Really sad.  This actually also happened to Skrillex also.  He had laptop(s) stolen also in Europe and it all started leaking half baked to the world.  

It happens to us all.

We spend $100k+ on an album, work on it for years, and Google gives it away for free on release day.

I'd love to know why you guys think it makes a difference whether the thief steals a laptop as well.

A laptop is a worthless piece of plastic junk. A great album is worth millions.

It's not about the laptop it's about criminals deciding to share your lifes work when they choose rather than when the artist feels comfortable with it. Many artists spend years working on a record and wouldnt be happy if it was shared half baked.

I had an artist who's album was stolen from the studio and leaked online long before being finished. In their situation the leaked material was still very strong but we had to scrable to create additional content for the record and thankfully they were able to sell 98,000 copies first week and the leaked music may have actually built buzz but it was still agaisnt our will.

As for artists backing up data from the road, that's not always possible when you're living on a bus and rarely get proper internet access.  

What do you prefer?

1) To have your half baked album stolen when you have spent 1 year and $50,000 on it, or

2) To have your album stolen by Google/Pirate Bay on release day when you have spent 2 years and $100,00 on it?

Decisions, decisions...

As a touring artist: I know there's a reason why you see producers/artists not backing stuff up. First, *nothing* (and I mean nothing!) is secure with the internet so backups unless under total lock and key in some secure location only increase the chances of a theft.  How do you do that on tour, I don't know.

Sell more T-Shirts!

don't forget mesh hats

Perhaps I am missing something... but if this music was so valuable, why was there only a single copy stored on a laptop harddrive? I have no doubt his music was worth the world to him, and had the music been returned he woud have given out the $1 million reward. But only having a single copy was a bad decision. Plain and simple. The chances of theft or HD failure are just too high. Copies should be made of content to physical media (DVD/CD/tape) on a regular basis and stored in a safe location not in your home. In addition and if possible financially, having it stored on a remote backup service or even renting a server with RAID 5 would be benefical too. It would be more easily accessible than the physical backup.

Laptop hard drives are just too easy to compromise. In fact I wouldn't even store a single copy on the laptop unless it was strongly encrypted. I would access it on a remote server or service.

Very little of this is practical. I really don't know how you justify your condescention. Any physical backup would've been stolen along with the laptop (who's going to travel with a tape drive, anyhow?), and it's not always practical or secure to backup remotely over a shared hotel internet connection, nevermind working exclusively off of sessions stored remotely.

At some point you need to back your stuff up somewhere, but to suggest that no copy should be stored on a laptop is just... well I guess it goes without saying that you're not a travelling producer. Your suggestions just aren't practical.

He certainly shouldn't owe anyone anything for stolen property, especially damaged/destroyed stolen property, though. That's for sure. Here's hoping he gets $1m worth of news coverage about the ruling.

1.) I sincerely doubt he wrote an entire albums worth of songs in one weekend in a hotel..

2.) There is nothing stopping someone from making a full backup when ever they are at the office or home.. he might have lost some of his work but not all of it...

3.) its called encryption.. so it very possible to use a remote backup solution and have it be VERY secure..

4.) offering a million dollars without first talking to a lawyer about it? Seriously?

How can we trust this? Technologists are evil people that want to steal all the artists music.

None of this is impractical. Backing up the physical media and moving it offsite, such as a bank box, is the best way to backup something. You don't carry your backups with you. You use the server or backup service. There are plenty of ways to access it securely. VPNs or services over ssh for example. Artists and a lot of people in the content industry refuse to use VPNs. Many are under the impression that it is solely for piracy. That is not true and they should use them. I use one every time I connect to the internet on any public hotspot or public network. Alternatively, you can use the really easy solution and use one of the dozens of backup services that encrypt all your traffic and contents. Maybe use more than one.

