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Link's fourth album was leaked by hackers before its official release, resulting in a loss of nearly 10 million US dollars.

After being reported by many American media, this news caused heated discussions throughout the United States and even around the world.

Before August, there had been many cases of hackers stealing bank customer information and stealing celebrity accounts to post random messages around the world, which attracted the attention of countries around the world.

Two of the hacking incidents were related to the music industry.

In early July, the new album "4" by Queen Beyonce was also leaked before its release.

At the end of July, Lady Gaga's fan website in the UK was also hacked, and the information of more than 100,000 fans was stolen.

This week, the new album of the music superstar Link was leaked by hackers again, causing a loss of tens of millions.

A series of major events combined to make people panic and anger people.

If the hacker organization steals bank customer information for profit, stealing politicians' social accounts is to vent dissatisfaction, and stealing celebrity social accounts to post messages is fun.

And they stole the singers' albums and leaked them to the Internet in advance, which was meaningless except for making trouble and dampening the singers' creative enthusiasm.

For a time, from the US President and members of the two congresses to ordinary people, everyone was unhappy with the hacker group.

New York Senator Julia Salazar said in a public event that day that the Internet should not be a lawless place. She proposed to compare hacker organizations with terrorist organizations and asked the legislature to formulate relevant laws to restrain these people and not let them continue to make trouble.

This proposal was supported by many netizens. Within three days, 125,000 people petitioned on the official website of the White House, asking the judicial department to severely punish hacker organizations such as Swagsec.

For this reason, White House spokesperson Sally Sandra said at a press conference that day:

After receiving a report from Link Music Company, the Manhattan Police in New York has begun to track down the Swagsec hacker organization. It is understood that this is a hacker organization active in Cambodia. The CIA has also launched an action to conduct a cross-border investigation on the organization.

Link Music posted a tweet on its official account, asking users who participated in downloading the free album not to spread the source of the album at will after listening to the songs, so as to avoid causing greater losses to the musicians. The company will hold relevant responsibilities for individuals and organizations that use free sources for profit.

The official account of iTunes Music Store also posted a tweet to support Link Music's decision and said it would cooperate with the relevant investigation.

Pop superstar Britney Spears also re-posted a tweet to apologize to Link and Link's fans, saying that she would keep her personal account safe in the future and wish Link's new album a big hit.

In this messy situation, Link's fourth album "Love Is Gone" was released simultaneously in 48 countries and regions including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia.

Sales in the United States in the first week were 1.537 million copies.

Billboard album chart champion.

It is slightly lower than the 1.747 million copies of the third album "The Woman I Love" in the first week, but it is also the first album in the United States this year with first-week sales exceeding 1.5 million copies, and the 19th album to exceed one million copies in the first week since Nielsen began to count album sales in the United States in 1991.

It also exceeds the 1.322 million copies of Eminem's fourth album "The Eminem Show" released in 2002, ranking seventh in the album weekly sales history list.

Taylor's third album "Last Kiss" ranked sixth with 1.59 million copies, and Link's "The Woman I Love" ranked fourth.

All 20 songs in the album were on the Billboard singles chart top 100 in the first week.

What makes Link's fans even more excited is that nine of the top 10 songs on the Billboard singles chart are from this album.

"That Girl" still topped the singles chart, followed by "Say Something" by Link and Taylor Swift, "Love is gone", "Let her go", "Sorry", "Let Me Down Slowly", "Late night melancholy", "No promises", "Remember Me" and other songs.

Link also became the first singer in music history to have nine songs on the Billboard singles chart top 10 at the same time, and also broke the record of the Beatles in 1964 that took the top five. Link directly took the top eight.

The ninth song is the single "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Australian male singer Gotye and New Zealand female singer Kimbra.

The song was released on July 10 and topped the singles chart for three consecutive weeks. It sold 4.5 million copies in the United States in the first month. It is also a great love song.

Of the remaining eleven songs in the album "Love Is Gone", ten are ranked in the top 50, and only one song written by Link himself is ranked 94th, which makes him ashamed.

