It is often hard to wait for the new season of our favorite shows to come out or for our favorite artists to release their next album. In this “now generation,” the Internet puts almost everything we need right at our fingertips, including material that the producers don’t want us to have yet.
Movies, music, shows and books have all been getting leaked on the Internet for years and will continue to be leaked endlessly. Any retailers who have received copies, music insiders, hackers, etc., can leak the material to the public.
One of the highest-profile books to be leaked was J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book of the epic series. While many people downloaded leaked images of the pages, the true fans were still ready to wait in line at a bookstore in the middle of the night in order to be the first to receive their copies.
While a leak for a book of that nature probably did not do much to affect sales, another leak severely affected the work of author Stephanie Meyer. An early draft of the first twelve chapters of her book, Midnight Sun, was released on the Internet in 2008. The leak then prompted Meyer to suspend her work on the companion novel to Twilight (which may or may not have ended up being a good thing).
Leaked media can have a large affect on the writer, artist or producer, but also on the viewer. Many people are into binge-watching their shows and just want to finish an entire series through and through as quickly as possible.
That method works for certain shows, but for some shows it can be very exciting to wait. Letting the anticipation build up between episodes and trying to make your own predictions can pull you deeper into the show than just getting it over with in one day.
The first four episodes from the fifth season of Game of Thrones were recently leaked, but watching them quickly would detract from the experience. The quality is not as high as it could be and since most people have yet to see them, you would have no one to sit down and analyze the episodes with. This show is full of surprise deaths, plot twists and intense arguments that you want to see in the moment before people take to the Internet to discuss every specific detail.
The producers of weekly shows have a certain plan for when the viewers should see what. They, more than anyone, know the perfect rhythm for each episode and the perfect final scene to allude toward what will happen in the upcoming week. Waiting to watch these scenes happen with the rest of the world on the night they air is the best way to get the full intended experience.
Just as with television, this has been happening in the music industry for many years. Artists spend years writing lyrics and making music, then they don’t get to release their own album how they wanted or when they wanted to.
When people leak artist’s albums they take away their creative control from the last step of the production process. These artists no longer get to choose which songs get released as singles or what order the album should be played in. Albums often tell a complete story that could be lost when leaked on the Internet.
On Twitter, dedicated fans and artists alike have shown their disagreement with the method of illegally releasing music. Hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar expressed his annoyance with Internet leaks after his album “To Pimp a Butterfly” leaked just days before its official release in March.
No matter how bad you want to watch or listen to something new that gets leaked, if you are a true fan you will be patient. For most releases, you have probably been eagerly waiting for months anyways so let the excitement build just a little bit longer and the end result will be much more rewarding.
Follow Tanner Owens on Twitter @T_Owens21