Piracy as Pay?

So I've been listening to my friend's collection of songs from Rihanna's latest album, Rated R. I describe it that way because it seems like less of a CD and more like a collection of randomly acquired songs downloaded to the same iPod. What tipped me off was the fact that the songs are out of order and there's a mix of tracks with either explicit lyrics or censored lyrics, which wouldn't be found on the same album.

I'll give my friend the benefit of the doubt and assume she bought the songs off iTunes and simply didn't pay attention to which album she was downloading each song from (assuming both a clean and raunchy version were available at the time). At any rate, in order to get the fully intended listening experience I had to do a little research to find the correct track order and organize the Rated R "collection" accordingly.

During my research, I learned that my personal favorite "Rude Boy" had been slated as the next single to be released from the album. Interestingly, it will replace "Wait Your Turn" as the third released single, making this the second time that "Wait Your Turn" was pushed back. ("Hard" usurped it the first time, becoming the 2nd single to be released after "Russian Roulette.")

With my previous raving about "Rude Boy," it's probably no surprise that I fully support this move on the part of the record label. And apparently I'm not alone. When not listening to my friend's iPod, I tune in to the RihannaRatedR YouTube channel, where I've noticed that this song has been getting the most views (over 1.5 million as of Jan. 24 PST). "Wait Your Turn" has a much lower number (just under 600,000). This could be because there's already a video for the latter song and people are watching the video instead. However, "Wait Your Turn" is also ranked lower than "Rude Boy" when you sort by popularity in iTunes. Is this why it keeps getting pushed back? "Stupid in Love" is looking pretty popular right now too. Is it next in line?

Maybe I'm late to the party in figuring this out, but are the record labels monitoring sites like YouTube and iTunes to make their decisions on which singles to release, based on information the public is giving away for free? If so, then I guess I can't blame them for using whatever tactic they can to get an edge in the sinking ship that is the music industry. Still, when people volunteer their preferences like this, it saves the record labels from spending money on focus groups, market researchers, and other "suits" whose salaries would lower their profit margins, which seems a little like cheating to me.

So if my friend did "acquire" the tracks through unsavory means, should she be faulted for pirating their music? I, of course, would NEVER condone such a thing! Still, if people are essentially working for free to fatten the pockets of record executives and recording artists, shouldn't they get something in return besides an overpriced CD or an ephemeral download from iTunes? Just saying....