Overseas, "Love Is Gone" also topped the album sales charts in 23 countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, with a total overseas sales of 3.72 million copies in the first week.

Total sales in the first week were 5.263 million.

It also became the second album this year with first-week sales exceeding 5 million.

The first was Born This Way, released by Lady Gaga in May. The first-week physical and digital albums sold 1.108 million copies in the United States and 5.72 million copies worldwide.

The reason why Born This Way sold so well in the first week was that each digital album only cost $0.99, and it was sold at a crazy discount.

For this reason, the Nielsen data official website had to modify the rules, and albums priced below $3.99 would not be counted in sales.

The digital album of Love Is Gone cost 19rn This Way, twenty times that of the physical album, and $29.9 for the physical album, making it the most expensive album in the world throughout the year.

Many media once again complained that Link really sold albums as luxury goods.

In terms of overseas singles charts, his collaboration with Taylor, Say Something, won the singles chart in 12 countries and regions.

"Love is gone" topped the singles charts in 10 countries and regions, and "That Girl" topped the singles charts in 5 countries and regions.

The remaining four songs, "Let her go", "Sorry", "Let Me Down Slowly" and "Late night melancholy", also topped the singles charts in at least one country.

Judging from these rankings, the songs in this album are very popular.

In addition, the media have given high praise to this album.

The British "Guardian" said that since Link released his first album in January 2009, his four consecutive albums have all been high-quality works, and the fourth album has made significant progress in style, artistry and interpretation compared to the previous three albums, indicating that Link is a singer who is still growing.

The "New York Times" gave this album a score of 90, and commented that the songs in the album are all sincere works.

Last April, Link broke up with Taylor Swift, and the incident was known to everyone and was also the news of the year in 2010.

It is said that Link started to write songs for his fourth album from then on, and "Let her go" and "Sorry" were both written within a month after the breakup.

What is rare is that after becoming a "playboy", Link can still continue his original style and maintain his strong creative passion. He continues to write more than ten lovelorn songs, which are also masterpieces of sad songs. It is very impressive.

At the end of the review, the author added that the reason for deducting 10 points is not the problem of the album songs, but that Link is really a "playboy". This point is deducted from Link.

"Billboard" magazine used "amazing" to evaluate the album and gave it a high score of 92 points.

Steven Copno, editor-in-chief of the magazine, commented that among the albums released from 2001 to 2011, the quality of this album can also be ranked in the top three, and even higher than Link's third album. All 20 songs in the album entered the top 100 of the singles chart, and one song is worth ten.

Steven Copno finally said in a teasing tone.

After Link and Taylor broke up in April last year, there were rumors in the industry that Link was going to write a lovelorn style album. Many people kept looking forward to it, but then Link was immediately smeared and became a "playboy" Link, with a rich emotional experience.

This also led many people to doubt whether he could fulfill his promise and write a lovelorn style album. Asking a playboy to write a lovelorn song is like asking an adult to pretend to be young.

This suspicion continued until the album was released. The first promotional single "That Girl" was released. After listening to this song, many people were relieved. It is indeed a lovelorn song with a fresh style and sincere emotions, and it doesn't sound like pretending to be young at all.

Later, the new album was released, and all 20 songs entered the top 100 of the singles chart, which was supported and loved by the majority of fans.

Link succeeded and fulfilled his promise.

It also shows that the playboy Link did not lose himself in the complicated emotional experience and still maintained his original intention. This is commendable. I hope Link can continue to maintain it.

——

The album had good sales in the first week and good reputation, which also shows that Link's new album was successful again.

The only thing that fans regret is that the first week sales of "Love is gone" did not break the sales record of "The Woman I Love".

The media also believed that the first week sales of "Love is gone" were 1.53 million copies, which was not too successful for Link.

First of all, all 20 songs of the album entered the top 100 of the singles chart, and the ranking was better than the third album, which showed that the quality and popularity of the album were not worse than the third album.

Secondly, Link's influence was greater than last year, and his appeal should be stronger, especially the recent news that he won 7 gold medals in the World Championships, and the "Captain America" ​​he starred in was still the weekly box office champion.

