Magna Carta Leaks Early, But Not To All The People It Was Supposed To
Magna Carta Holy Grail? More like Holy Fail. Puns! But really, Jay-Z's new album, released early to Samsung customers who agreed to download an app and give up more information than a Nigerian Prince would think to ask for, apparently glitched.
Many customers — who already agreed to provide Hova with access to their phone's storage, GPS location, and phone call information, in exchange for the early download — complained that technical glitches prevented them from accessing and listening to the album. Magna Carta was supposed to be made exclusively available to them for 72 hours.
Instead, the album not only failed to play for many users, but shockingly also leaked early. It is now streaming across the interwebs four days before its scheduled general release date, and somewhere, Kanye West is quietly, calmly returning a Jay-Z voodoo doll, pockmarked with stab wounds, to a dark drawer in his Paris apartment, as Yeezus blasts through the house on loop.
As part of the promotion, Samsung had purchased the first million copies of the album plus exclusive distribution rights for 72 hours for around $5 million. It is not clear if that purchase will count towards the Nielsen SoundScan calculations.