AC/DC Electrify BitTorrent Album Downloads
Written by enigmax on October 12, 2008AC/DC will release its new album ‘Black Ice’ worldwide on October 20th, in physical format only since the band doesn’t sell its music online. However, the upcoming album has already been digitized by pirates, as it leaked to BitTorrent five days ago. In that time it has taken the trackers by storm, racking up a staggering 400,000 downloads.
A big name band releasing their first album in 8 years is important, so when AC/DC’s forthcoming album ‘Black Ice‘ leaked onto the Internet last week, it felt like it should’ve been a newsworthy event. But there seemed little to get worked up about because let’s face it, everything leaks these days and this particular leak initially seemed to offer little new.
Then, just one day after the October 7th leak, Undercover ran a story, claiming that Sony was flooding BitTorrent sites with fakes in an attempt to frustrate potential downloaders of ‘Black Ice’. TorrentFreak investigated these claims and couldn’t find any fakes on the most commonly used BitTorrent trackers and it’s pretty certain that fakes wouldn’t exist on any private trackers either. Calls for Undercover to clarify the basis for the claim have gone unanswered.
However, there is something exciting to report in respect of this leak. During the last 5 years when most recording artists have experienced a drop in CD sales, AC/DC have been flourishing, last year selling 1.3 million CDs in the US alone. For a band that hasn’t released any new music for 8 years, never releases a ‘greatest hits’ album and does not sell any of its music online in digital format, this is pretty impressive.
Of course, AC/DC might not want to distribute their music online, but there are plenty of other people who are happy to do so. Since the album leaked to BitTorrent on October 7th, a full 13 days in advance of its worldwide release date, ‘Black Ice’ has been downloaded an incredible 400,000 times, which is a pretty clear indicator that AC/DC fans would like the band’s music in digital format rather than just CD. On Mininova, one of the world’s most popular BitTorrent download locations, four of the top five most downloaded music torrents in the last week are AC/DC.
Other ‘winners’ in the BitTorrent music download charts this week were Keane, coming in at #3 with 80,000 downloads of their album ‘Perfect Symmetry‘ (due to be released officially tomorrow) and Oasis in second position with 100,000 downloads of ‘Dig Out Your Soul‘.
Just this week, Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher said he believes that the music industry loses around 25% of its profits to piracy. “That’s what was spent on champagne and limos,” he said, adding, “It’s good when record companies panic. They need to streamline. Just like these big banks going under, and those Wall Street idiots driving Ferraris. What about people who had a hurricane rip apart their community? That’s real pressure, my friend.”
Whether artists actually lose money from ‘illegal’ downloads is something that can be debated. However, it is clear that refusing to make music available online will boost pirated downloads significantly. In just a few days the downloads of ‘Black Ice’ on BitTorrent equal a third of all AC/DC’s physical album sales last year. Quite a shocker.
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49 Responses
An AUSTRALIAN band, thankyou very much.
1.3 Million is an amazing amount if they haven’t distributed online. No iTunes store? No Amazon? That IS impressive.
F@#$ Metallica, AC-DC are gonna be in the music download charts for AGES now.
Cheers TF.
These are the people who really shouldn’t care at all about piracy. It helps them, or it hurts them? There’s no real reason to think about that question because it doesn’t really matter for AC/DC.
We don’t know their stance on it anyway.
Yeah here in the US AC/DC has been a heavy metal staple since I was a scrawny little headbanger in the late 80’s and probably for 15-20 years before that. One of those bands all fans of metal love. I’ll have to take a listen the the new stuff, even though I’m not much of a fan of hard rock anymore.
too bad ac/dc isn’t that good
where is chinese democracy bitches
Hey number one. F*ck you Metallica sh*t all over AC/DC. AC/DC are OLD as white dog sh*t
Uh yeah nobody feels like carrying around plastic disks anymore.. idiots..
seriously its like these guys are completely clueless
IS IT ANY WONDER people do this regardless of its legal status.. they are not giving people what they want.. and PEOPLE TAKE WHAT THEY WANT.
Quote [Noel Gallagher - “It’s good when record companies panic. They need to streamline. Just like these big banks going under, and those Wall Street idiots driving Ferraris. What about people who had a hurricane rip apart their community? That’s real pressure, my friend.”]
