I hope I speak for a majority of peeps who actually buy albums when I say this:

it really don't matter that much if a album hits the net early and gets downloaded.  If you are going to buy the album, you will buy it regardless.  I have bought at least 100 albums since I got into this internet thing, and I could have just as easily d/l all of them and burned them.  I am in the process of d/l this album, but I will still buy it the day it drops here in the US.  I really don't think the internet hurts sales all that much.  Probably 10-20% at the most.  anyone remember last year the day that the eminem show hit IRC?  I had never seen IRC so busy with peeps d/l it.  Yet he still sold millions of copies.  D/L music is something that can't be stopped, so artists need to stop fucking complaining about it and make music great enough that people want to buy the album.

the albums release in australia was unauthorized and now the bootlegging could very well push the album back...