History Main / ContentLeak

* Several manga in ''Magazine/ShonenJump'', such as ''Manga/{{Major}}'', ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', and ''One Piece'', have been leaked before their release dates in the magazine on file-sharing services and [=YouTube=] slideshows. Some arrests have been made because of these leaks, the most recent of which was in 2010 of a 14-year-old student.

* Music/{{Pendulum}}: The art for "Driver / Nothing For Free" single was posted on VK about a month before it was officially revealed.

'''As a rule on this website, troping actual information from leaks is not allowed until the work officially gets released.'''

This is the dreaded Content Leak. The occurrence when upcoming episodes, images, songs, scripts, seasons, plans, or even general information winds up becoming known despite its intent to be kept secret.

* Many figures from the first wave of the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' ''War for Cybertron: Kingdom'' toyline were leaked early before their proper announcement and release due to people stealing finished toys from the factory line and selling them to toy reviewers.

** ''Leon'', a series of avant-garde {{ambient}} {{industrial}} suites, got into the hands of bootleggers and saw unauthorized distribution while Bowie was trying to get it released. This leak, combined with Creator/AristaRecords' resistance to the hugely uncommercial nature of the material material, motivated Bowie to radically reconfigure ''Leon'' into ''Music/{{Outside}}''.

* Music/DavidBowie's shelved album ''Toy'' was leaked in 2011, ten years after its intended release date; when the album finally got an official release in 2021, it featured a noticeably different tracklist, most prominently removing the early versions of the ''Music/{{Heathen}}'' tracks "Slip Away" (titled "Uncle Floyd" there) and "Afraid" and adding re-recordings of "Can't Help Thinking About Me" and "Karma Man".

* Music/CharliXCX got hit with this ''hard'' in the leadup to her intended third studio album, initially teased in 2015, with its debut single "After the Afterparty" releasing in 2016. However, before an official release date was decided, Charli's Google Drive account was hacked in 2017, spilling out hundreds of demos, release-ready recordings, and other promotional material over the course of the year onto the internet. In a combination with this and [[ExecutiveMeddling label politics]], this version of the album ({{Fan Nickname}}'d ''XCX World'') was sent to DevelopmentHell, and Charli decided to reboot the entire project by 2018, releasing another album in its place in 2019 titled ''Charli''. Charli has since gone on record that [[CreatorBacklash the experience greatly disillusioned her view on the leaked material and that she has no interest in releasing XCX World or other leaked material legitimately anymore]], ironically meaning that [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes the leaks are the only way to listen to them now]].

* A very strange example of this happened when WOUB's Twitter promoted the Creator/PBSKids Family Night on June 25, 2021 that was a marathon of ''Series/DonkeyHodie''. Rather than use a picture from one of the episodes airing that night, [[https://twitter.com/WOUBLAB/status/1408500467953541127?s=20 they used a picture]] from the then-unaired episode "Everything Explorers".

* The existence of a ''Manga/{{Heroman}}'' adaptation was revealed by Creator/StudioWanpack, one of the show's subcontractors for Creator/StudioBONES, almost a year before its official announcement.

* Bootlegs of the ''The Music/{{Eminem}} Show'' were leaked before the album was scheduled to be released. The album was released a week earlier than intended as a result.

** ''Kid A'' was leaked 3 weeks before its original release and available through Napster. This however did not stop the album from reaching number 1 in the United States, UK and some other countries despite the lack of general promotion for the album.
** It happened again with ''Hail to the thief'' where demo versions of the tracks got leaked 10 weeks before the finished version was commercially available.

* ''Pinball/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Stern}}'' was leaked twice prior to its announcement, both officially and unofficially:

* ''Pinball/AvengersInfinityQuest'' was leaked twice in August of 2020 (a month before its official announcement): the theme was [[https://archive.is/YrCNS prematurely revealed]] by the Facebook page Pinball Paparazzi, while prominent podcast host and leaker Kaneda [[http://archive.is/a5Ap8 announced more details later on]] (such as its name and designer).
* ''Pinball/{{Deadpool}}'': [[https://images.pinside.com/6/1a/61ab120add93048c922dd5dec0c94f47d6d08eab/resized/large/61ab120add93048c922dd5dec0c94f47d6d08eab.jpg An early prototype of the playfield]] was leaked in late 2017 [[https://www.facebook.com/pinballpaparazzi/photos/a.512719898881515.1073741826.512719442214894/1080657305421102 on Facebook]].

