[Scott Warner]

I'm a little surprised that he's suprised given that three months early is pretty typical. As soon as the launch window and marketing cycle starts for a record you can almost guarantee it'll be out there on the net within hours.

I speculate that what's happening here is that Apparat isn't used to one of his releases having this kind of attention so the leak probably stings more than it did before.

Unless you're Outkast or the Rolling Stones and can rely on a mass volume of people purchasing your work through iTunes or the old fashion removable media way, you really have to think of album and track releases as marketing for your brand: don't expect to make any money, don't be surprised when the content is distributed to everyone and anyone within days, and exploit that free global distribution network immediately. That's the upside of the Net: there are hundreds of bands out there now who previously wouldn't have been able to tour anything more their local scenes who now can tour the globe and sell out pretty decent sized venues. You can go from obscurity to headliner pretty quickly.

Case in point: Ellen Alien and Apparat should easily be able to play decent sized gigs at every major urban center in the United States.

And that's where the real money is at: touring and merchandise. The constant, pre and post Net, is that smaller bands always made jack and shit off of their recorded works.