Artist in the 21st century. :-)
Couldnt have happened to a better band:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/09/acdc-blames-itu.html
Cheers!
http://www.eZee.se
@DarkShock
totally agreed. Metallica shits all over ACDC. An album like master of puppets is equivlant to the whole acdc catalogue. While ACDC do indeed have some decent songs, their music is boring and reptitive as fuck over their entire career.
i am Thunderstruck over AC/DC because they are The Razor’s Edge.
Metallica is not qualified to carry AC/DC’s jock strap you bunch of youngsters.
WTF.
Most folks who download music.
Don’t buy any new music.
I doubt they even go outside much.
So the industry sould wise up
And stop saying they loose sales.
Metallica wouldn’t even exist if it wasnt for AC/DC
Lars,Hedfield, all list AC/DC as a prime inspiration for them to do music.Without AC/DC there would be no metal to what it is now and defiantly not to the point where metallica would be welcomed(they are originally speed thrash remember there first albums you claim “shit all over AC/DC” without AC/DC “breaking the ice” so to say,metallica would be looked at and brushed over as just noise)
Without AC/DC there wouldn’t be half the bands you claim “shit all over AC/DC” They are the originators of Hard Rock/Metal.
Learn to respect those who brought you to what you have today.
“While ACDC do indeed have some decent songs, their music is boring and reptitive as fuck over their entire career.”
Compared to Metalicca? They play the same chords over and overs just faster each song.Thats orginallity,dont get me wrong Metallica has some good albums(mostly from 20 years ago) but AC/DC is the frontier band which brought you the bands you have today,as unfortunate as that is with all the shitty much there is out now…
@8
I can sypathise with AC/DC for not liking the idea of having their album fragmented. Thats artistic integrity.
Typically people dowload whole torrents, so they should be happy now. Besides, itunes is full of drm, so I don’t want my music on there either.
@12
what the hell are you trying to say?
The sad part is most people at the upcomming tour will not be there in support of Black Ice, or even any album the last 15 years. The best music this band made died with Bon and the trubute album to him…Back in Black. It is from this era people go to see them…down load them…and buy the CD still
and for those who forget how rocking those guys were/are still….
http://www.fetchmp3.com/search.php?Term=ac%2Fdc&searchbutton.x=0&searchbutton.y=0
lets not forget Black Sabbath, Aerosmith before they quit doing drugs, etc.
There should be no mention of metallica on TF unless it involves someone cracking Lars over the head with a large, black dildo.
J.
And, lets not forget AC/Dc have sold significantly more albums world wide than Metallica. Facts, are facts. The numbners speak for themselves. over 200′000′000 albums sold worldwide? back in black at 49 million copies alone? Metallica..please……
Sorry guys, but AC/DC are a bigger band. They draw more people, and they rock sooo much harder.
Power to em!
if i’d ever pay for music (except for concerts) it better be a god damn physical medium and not some drm-infested watermarked bits in shitty quality.
@16
I am saying folks who download the music on the internet would not be buying it anyway. So industry saying it’s lost sales is a moot point.
If its not bittorent it would be by other means. And there are way too many to list here.
The type of folks who have done so 400k according to this report are savy enough I belive. To find other means of doing so.
And these folks spend vast amounts of time in front of their computers online. And therefore are not ones that are consumers of any product.
As predicted at AC/DC News last week.
http://www.acdcnews.com/2008/10/black-ice-album-leaked-online.html
AC/DC was totally asking for this when they refused to post their music legally on iTunes. And I’ll never buy or download them anyway, so they make me laugh when they freak out that their album got leaked so early.
There an old band with old listeners, Im surprised there 1st single isnt on 45.
“AC/DC was totally asking for this when they refused to post their music legally on iTunes. And I’ll never buy or download them anyway, so they make me laugh when they freak out that their album got leaked so early.”
Why would we want it on iTunes?
If I buy music for 99 cents a song, I don’t want DRM, I don’t want a lossy format.
@ TG
Record sales don’t prove shit. Britney Spears sold millions of records too and she sounds like ass. ACDC “used” to be a good band, but as of late their music is a BORE. Angus young rules though, ill give u that.
sweet ac dc !!!!!!!!!!
Hell yeah! AC/DC ROCKS!! I love it
http://www.privacy-center.ru.tc
I think the album leaking and the resulting 400,000 downloads are a great sign for AC/DC.
Whether the album leaked before the real debut or not, the number of people who were going to download the album for free was going to be relative.
Now, with the “buzz” created from the leak and resulting downloads, I would expect the debut to receive even higher sales from die hard fans.
This is a perfect example of the power of social media to raise awareness of a product and in turn generate profits for the beneficiary, AC/DC.
