material can pay dividends by at least stemming the flow long enough for the release to be distributed through legitimate channels. Make sure you’ve updated the audio fingerprinting of partners who use them to filter out unwanted content. Contact the MP3 bloggers with whom you have relationships. And send takedown notices or cease-and-desist letters when necessary. “The strategy is one of containment,” says Eric Garland, CEO of consulting firm BigChampagne. “Chase everybody everywhere with your legal eagles and have the Internet scrubbed clean. It’s got to be a coordinated, rapid response.”
3. COMMUNICATE WITH FANS
In cases where the leaked album is not the final version, artists and labels should get the word out to fans that what’s available online is not the finished product. The goal is to convince them to wait for the final, official version by promising better sound quality or other bonuses. Be specific about how the official version of the album will be different from what’s been leaked and provide a firm date for the authorized release. “Make sure you’re clear on when it is going to be done and give people that,” Gartner’s McGuire says. “Managing the PR is about setting expectations.”
4. RUSH THE RELEASE
Skip all the marketing plans and just get the album into stores or make it available through authorized channels as soon as possible. This serves two purposes: it responds to the increased demand that a leaked album creates for the final product and takes advantage of the one positive aspect of a leak — marketing. Many industry observers say that P2P is today’s radio, and the buzz that a leaked track creates can often supplant the best-laid marketing plans — as long as the feedback is positive, of course.
“We live in a word-of-mouth world, and the unfettered Internet is a platform for evaluation, promotion and marketing,” BigChampagne’s Garland says. “It is hard for me to think of an instance where a marketing plan is more important than the immediate need to get out there with a legitimate offering.” For added measure, package the authorized release with such exclusive, previously unreleased material as a new track or other bonus content to help differentiate it from the leaked version.
5. PRE-EMPTIVE MEASURES
One of the best ways to insulate yourself from an Internet leak is by taking action well in advance. Letting fans pre-order the album is one good solution, since it locks in sales before any potential leak. Another is building buzz by posting streaming-only singles when appropriate or taking advantage of programs like iTunes’ Complete My Album feature to sell songs from an album before its release. “Establishing a transaction and an implicit social contract is one of the ways you remove incentive to find leaked material,” McGuire says.
I obviously don’t agree with Step #2, sending out “legal eagles to have the “Internet scrubbed clean” is impossible. You can’t very well afford to send them into the courtrooms of every country on the globe, nor could one ever “clean” the Internet. Just ask the RIAA how this tactic worked out for them for the decade they tried it. It’s no wonder they finally gave up.
NIN has fully embraced Step #3 with a great deal of success. They offered the album “Ghosts I-IV” as a free download, but also offered $75 and $300 deluxe versions that included things like a Blu-ray disc, a DVD of the multitrack audio files from the project, videos, deluxe packaging, and more. The album went on to be Amazon.com’s top-selling album of 2008.
Step #4 also makes a lot of sense. Though I’ve never heard of P2P being referred to as “today’s radio,” the characterization makes sense if you think about it. Who really listens to terrestrial radio anymore thanks to corporate homogenization by the likes of Clear Channel Inc.? You can go on music-oriented BitTorrent tracker sites like Waffles.fm, What.Cd and the like and download an album in a few minutes to find out for yourself if it’s any good. Recommendations for other artists to listen to are also found in forums and on IRC.
By making the release of an album a long drawn out process it only hurts the artists who’re forced to watch the album seep through their hands to fans on its own.
Album pre-orders, Step #5, is a mediocre suggestion which I think only works for fans of bands with a length track record they can trust. I’d be willing to shell out for NIN or the Rolling Stones, but for U2, with a spotty album history, or for an emerging artist I want to hear the entire album first before I hand over $20 bucks.
Moreover, the music industry has to start thinking outside the box if it wants to survive. Judging from the fact that we’ve all been repeating this for the last 10 years, I won’t hold my breath. Instead, I think I’ll buy the industry a football helmet to wear while it continues to bang its head against the wall and wish it was still the early 1990’s.
jared@zeropaid.com
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there is a 6th step in the process…… have the artists and labels make something people actually want to buy not just 1 or 2 songs on an album or some crappy cookie cutter making the band/american idol 1 hit wonder garbage. if the content is good people will most likely buy it. granted they will probably download it first. goes back to the late 80’s early 90’s shareware mentality or try before you buy.
Here is what step number 1 should REALLY be. The best thing that these companies can do is find a way to put a different random watermark on each album that they distribute prior to the official release. Any funny saying being said in the background of a quiet part in a song would work perfectly. When the album shows up on the internet with one of the watermarks, the record company will know who distributed it. And they wouldn’t have to make very many different watermarked copies of the album, because they should limit how many they give away prior to the official release anyways. I have heard a watermark on an album that was leaked in the past, if only they used a different one on each album they could trace it back to the “evil” distributor.