Fixing a leak

[sabriel9v]

What do you guys think about artists leaking and distributing bits and pieces of their albums online before they official hit retail stores? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this to you?

[PeterTuneCore]

What do you guys think about artists leaking and distributing bits and pieces of their albums online before they official hit retail stores? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this to you?

It's a marketing strategy, right for some, wrong for most, IMHO.

I don't have any definite proof one way or the other, but my gut tells me this won't do much good and will possibly do harm. If you want to generate hype, do it: but not with fragments--do it ACROSS media, use video and print and boards and forums. Setting out chunks of your songs builds expectations you can't control, and at worse could get people to say, "eh, heard the free bit, not interested." And now you've got no chance to show them the rest.

Still, I suspect it works well for bands with large, established bases, to help get the word out and get tongues wagging. Unless you're already selling out small venues, I'd get distributed for real, and not in parts. Again, just my gut.

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[Dropped_2_C]

We are not signed or anything but we did that and hosted it on every major torrent site and all of us(the band members) keep it seeded. i must say as far as retail merch is concerned including cd's and t-shirts it increased sells and hits on myspace and at shows more local people came out, And when we would book farther out of our area more people knew of us. And we had alot of orders from over seas and all across the U.S.

So to me it was more than worth it to leak the whole thing. We had more revenue than we did before it.

[sabriel9v]

We are not signed or anything but we did that and hosted it on every major torrent site and all of us(the band members) keep it seeded. i must say as far as retail merch is concerned including cd's and t-shirts it increased sells and hits on myspace and at shows more local people came out, And when we would book farther out of our area more people knew of us. And we had alot of orders from over seas and all across the U.S.

So to me it was more than worth it to leak the whole thing. We had more revenue than we did before it.

Did you do this to promote an ep or lp? Also, what size fanbase did you have prior to leaking parts of your album?

[Standard8]

One my friends, a (illegal) download junkie, the music he does actually pay for is usually based on leaks, he likes to be the first one to know he heard or "discovered" something, especially new bands, preferably from another country. And most of the bands he "discovers" typical do end up making it 'big". But in most cases, I'd suspect, as TuneCore says, these bands were most likely already packing small venues and probably were going to "make it" regardless of the leaks.