Storing things on your laptop hard drive is a huge security risk and always will be. It is extremely easy to get data off of a hard drive. Having physcial access to the location where the data is stored is huge. Windows offers virtually no good ways of securing anything. You can use a third party solution, but most people have no idea how to do this.

When it comes to protecting data, the question often comes up of how much should you spend on protecting your data, in both the form of money and hours spent. The answer always comes back to how much are you willing to afford to lose. If it is your MP3 collection, probably a portable HD is suitable for backup. If it is music you created that is truely invaluable, protecting it should be a top priority.

Creatively speaking, solid state local storage is the best thing that's happened to personal computing in ages. Reducing the friction of computing is a key part of the creative process... I don't know if I'll ever work with large files that aren't stored locally on my laptop ever again. Certainly not in the next few years. It's just not an option, regardless of security.

A lot of what you're suggesting, & I'm commenting because I've used them, just don't make sense on the go... it would cripple the artist creatively.

I'm not making an excuse for him, he could've backed stuff up whenever he was home. But to suggest, "If it was so important, why didn't he have x, y, & z implemented at all times?" Well the creative process has certain demands, too, especially when you're working from different places all over the world.

I guess you could say I have more of a business mindset when it comes to security. I don't take chances. I have hardened my OS. When it comes to backups, I backup my backups. I keep very little on my actual computers and what I do keep is encrypted. Your average thief would have an impossible time stealing data from my laptop if I left it somewhere. A pro might be able to recover my data, but it would be a long and painful process and have little return in the end. If my house burned down I would still have all my data stored safely.

I understand to an extent why a person might not take all the security measures they should to protect their data from a data breach. Most people who think they do take all the measures might only have an antivirus and login password, which is not going to stop anyone for long. I don't even bother with antivirus. But, I do not understand why anyone would not backup their data. It is so easy and affordable to do now days, there is no reason not to do it. Most major operating systems will even do it for you. All you have to do is supply the writeable media.

Well this all explains your Facebook bias.

True enough.

Stop making sense Casey, you are going to attract the hornets.

If the disc won't mount it's probably just a bad header. Some data recovery software should solve the problem. If it's a Mac try DiscWarrior. Good luck! 

I hope this never happens to me.

This article touched my heart.

"Regardless of whatever missteps, this is how it feels to have this happen to you....It's ultimately just a sad story."

I don't see what's so hard to understand there.  All the talk about the value of backing up, or, for that matter, the difficulty of backing up, seems kind of beside the point.  

It sucks to have to say this, but if it were so precious, why was it left in an unattended car ?

Anything of great value that I leave in my car, I would assume is lost !

Hey, hey . . .  I've got that lowdown feeling!

I'm a (very) little known composer, and a few months ago while surfing the internet I happened to find more than four groups and a few soloists performing my music on utube.

Hey, Hey . . .  I'm Blue Really Blue, Oh So Blue!

Not only THAT!!! but they are selling my melodies as ring-tones for only 99 cents!

Three of the groups have my compositions on their C.D.s.

W.T.F. or "Where's The Fairness" in THAT!!!

Disgruntled and disheartened,

Compjoser

No need to be disgruntled.

It's perfectly legal to make cover versions, but if the YouTube uploaders haven't obtained synch licenses as well as mechanicals, then you can just take their videos down, or monetize them and/or sue the uploaders.

Your choice.

While it might not have helped in this situation, a good idea for sending around ANY pre-release tracks is to use tracktrack.it.  It's a simple audio-file sending app that allows you to store/send/watermark tracks.  Many of my clients have dealt with demos leaking, most of the time by some A&R intern at the label or in the artist's manager's office.  At least the watermark lets you know the source of the leak.

And with services like this, there's really no reason for not maintaining off-site backups - just keep your files in a dropbox folder so the backup happens automatically, then connect your tracktrack.it account to dropbox so you have the utmost in security.

good idea and also make backups of your stuff , around 3 or 4.

.......there wouldn'tbe any thievery in this world, would there?