Cecilia Pitstick @ceci_pitstick [Staff Writer]

How do songs end up getting leaked? Who gets their hands on full albums? Is it the band or some crazed fan? When songs get leaked how does one decide if they should listen to them or not? Songs getting leaked is a big problem for the band. It may excite people knowing that they get to hear their favorite bands new songs early and for free, but that takes money away from the band. If people listen to the whole album for free, most people decide not to actually buy the album. People download the songs for free, which drops the sales of the album. People need to listen to the album and buy it, so they don’t hurt their favorite bands career.

What do the bands do if the album is leaked? They go as fast as they can and delete the links. Most of the time, they can’t get there fast enough. By the time they hear about it and shut down the links, thousands of fans have most likely already downloaded it or saved it to their phones. Then the people who saved it decide not to buy the album.

The One DIrection, due to release on November 17th, was recently leaked by a group of Brazilian fans. A store in Brazil messed up the date for sale of the albums and put them out too early. There was a huge hype about it, and even though many people are still buying the album, the band will still end up out money. These people, whoever they are, are cheating others out of hard-earned money. The people in the bands are still people, even if they are very rich. They still deserve the money they earned. Next time someone hears about a leaked album, they should to not download it and wait to actually buy it. It is not right to get free stuff when these bands are trying to make a living off of the songs they record and sell.