In this case, the first week sales of "Love is gone" should be higher than the third album, and the first week sales were expected to be more than 1.8 million copies, but the result was only 1.53 million copies.

The media believed that the hacker leaked the album sound source in advance, which was the main reason for the "failure" of the first week sales of this album.

Including the 358,000 digital albums leaked in advance, the total number is almost 1.9 million.

The second reason is that Link shifted the focus of his activities to Hollywood, reduced his activities in the music scene, and his influence on fans has declined.

In addition, in terms of publicity and planning, there are obviously many fewer tricks than last year.

The media believes that it will be very challenging for "Love is Gone" to surpass the national sales of "The Woman I Love".

"Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

In a club in New York, Kunas clinked glasses of champagne with Diddy and Jay-Z.

"Sean, Ryan, are those hackers hired by you?"

Jay-z took a sip of champagne and asked.

"Haha, no, it has nothing to do with me."

Diddy laughed, grinned and said, "No matter who does it, as long as it affects the sales of Link's new album, it's something worth celebrating, isn't it?"

"That's right! Link's album sales have failed. This is the best news I have heard this year. It is very worthy of celebration."

Little Kunas said happily.

Jay-Z nodded. Although his wife Beyoncé’s new album sound source was also leaked by hackers, and he was also one of the victims, he heard that the sales of Link’s new album in the first week did not meet expectations, which is undoubtedly a good thing for him. information.

Ever since Link crossed over into rap in 2009, causing their East Coast rap to be disgraced, not a day goes by that he doesn't want to see Link suffer misfortune.

This leak of the audio source directly caused Link's loss of tens of millions. This was even more great news and made them relieved.

"Jess, when are you and Kanye's new album going to be released?"

Little Kunas asked.

"September 12th."

Jay-Z said.

His new album "Watch The Throne" with Kanye West is also currently entering the promotion period.

The album was completed in May and was originally planned to be released in early August, but it turned out that Link's new album was also planned to be released at that time.

Considering that Link was too famous, his publishing department suggested that he and Kanye delay or advance the release.

If it were moved forward to July, it would coincide with Beyoncé's album. They had no choice but to choose to postpone it.

But because of Link, the release of the new albums of the two rap kings, him and Kanye, was delayed, which was a big insult to him and Kanye.

He also thought about not delaying it, but waiting for August to have another album chart battle with Link.

Just considering that Link's third album sold 5.5 million copies in North America and 36 million copies globally in the whole year. According to this momentum, the sales volume of Link's fourth album in the first week will not be less than 1 million copies.

Neither he nor Kanye, nor the company, had much confidence that it would sell a million copies in its first week.

In the end, after careful consideration, we gave up the risk and postponed the release until September.

After the first week sales of "Love is Gone" were released, he was secretly thankful that he didn't take the risk of making adjustments. If it happened, the possibility of failure would be extremely high.

"Jace, this album is a collaboration between you and Kanye. Do you hope to compete with Link on the annual sales list?"

Little Kunas asked.

Jay-Z shook his head, it was difficult.

The company estimates that the US sales of this album will not be higher than "The Blueprint 3", around 1.3 million, which is also their expectation.

Link's new album sold 1.53 million copies in its first week.

There's no comparison at all.

"Link has too many titles and a relatively large influence in the United States. In addition, he is good at hype and has the bonus of "Captain America." According to the current situation, his album sales in North America have a great chance of exceeding 4 million copies. , this number is difficult to surpass.”

Jay-Z bared his white teeth, his face full of envy and jealousy.

"How can this bastard be so powerful?"

Little Kunas smashed the table angrily.

This bastard Link is not only the king of music, he also won the WBA super boxing championship belt not long ago.

His new movie "Captain America" ​​has a global box office of nearly 400 million US dollars. The media said that his salary for this movie exceeded 20 million US dollars, and his company earned nearly 100 million US dollars from the "Bridesmaids" project.

What's even more annoying is that this bastard is still trading in the stock market and is worth more than 3 billion.

