Lady Gaga Applause single released early after fans fail to plug leaks
Song released to US radio and iTunes store after Little Monsters campaign to report illicit streams and downloads to Universal Music
Applause is the lead single from Lady Gaga's ARTPOP album, but leaked more than a week ahead of its official release date
Lady Gaga's new single Applause may have leaked ahead of its official release on 19 August, but her famously-fervent fanbase is leading the battle to keep the song under wraps.
A campaign by fans from Gaga's Little Monsters website has encouraged the community to report any site spotted distributing or linking to leaked snippets of the single to her label, Universal Music.
Nearly 2,500 fans have retweeted a link to Universal's takedown page, with one fan boasting of having notified the label about 500 infringing links in a single evening.
Update: In a not entirely surprising turn of events, Applause was rush-released this evening to radio stations and Apple's iTunes Store in the US, with other countries to follow. Gaga tweeted the news in characteristically bullish style as a "POP MUSIC EMERGENCY", blaming the leak on hackers.
The fan-led anti-piracy campaign was a turnaround from the usual nature of such leaks, where fans eagerly share the links, and labels – if they choose to respond – file a barrage of takedown notices to blogs and search engines.
Applause is the first single from Gaga's upcoming album ARTPOP, with a carefully-planned campaign to release the single on the same day that the album (and its spin-off app) will be available to pre-order.
Gaga herself seemed initially upset by news of the leak, tweeting "Lord, in HEAVEN WHY" and "YOU JUST COULDNT WAIT THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR ONE SATURDAY", before appearing to see the funny side andinviting fellow leakee Katy Perry to "grab some shovels and fuck up some hackers".
Such leaks seem inevitable in the modern music industry, though, with few new releases of any note escaping an unexpectedly-early debut. Even Kanye West saw his Yeezus album leak early in June – mere hours after BuzzFeed published an 8 Reasons You Won't Hear Yeezus Earlyarticle celebrating his notoriously-strict pre-release piracy precautions.
Gaga's objections to the Applause leak are more likely to be artistic rather than commercial. Sales of the single are unlikely to be hurt, but music blogs passing judgement on the track from a few brief snatches seems to have touched a nerve.
"Dont focus on ANY blogger criticism. I have been a producer/songwriter/musician for over 10 years. Trust the artist bloggers are not critics," she tweeted on Sunday.
Gaga's official pre-release plans for ARTPOP, which is due to come out on 11 November, are unclear. It's now common for big albums to be streamed online for up to a week before their release, with Apple among the keenest companies to secure exclusives.
iTunes has hosted pre-release streams of new albums by David Bowie, Daft Punk and Justin Timberlake already this year, but streaming services like Spotify and Rdio, and media including Pitchfork, NPR Radio and The Guardian have all been in the mix for similar deals.
The availability of the ARTPOP app before the album's release may be a hint that Lady Gaga and Universal intend to host their own pre-release stream for fans, however.
Her reaction if the album leaks can only be imagined, although it's likely to be good news for retailers of shovels.
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