by BrainBurner
If you follow the data released by Nielsen, you’re well aware that music consumption is distinctly trending away from…well, consumption, with sales of digital files and CDs—the sources of leaks themselves—giving way to self-contained access points like Spotify and Pandora. Even though mp3s don’t trigger the fear and loathing they once did within the record business, last week’s leaks show that the compressed digital files are still capable of causing significant headaches. As for leaks themselves: in their current form as a technological byproduct of demand for music, they date back at least to Dylan: if there’s a strong enough desire to hear something, those with access will cobble together tools to free music from its private, pre-release circulation period, regardless of the artist’s or label’s wishes.Over the past 20 years, pre-dating Napster and continuing well into the streaming moment, a history of the various rationales and reactions to digital leaks charts the history of the record business itself during its externally-imposed digital transition: tactics of copyright enforcement, technologies of circulation and surveillance, ad-hoc promotional strategies that have sedimented into business practice, and the alternately fraught and symbiotic relationships between music fans and the musicians themselves.