You can record anything that goes out through your speakers, its not a matter of saving the streamed audio but if you just set your record signal to record what your computer is outputting than you can save anything. All copy protection is worthless!!! worthless!!!!!

Hmm, yeah I've thought about this, I guess there's no stopping leaks as long as promos are sent out to magazines and reviewers. If there was a way to individually mark every single promo copy, the leakers could be hunted down, but I guess it's a bit too complicated. Albums will end up on the net one way or the other, I just wish the leaks could be prevented. Partially because I can't resist downloading them...

There is software that you can dissassemble tracks to remove certain layers. So even putting voice over and stuff can be circumvented. Of course that's a bit harder and I don't know too many people that have that kind of software.

It's extremely hard to keep information from spreading, especially now that we have the internet and the worlds information travels between nations so quickly. China's having a hard time filtering their internet content too. Personally, I don't think that it's a bad thing if a single track gets put out on the internet and gets on the P2P file sharing networks. Devin Townsend Band has very little publicity besides people hearing that Devin of SYL has another band and them hearing it from a friend or the internet. It's how I found out DTB. And yes, I downloaded, but am currently collecting all the albums, have a hard time find them in Saskatoon though, I can only imagine how hard it is in other countries.

But I know it's not up to you, Tracy. I just think Labels are going around anti-piracy wrong, and I think the RIAA's numbers are quite scewed...personally, I've been buying more albums now that I can download and hear many more bands. I hear of stuff I never would have had the opportunity of hearing of before (eg, DTB). And I'm not alone, I've got a few friends that buy CD's regularily because they download and hear something they like. One has only started buying albums because he only recently heard music worth buying, heh.

I'm with you, Spinalcold.

I think for a single promo song/sample before release of the album, it't not a bad thing if it gets downloaded and spread. It might even be better to offer a good-quality MP3 for download, than a crappy Real or Flash-stream. That way you can make sure the quality of the song downloaded and spread is decent as opposed to crappy rips of the streams. And you can give the file clever filenames and tags.

For the promotional copies of the album that will go out to reviewers, the voice over is probably a good idea to prevent a proper leak. The software that can disassemble a track and remove certain parts will never work flawless without quality loss.
But as soon as the album is out, there's no stopping the downloading.

@Spinalcold and Biert: I'm with you totally Spinalcold, and Biert, I don't know where hapert is, but where I grew up there was just one record store and it only sold top 40 shit. Nothing to my liking at all. If I wanted to hear some good music I had to travel all the way to Rotterdam and find an alternative record store there so I could listen to good music. It just didn't work out. The travel alone was very expensive and time-consuming, so when I got high-speed internet I started downloading stuff just so I could hear it. I got to know a lot of bands you probably wouldn't find in ANY music store. And everything I like I buy, it's as simple as that.

@Spinalcold and Biert: I'm with you totally Spinalcold, and Biert, I don't know where hapert is, but where I grew up there was just one record store and it only sold top 40 shit.

Hapert is totally in the south of the Netherlands, about 20 kilometers from Eindhoven.
We had a record store here, only selling crap at ridiculous prices (the chick asked me to spell out Opeth when I ordered Lamentations! "O... P?"). When they went broke and sold all of their stock with up to 70% discounts, I noticed they had Terria and Infinity. But besides that store there's not really anything around here, definately nothing alternative.

You all have good points, there's always two sides to it. The thing I hate with leaks is that it just isn't the same as when you get the whole CD with the booklet. I will for sure not download anything off Synchestra, I'll wait for the bump in the mailbox.
It'll be worth the wait.

If a single track is on the internet, put there by the artist and/or label, as an appetizer, I don't think you can call taht a leak. A leak is when the entire album is out there for download more than a week before the releasedate.

EDIT: And I really want that appetizer! *jumps around on his chair*

True, that of course, is "ok"...It's just that this album seems to be a whole long continuous thing, when I first hear something from it I want to hear it from the start to finish. Then cry, if it's true what Dev and Ryan says.

devin should get this really bad singer and make him hum all the music of synchestra, one-vocal-layer mode, then put it on streaming.

We'd get a preview, and still, it would suck enough to make us want buy the album

That is absolute genius. They should let some people fuck Synchestra up completely. Devin, I think I can make a mess of those drum parts!

i like the idea of the overdubs. if there is any software to seperate the audio layers in a file, then
a) i want to have that software! and
b) you can dodge it by making a real cut into the music, mute the song for long enough to fuck it up and then fill the gap with some nice words.

i also remember the "explanation-track" from physicist, where devin said a few words to each song. somthing like that would also be cool, with the song in the background.