Day and Night Digital | Irish Independent

Albums leaking in advance is nothing new anymore. It’s expected. You could argue that a band whose release doesn’t get leaked at all should be worried as it indicates lack of interest. For those which do, the likely sources of the leaks are the studio (an engineer for example), the label, the pressing plant or the press but it was a case of red faces all round when it was discovered that a slew of albums from Crystal Castles, Hole and The Gaslight Anthem and more leaked through the online delivery mechanism favoured by many of the major labels, Play MPE.

Play MPE allows the music press to securely listen to albums in advance by logging into an account with a unique username and password. Last week, a Dutch 16 year old hacker with an unrealistic sense of entitlement, found a weakness in the system and promptly began distributing the releases. What’s worse is that he bragged about it on a messageboard.

As a result of all this, Play MPE now have his first and last name, his address and IP address and he will no doubt be paid a visit. Still, it’s a pretty embarassing situation for the labels who use the service and Play MPE themselves if a 16 year-old was able to ascertain WAV files with relative ease.

There has been much speculation on what plans Apple have for digital music this year with strong rumours indicating that the after the success of the iPad, the company, which recently bought streaming service Lala, will launch a cloud-based streaming service later in 2010. That move would see your entire iTunes library available any where in the world there was internet access – a big deal.

That’s not the only thing they’ve got planned though. A recent patent filed by the company suggests that Apple is looking at launching an eTicketing system called “Concert Ticket +”. The system would allow an iPhone app to be used as entry to events with added incentives like live recording downloads, a free refreshment or exclusive content related to the event. The idea of eTicketing via mobile phones has been around for many years but the ubiquity of the iPhone means Apple are in the perfect position to make it happen. Yet again, it would be Apple leading the way while everyone else follows.