The album – U2’s 12th – goes on sale on March 3 but it was available to download for a brief period this week on getmusic.com.au, run by Universal Music Australia.

The U2 fan blog, U2log.com, published a screenshot showing it had bought the album for $19.80.

Now, No Line On The Horizon is widely available on BitTorrent and other file sharing websites.

Universal Music Australia did not respond to calls asking how the track went up for sale early.

It is not clear if the leak to illegal download sites was a result of this error, however, it is the likely explanation as U2 has kept the album under wraps and reportedly sent no preview copies to the press, instead organising private hearings.

Scores of fans – both in Australia and overseas – have posted on unofficial U2 message boards saying they bought the album from getmusic.com.au during the period it was available.

And from there, the MP3s did flow. Anyway, condolences in advance (or not, since it’s already Friday night Down Under) to the person who is probably getting fired over this glitch. And those of you who don’t want to engage in shady downloading might be happy to know that the album is streaming from U2’s MySpace page, although it’s not immediately apparent (you have to click on the No Line album cover on the left-hand side of the player to get to its 12 tracks).

Look Who Leaked U2’s New Album [Sydney Morning Herald]
U2 [MySpace]

When Chairlift–better known as “oh, another act that’s trying to ride the iPod ad train?”–is one of the “bigger” indie acts touted in a press release announcing a contract-signing, the breakthrough quotient of said deal might be called into question. Indeed, the signing of IODA seems to be more about quantity than quality.

On Thursday, however, MySpace unveiled a deal that should begin to quiet the critics. The News Corp. division announced it had licensed over one million tracks from IODA, a San Francisco-based digital distributor of independent music. IODA’s artist roster includes indie faves such as Paw Tracks’s Animal Collective and Kanine Records’ Chairlift.

“The independent music community has been a cornerstone of MySpace Music,” said Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of MySpace in a statement. We’re thrilled to welcome IODA and its more than 50,000 artists to MySpace Music.”

MySpace’s critics said the social network was now turning its backs on the same artists who had been instrumental in its growth.

Frank Hajdu, executive director of MySpace Music, says nothing could be further from the truth. “There has been a lot of public misconception about MySpace and its involvement with the independents with the launch,” he said. “We’ve always been committed to the independents from the outset.”

He declined to discuss the terms of the IODA deal. Kevin Arnold, CEO of IODA, was more forthcoming. He said it had taken a while for IODA to strike a deal with MySpace because the social network had initially offered no guarantees, only a share of the music service’s ad revenues.

IODA won’t get equity in MySpace Music. But Arnold said MySpace had sweetened its offer in recent weeks. “We made significant improvements over the previous proposal,” he said. “There are a number of things that are important to us-some guarantees and assurances that there will be revenue for streaming our music.”

IODA does have some important imprints in its catalog (Arts & Crafts, Fat Cat, Relapse, Rounder), but for each of those labels, there’s Kanine Records (home of Chairlift), Rave Police Records, and Geykido Comet Records. MySpace announced they were still in negotiations with Merlin–which is possibly the biggest fish in the indie pond (it has distributors like Domino, Koch and Beggars under their umbrella) and one of the most outspoken opponents to the existing payment structure for indies.

The question unlikely to be answered by the people at IODA is: Why sign on with Myspace Music? The deals being signed are unlikely to adquately serve as payback for the eyeballs indie labels have brought to MySpace in the past and (likely) the future, especially since the majors are getting partial ownership in the venture while indies are left to fight over the scraps. Are smaller labels just making sure they get something from the site, even if said wrangling results in setting a bad precedent for their music’s value?

After uproar, MySpace signs indie music deal [CNN Money]
IODA Partners with MySpace Music [Marketwatch]

“music”: The No. 1 result in 2001 was music.com, the flagship site of “the music.com network.” (That domain name now houses some sort of “work in progress” music-video repository that takes way too long to load.) No. 2? This repository of music sites that is still functioning as a Web site, if a little stale-seeming. Whatever, I’ll add it to my bookmarks!

