How a Record Gets Leaked

SPIN Magazine has this interesting article on Leaks:

…The new Linkin Park album, for instance, wasn’t given to anyone at all — reportedly, no one but the band members and their manager had copies before the album was sent off to the plant. Despite the extra security, Minutes to Midnight still leaked 11 days early (after a CD is manufactured in bulk and sent out to distributors two weeks or so before the official release date, there’s no containing it) but sold a healthy 623,000 copies its first week. Would that number have been different if it had leaked even earlier? “I don’t think anyone’s come up with a direct correlation as far as how it affects numbers,” says Martin Hall, publicist for Merge Records, whose big releases for the year, Arcade Fire‘s Neon Bible and Spoon‘s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, both leaked more than a month before their release dates…. [SPIN.com] (via)