I always wonder how these things come about when I hear about a major movie or album showing up on the internet well before its official release date. I guess it’s obvious that some insider is up to no good and has little or no dedication to whomever it is they are working for, but for heavens sake, how many people actually have access to media on which the movies or albums are recorded on? One would assume these kinds of things would be closely guarded, and only certain key individuals would be able to get their hands on them.

It’s obvious from the title of this article that it has happened again. Someone got access to AC/DC’s highly-anticipated new album, Black Ice and released it on the internet. We all know what happens after that – is spreads like wild fire, and once the genie is out of the bottle it’s pretty much impossible to put it back in there.

The album was leaked on October 7, and showed up on YouTube and BitTorrent sites. It was said to have been downloaded approximately 400,000 times, despite being yanked from YouTube. The nature of BitTorrent, as well as some of the  other illegal distribution methods out there pretty much means that the album has found it’s freedom on the internet and is not  likely to be returned to reside solely within the confines of the Sony Music vault.

Just yesterday I briefly mentioned how AC/DC continues to be hugely successful despite their reluctance to allow their music to be distributed via digital outlets like iTunes. I hate to break it to the boys, but their official denials to go digital have little effect on the availability of their music on the internet.

For the heck of it, I decided to check around some of the historically reliable sources on the internet for all things digital, and saw that the following AC/DC albums where listed as being available: Black Ice (as we know), Jailbreak, Hell’s Bells, Flick of The Switch, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Back In Black, Stiff Upper Lip, etc. And by “etc.,” I mean just about any other AC/DC album you can think of – I just got tired of typing them in!

Supposedly Sony Music flooded BitTorrent with bogus copies of Black Ice in an effort to gum up the works a bit, and make it harder for downloaders to get a real copy, but I suspect that was not all that successful. The location I was able to see all those AC/DC albums available had nothing to do with BitTorrent. The internet is simply too large for one entity, in this case, Sony Music, to have any measure of control over. Even if it is their legal right to do so.

The good news for AC/DC, Sony Music as well as the music industry as a whole, is that some studies have shown that fans who illegally download music are more likely to buy a legitimate copy of the album when compared to those who have not sampled it. I rather hope that is true since it’s a sort of win-win situation for the fans and the artists alike.

You can read more at Music Radar.