I have a theory regarding one aspect of music piracy on the internet. You know how a lot of the albums that come out are “leaked” onto the internet weeks (if not months) before their release date? Who gets blamed for this? The grunts of the music industry (i.e. the sound engineers, etc.). Well I have a theory on who to blame. Blame the record industry themselves!!!
To illustrate my point I give you a hypothetical situation. Record Company A (RCA) is getting ready to release an album by one of their hit bands. Record Company B (RCB) gets wind of this upcoming release and sees it taking a bite out of their record sales. RCB decides that it will do anything in it’s power (i.e. bride, steal etc.) to get a pre-released copy of RCAs upcoming release. Once RCB has the copy they release it into the wilds of the internet, where it is downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people. Most of these people will not buy the record, and those that were planning on it may not enjoy the album, thus leading to them not spending the money they were planning on. Thus taking a large chunk of the profit RCA would have made, meaning RCB is happy. RCB may even see some of the money not spent on RCAs album on one of their artists.
And that is my theory. Espionage is a part of every industry. Why not the record industry?
Thus ends my theory (which may be just a theory but it is something to think about).