[Timesink]

My guess is these songs are already on the net, but I'm too lazy to check.

[College Repub]

Pearl Jam's "I AM MINE" is on the net legally at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/music/ch/songs_first.jsp

It's a great song. So far the rest of the album tracks have not been leaked

[prisoner6]

I found "Scarlet's Walk" within two minutes of reading this post, LOL! Used IMESH.

I just made two CD's of music for local club DJ's. Both contain music from a distant relative of mine in Texas - Mean Gene Kelton and the Diehards. Texas blues kinda sound. He posts them on MP3.com and sells his own CDs there.

After only 1 night ( 2 gigs) of playing "My Baby Don't Wear No Panties, Ask Me How I Know", "Blow Up Lover", and "Big Legged Mama Satisfy My Soul" the DJ's had over two dozen people ask how they could buy the CDs. ANd these were at smallish bar-dance floor venues.

The Genie is out of the bottle, and the establishment music industry can't do anything about it.

GOOD, sez I.

prisoner6

[struwwelpeter]

I got about 104 hits for "Scarlet's Walk", and 46 for "Riot Act" on KaZaA.

[weegee]

So they don't trust the critics with the albums, eh? I wonder if they "trust" them enough to get a good review?

Why don't they arrange an invite only listening party (or maybe even a meet and greet with the artist or producer)?

[Physicist]

Simple solution. Have each reviewer sign an ironclad nondisclosure agreement and send him a digital copy with his own NDA hashed in as a digital watermark. If you find copies of the song being passed around, simply read the digital watermark and you know who broke the NDA. Come down hard on a few such people and they'll learn.

Of course, this could be defeated by passing the song through an analog system and re-digitizing it, but that requires effort. If it still turns out to be a problem, encode a serial number on each pre-release copy as a random analog overlay. To find the overlay, you subtract the original song and the information is left behind. There's no way to filter it out without compromising the music.

Once a system like that is set up, it's bound to be cheaper than throwing a truckload of disposable CD players per song.

[steve-b]

I'm sure they'll get great reviews from critics who have just been insulted and made to listen to the CD on inferior equipment (for obvious reasons, any professional music critic is going to have an audio system that blows away a portable with headphones).