So... Andrew and I have been working on this particular album for a while now. We are co-producing, it's a pretty large budget for around these parts, and the client has big plans for this album once it's completed. The client in this case lives far away for I've been sending private links from our server so that they can listen to the songs as they go. We've completely re-arranged the songs in some cases so getting the clients approval was always important at every new milestone.
Knowing the client fairly well, I cautioned the client to not start sharing their excitement of these rough mixes with their friends as they were only for evaluation purposes and we wanted to keep a lid on this until it was all mastered and packaged.
Andrew leaves for Australia so the project goes on hold until he returns.
Last night I'm just checking my news-feed on FB, and something catches my eye. It's a URL that links directly to the private client directory of a client. I look and see that the poster is one of the clients good friends. Sure enough this friend thought it best to start sharing their excitement about the songs with FB. I send him a message on FB, text the client and call our IT guy (Sub) to delete that folder pronto.
The client had no idea their friend would do this and was obviously upset but my point was that it was the clients responsibility to make sure this didn't happen. I certainly don't share their work with my friends for the same reason: It's way too easy to copy links and files these days and people don't even think anything of it anymore.
When this friend realizes that the client and I are pissed, this friend will likely wonder "What's the big deal?" I know the friend meant no harm but when a client spends well into the 5 figures on an album and the production team spends 120+ hours on it... We'd like to at least get a chance to finish it before people start hearing it.