Old Tom, who used to be a bit picky about Link, now only hopes that Link and Ivaca will get married soon and have a fat boy.

Shet!

Thinking of this, little Kunas went crazy with jealousy. He looked at Diddy suddenly, "You have been sending women to Link since last year, trying to frame him with this trick. Why haven't you done anything yet?"

"Alas! Little Epstein and I sent him away many times, but to no avail. One is that Link is very wary and will not even look at strange girls, no matter how beautiful they are.

Secondly, there are so many beauties around him that it is difficult to find a good one to send him. The key point is that we found that Link is only interested in female celebrities. The more famous he is, the greater his interest. He has no interest in ordinary beauties. "

Diddy said helplessly.

"Only like famous women? The more famous the better?"

Little Kunas thought of Link's girlfriends, whether they were from Britain, the United States, France, Japan or South Korea, they all seemed to be quite famous actresses.

"Damn, this bastard is too picky."

"That's right. If he is like this, do we need to find a big star to give him to play with? It's not realistic. Link's status in the entertainment industry is too high, and ordinary female stars will not agree to help us frame Link."

Jay-Z sighed.

Little Kunas frowned, "This is indeed difficult, but don't give up too early. Slowly find the right person. If necessary, you can raise the price. Maybe there is a popular actress willing to help us deal with Link."

Jay-Z and Puff Daddy nodded, thinking that this was not bad. Although this matter was difficult, it was better than having no solution.

——

After the release of "Love is gone", Link flew around major cities in the United States in the first week, holding autograph sessions, signing more than 8,000 copies a day.

In the second week, he continued to fly to major cities in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and other places to hold autograph sessions, signing more than 5,000 copies a day, and the scene was still hot.

There is another good news this week.

The digital source of the album was previously leaked by hackers and downloaded 358,000 times for free on the iTunes platform.

With the recent media attacks on hacker organizations, the public is very disgusted and angry with hacker organizations, which has also led to some iTunes users who participated in the free digital album to actively delete the original resources recently and choose to buy them online again.

These people also posted videos of deleting free music sources and repurchasing genuine digital albums online, calling on others to do the same, respect and protect the singer's creations, unite to resist hacker organizations, and never become accomplices of hacker organizations.

This approach has also attracted the support of many fans and praise from many media articles.

According to data from the iTunes Music Store, after the release of the genuine digital album "Love is gone", 28% of users who downloaded free music sources chose to buy it again in the first week, and this proportion increased to 56% this week.

That is to say, among the 358,000 people who downloaded free music sources, nearly 180,000 chose to pay for it.

This is indeed good news.

For this reason, Link and Link Music announced that they would donate another 18 million US dollars to the International Red Cross, Link Charity Foundation, and the American Recording Industry Association's anti-piracy organization.

Originally, the song "see you again" would generate millions of US dollars in charitable donations every year, and now another 10 million has been donated. This move has also attracted praise from fans and the media.

This matter was decided by Link and Evaka. He is young, worth billions, and is a global idol. It is also a good thing for him to have the title of a charity star.

Link spent a busy week, and the sales of the second week were released.

"Love is gone" sold 1.035 million copies in the United States in the second week. This number is 30% lower than the first week, but it is the first personal album in the European and American music scene to sell more than 1 million copies for two consecutive weeks. This is a new record.

The overseas sales performance is also good, 3.857 million copies, a slight increase from last week.

The main reason is that the number of countries and regions released overseas this week has expanded from 48 to 102.

This also includes China. This album sold 516,000 copies in the first week in the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, which is also the English album with the highest first-week sales in the past ten years.

In order to thank the Chinese fans, Link flew to China to hold several autograph sessions.

When promoting the album, he will also take time to participate in the promotion of "Captain America" ​​to promote the album with the movie.

The film was released on July 22. By the end of August, the North American box office reached 241 million US dollars, the global box office reached 210 million, and the global box office successfully exceeded 450 million, surpassing "Thor" and becoming the best-selling film of the same type this year.

With the album selling well and the movie selling well, Link became the most popular public figure in the world entertainment industry.