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Is the music industry starting to embrace album leaks?

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Is the music industry starting to embrace album leaks?
CD sales are down, vinyl sales are rising, and legal downloads are becoming more popular. But pre-release leaks of albums aren’t going away any time soon, and a few figures in the music industry think it’s time to accept this phenomenon as an important part in the marketing of any new record.

Nas’ untitled album, which is due to be released tomorrow, leaked a while back, and it doesn’t seem to have bothered his management team at all. The rapper’s business partner Anthony Saleh says: "I don't think the leak has hurt Nas in any way.” For Saleh, the pre-release leak is all part of the hype surrounding an album, and he even believes it could boost sales. “If [fans] want to support it, they'll go buy it,” he says.

Although it’s difficult, or even impossible, to gauge how many people download and then buy, it seems the industry will have to swallow its pride and accept pre-release leaks for the foreseeable future. Eric Garland, who works for a company that measures P2P traffic, claims the majors are keeping a closer eye on things than we might realize. “Over the last five years, tracking downloading went from a hush-hush thing to being one of the key indicators in the marketing and promotion of every major label,” says Garland. [Reuters]
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