* The pinball distributor Cointaker [[https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-will-be-the-next-stern-pinball-machine/page/419#post-6486237 released an email]] mentioning an upcoming event where ''Pinball/GodzillaStern'' would be present… before the game was officially announced. (They soon [[https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-will-be-the-next-stern-pinball-machine/page/419#post-6486243 sent out a replacement email]] omitting this detail, but by this point it had already been posted publicly on Pinside.)

* ''Pinball/TheMunsters'' was leaked twice on Pinside before its release: [[https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/munsters-is-coming/page/11#post-4561245 first with various promotional pictures of the Premium and Limited Edition cabinets]], and [[https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/munsters-is-coming/page/40#post-4710128 second]] with pictures of a phone displaying what appears to be a [=PowerPoint=] presentation regarding the Pro model's features.

** The pinball podcast host and leaker Kaneda repeatedly hinted at its existence in the latter half of 2019 before revealing increasingly detailed information. He started with some textual details about the game, along with the schedule for their actual reveal (a teaser video would be posted on December 22nd before the game's full reveal the next day). This was followed by him prematurely posting the game's promo video.[[note]]Notably, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTl85w0uYE0 the leaked video]] features a few noticeable differences from [[https://youtu.be/F2XZFrC0Lq0?t=13 the official version]] - there are several voice clips from [[Series/StrangerThings the original series]] that are absent from the final cut, and the end screen is laid out differently.[[/note]]

** The first time came in late April 2020, when Creator/GeorgeGomez shared a screen capture of several Stern employees having a meeting over Zoom. [[https://twitter.com/__twip__/status/1252722203516383233 Looking closely at the edge of Dwight Sullivan's screen revealed a banner]] that appeared to show the ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' logo. After the game was released, [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ebw2AfYUwAUePa0?format=jpg&name=orig the banner was proven to be real]].
** The second time was right before the proper reveal at the end of May 2020, when podcast host Kaneda posted several details about the game to his Website/{{Facebook}} account. These included [[http://archive.is/McWE3 pictures]] [[http://archive.is/rbtas of the]] [[http://archive.is/aDmMZ playfield]], [[http://archive.is/AgHcl the Limited Edition cabinet]], and [[http://archive.is/LahEm a overhead picture of the same edition's playfield]]. [[http://archive.is/2ANLN He also revealed]] that the game would forgo using the original cartoon's voice actors in favor of [[NotQuiteStarring soundalikes]].

* Stephenie Meyer's ''Literature/MidnightSun'', which was supposed to be ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' [[PerspectiveFlip from Edward's POV]], had several chapters leaked online by one of her beta readers in 2008. She felt so betrayed over the whole thing that she scrapped the whole project and posted the leaked chapters on her own website. However, years later she finished the novel, and it was published in 2020.

'''Not under any circumstances''' [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant to be mistaken for]] PottyFailure.

''As a rule on this website, troping actual information from leaks is '''not''' allowed until the work officially gets released.'' Beware of spoilers.

* ''Franchise/PrettyCure'':

* A very strange example of this happened when WOUB's Twitter promoted the Creator/PBSKids Family Night on June 25, 2021 that was a marathon of ''Series/DonkeyHodie''. Rather than use a picture from one of the episodes airing that night, [[https://twitter.com/WOUBLAB/status/1408500467953541127?s=20 they used a picture]] from the then-unaired episode "Everything Explorers"

** The second time was right before the proper reveal at the end of May 2020, when Kaneda posted several details about the game to his Website/{{Facebook}} account. These included [[http://archive.is/McWE3 pictures]] [[http://archive.is/rbtas of the]] [[http://archive.is/aDmMZ playfield]], [[http://archive.is/AgHcl the Limited Edition cabinet]], and [[http://archive.is/LahEm a overhead picture of the same edition's playfield]]. [[http://archive.is/2ANLN He also revealed]] that the game would forgo using the original cartoon's voice actors in favor of [[NotQuiteStarring soundalikes]].