If I were managing AC/DC I would advise them to take this in stride and THANK their fans for showing so much support in the early stages of their album release.
Um, what does Metallica have to do with this story? Both are great bands, but it’s like me saying “F**k you my blue car! AC/DC all the Way!”
yeah, lame like that.
To be honest, the album isn’t that good. But I like harder music. It’s also repetitive. I guess it suites the needs of the older audiences who grew up with that music, but for this pirate teenager it sucks.
“Since the album leaked to BitTorrent on October 7th, a full 13 days in advance of its worldwide release date, ‘Black Ice’ has been downloaded an incredible 400,000 times, which is a pretty clear indicator that AC/DC fans would like the band’s music in digital format rather than just CD.”
It might be that the fans want to have the music and don’t care about the format, seeing they have no choice until release.
“Black Ice has been downloaded an incredible 400,000 times, which is a pretty clear indicator that AC/DC fans would like the band’s music in digital format rather than just CD.”
- I disagree, I think the reason it gets downloaded so much is because it was ‘released’ 5 DAYS before its official release.
Therefore if you’re a hardcore fan and want to hear the new album first you’d just go download it rather than wait 5 days and get it after all the other hardcore fans have.
This is Bob Lefsetz’s opinion on this whole AC/DC CD/digital download album thing:
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2008/10/08/downloading-acdcs-black-ice/
pirates are weak people
No reason for AC/DC to sell it online in a digital format.
I wouldn’t want my hard work diminished in a lossy, DRM-filled format either.
Anything less than DRM-free FLAC is garbage, and do you know any pay music sites that offer FLAC?
If I’m paying for this shit I better receive the full quality.
That’ll be 400,000 disappointed ACDC fans then – its unmitigated, unimaginative cack. After all this time, they’ve churned out an album of watered-down dross. And I used to love them. Oh well.
1. AC/DC are good! They made a career of writing songs that stick to a formula custom made for their fans who always expect the same from the band. It works, they are timeless as a Bo Diddly song.
2. Metallica WERE good. Now they write stupid songs that are nothing like who they were and they have abandoned their true fans. They write for people who buy pop records. James can’t sing without grunting “~NAH” after every line in the songs,.. totally stupid.
Given a choice,… I’d pick AC/DC,.. if only because they stuck to their guns for all these years and never abandoned their fans.
Metallica should be banned fro turning into pussies who shop on Rodeo Drive and wear Gucci. Fagots!
Metallica over AC/DC? Get fucked. You’re comparing a bunch of sellouts, artists that purposely cripple their albums and ride on profits over an Australian band that sells full quality albums, has a passion for their music and has played more benefit gigs than Metallica could ever dream of.
There’s not even a comparable league here guys. Get over yourselves.
Good to see the old men like ACDC and Mötorhead still leading the way…while youngsters like Metallica keep on losing the way (last album?…what a mess!)
The difference is these old dudes still care about music…and less about profit.
45??? ROFL!!! Those geezers are a friggin’ joke!!
AC/DC sucks, I won’t buy their new album, just download it online.
BUT I BOUGHT METALLICA’S NEW CD AND I’LL GET GUNS N ROSES NEW CD TOO.
ok really who gives a fcuk?
A big name band releasing their first album in 8 years is important, so when AC/DC s forthcoming album Black Ice leaked onto the Internet last week, it felt like it should ve been a newsworthy event.
master of puppets,,gimmee a break,,,have you retards ever heard the turd metallica put out titled st anger,,,what a fuc king joke,,,metallica is washed up ,,,,,,,has beens,,,unless hetfield hits the jack and coke again its over
Metallica rules, so does AC/DC. Both bands have released their best albums in 20 yrs.
http://deltidsharmonisk.com
It dose’nt matter if the new album leaked out early, there music still kicks ass compare to some of these new bands that are out today. to tell the truth I rather rip my ears off than to listen to these kiddy bands that don’t have a clue.
so if your not a ac/dc fan all I have to say to you is, shut the hell up and mind your own business.
fuck mettalica they burned out straight after they realeased the black album,so all you dickhead mettalica fans out there go screw yourselves, acdc will be on the charts for ages and will sell a lot more. now for any acdc or mettalica fan out there ( particularly mettalica fans ) just remmember this , who has got the second most selling album of all time thats right mettalica fuckkers acdc back in black and i dont see mettalica up there att all so suck shit
go acdc fuck mettalica
hai da
hoiw r u
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