Other sites of note that were near the top of the “music” search results:
• MTV.com;
• All Music Guide;
• The Internet Underground Music Archive, or IUMA (hey, whatever happened to those people who named their kids after the indie-label music repository for $5,000–a promotion that took place only five months before the site shut down for good?);
• the late online CD store CDNow; and
• Madonna’s official site, where you could stream the “Don’t Tell Me” video at speeds optimized for either a 56k modem or a T1 line

NB: The No. 1 result for “music” now is the aggregator-of-aggregates music site operated by Yahoo! Music.com is No. 2, even though today is the first day that I’d ever heard of it. (Never underestimate the power of the five-letter domain name.)

Napster: Had stopped functioning in its old-school form by this point; a snapshot of the site from sometime in 2001 was apparently taken exactly when the company was in transition:

As you know, file sharing at Napster has been suspended for several months. During that time, we’ve been blown away by the number of Napster users who’ve continued to download the software and use it to organize and play their music. These dedicated users keep us inspired as we work on our new membership service. We’re in the home stretch, with all of our critical technology complete and in testing.

We’re also working hard to resolve our legal issues. We’re moving toward a settlement with the major labels that we feel will work for rights holders and allow us to bring you the music you want. The music and the technology are coming together for launch. We can’t wait to share it all with you.

Well, we all know how that worked out.

Audiogalaxy: Didn’t allow the contents of its now-long-dormant site to be indexed, but, guys, remember Audiogalaxy? That was how I got the whole Scritti Politti discography before the reissues came out, as well as… so much other stuff. Sigh.

MySpace: Was “a service owned by YourZ.com, Inc.” that apparently specialized in third-party file hosting.

Chinese Democracy: Most of the search results are actually about democracy in China, which is like, bo-ring! Although a few search results in, there’s a page–unarchived by the Wayback Machine and on a now-defunct server, alas–that has this little snippet:

According to GNR´s Manager Doug Goldstein Chinese Democracy is 99% musically
done and 80% … The official release date of Chinese Democracy is June 2001

Or was. Ahem.

2001 Search [Google]

1. Pink, “So What”
Streamable from Pink’s MySpace page; not available for purchase via MySpace Music widget, despite presence on Amazon.

2. Kanye West, “Love Lockdown”
First 1:30 streamable from West’s MySpace page; not available for purchase via MySpace Music widget, despite presence on Amazon.

3. T.I., “Whatever You Like”
Streamable from T.I.’s MySpace page; not available for purchase via widget, despite presence on Amazon.

4. Taylor Swift, “Love Story”
Seems to be bypassing MySpace Music’s official player/commerce widget, opting instead to pre-sell her forthcoming album on MySpace (with the option to buy a $75 box set!) and give people the download for “Love Story” instantly.

5. Rihanna, “Disturbia”
Streamable from Rihanna’s site; official version available for purchase if the user uses the album pull-down menu and selects Good Girl Gone Bad.

6. M.I.A., “Paper Planes”
Streamable from M.I.A.’s MySpace page; official version available for purchase if the user uses the album pull-down menu and selects either Kala or the “Planes” remix EP.

7. Katy Perry, “Hot N Cold”
Streamable from Perry’s MySpace page; not available for purchase via widget, despite presence on Amazon. (On the bright side, the awfulness of having to visit Perry’s page was mitigated slightly by a pop-up ad for Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. Teach the children, Ted!)

8. Jason Mraz, “I’m Yours”
Streamable from Mraz’s MySpace page; official version available for purchase if the user uses the album pull-down menu and selects the right version of the “I’m Yours” digital single.

9. Estelle feat. Kanye West, “American Boy”
Streamable from Estelle’s MySpace page; not available for purchase via widget, despite presence on Amazon. (It would appear that the Estelle insta-tribute band the Studio All-Stars don’t have a MySpace page.)

10. David Archuleta, “Crush”
Streamable from Archuleta’s MySpace page; available for purchase if you select “Crush” from the pull-down menu in the widget.

So, out of the ten most saleable songs in the U.S. right now, MySpace Music is letting its users purchase four of them–and all four have to be navigated to, instead of them being presented to the user straight off. Can someone tell me why Tom & Co. felt like they had to launch this thing today, before it was ready for prime-time at all? I know that the site’s supposed to be “iterative,” but not having six of the top ten singles for purchase on what is being pitched as a track-by-track marketplace is not unlike trying to open an outlet of The Gap that’s missing jeans.

Earlier: MySpace Music Gets Ready For A Big Amazon Affiliate Check