Has free music become a listener's birthright?
"By Stuart Eskenazi Seattle Times staff reporter
Iron & Wine's "The Shepherd's Dog" was leaked in June.
A Sub Pop Records employee casually surfing various Internet music blogs last June came across it on a Radiohead fan site notorious for this kind of thing — an unauthorized free download of the entire Iron & Wine record "The Shepherd's Dog," which the label had scheduled for official release three months later.
For the Seattle-based label, the question never was whether the album would leak — anticipated releases pretty much all do these days. It was a matter of when."
"The recording industry is in a funk, dealing with sorely lagging sales and a generation of young consumers who consider free music their birthright. Now, it also must deal with the economics of new records getting leaked prematurely on the Internet.
Labels can fight the unauthorized release of their music as they have in the past with nasty court battles that tarnished the industry's reputation. Or they can go with the flow, staying one step ahead of the leakers. Common sense suggests that album leaks can benefit both the label and the artist by providing exposure to the music, building good buzz for an upcoming release (assuming it doesn't suck)."