If you wanted to hear Lady Gaga’s new album, Joanne, last week, you had three choices: 1) Work for Lady Gaga, 2) Be Lady Gaga, or 3) Own an Amazon Echo and live in the United States.
That’s right, it seems that Alexa neglected to sign a non-disclosure agreement when 30-second clips of various songs from the album were hidden away on Amazon’s servers. You could get around the embargo by saying “Alexa, play Joanne by Lady Gaga”.
According to the BBC, leaked songs included a duet with Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine (“Hey Girl” – featuring “a stomping, staccato piano line reminiscent of Elton Johns’s Benny and the Jets”) and “Just Another Day” – a ballad believed to be about her breakup with fiance Taylor Kinney.
The exploit was only ever accessible within the United States, and has since been closed by Amazon, but not before extracts of the song were shared around the internet by fans eager to hear Gaga’s latest ahead of its 21 October release date. Let this be a lesson to other musicians in future: it isn’t enough just to hide your content from search engines now – you’ve got to look out for the tricky virtual assistants.
Images: Philip Nelson and tamtam7683 used under Creative Commons
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