Even the world’s #1 DJ isn’t immune to album leaks as copies of ‘Intense’ started floating around the internet late Friday afternoon. From torrent sites to known illegal file lockers like Mediafire, the album could be downloaded almost everywhere.
The impact of leaks on album sales is difficult to interpret. Recently Kid Cudi’s album ‘Indicud’ leaked and he moved up the release date in order to not miss out on sales. For emerging artist A$AP ROCKY, his album leaked in January but it did nothing to impact his timeline and many thought that it actually provided additional exposure for the artist.
Armin van Buuren’s camp has responded by making the entire album available for full streaming on Spotify. Providing legal methods of listening may help prevent illegal downloading, but it also can increase social sharing of songs due to the link between Spotify and different social networks.
Stream Armin van Buuren’s “Intense”
In the end as far as leaks go, the people who were going to download it illegally online are still going to download it online. They might stream it on Spotify too though.
Note: In the future it will be interesting to see if Soundcloud moves to a streaming model similar to Spotify. As of now, Spotify caters to the hardcore music fan and not the general public.
(H/T FITA)
Share On
