…and some in industry don’t care | Chicago Tribune

In some cases, industry people are leaking music online, such as the recent incident in which tracks from a Mastodon recording were released by a retail worker, who was subsequently fired.

Or, as I experienced in 2001 to 2003: some label managers paid to have “studio burns” of albums released onto filesharing networks to gauge reaction in advance of the release.

You can use the community to your advantage; the corollary is that it is not piracy if it is endorsed by the label.