James Delahunty
18 Aug 2008 23:05
U2 front man Bono recently was unaware that he was indirectly assisting in the leak of several tracks from U2's upcoming album, No Line On The Horizon. At his Villa in South France, Bono played the new tracks loud enough for a passerby to recognize the singer's voice and begin recording it. After recording the songs, the individual supposedly uploaded them to YouTube.
It seems that the upload didn't stay on the site for very long, and the tracks were probably removed once YouTube had been alerted to their presence. In total, there were four tracks, "No Line On The Horizon," "Sexy Boots," "Moment Of Surrender," and "For Your Love."
U2's manager Paul McGuiness is well known for his anti-piracy comments. He believes that Internet piracy can be fought by forcing Internet service providers to disconnect users caught sharing music, and more controversially that Apple Inc. and other digital music player manufacturers are wrongly profiting from their "burglary kits." He also criticizes the record labels for lack of foresight and planning, which he says led to, "a range of industries to arise that let people steal music."
Perhaps if U2 wants to keep its new music away from the public it should protect how the band members use it themselves. It makes no sense for Bono to have new tracks blaring when his biggest fans are probably regular visitors, coming to see if they can get a sneak peak of him. Back in 2004, after a photo-shoot in France, the band reported that CD containing unreleased tracks had been stolen just before the release of "How to dismantle an atomic bomb."