Lady Gaga Releases ‘Applause’ One Week Early After Leaks, Anti-Piracy Campaign

Katy Perry wasn’t the only pop star to have her upcoming single leak this weekend. Several snippets of Lady Gaga‘s new song “Applause,” set to be released Aug. 19, also showed up online.

Gaga ranted about the leak on Twitter, but her fans responded by reporting links to streams and illegal downloads, a fairly unusual reaction.

Shortly after the leaks began, Gaga tweeted, “Lord, in HEAVEN WHY” and “YOU JUST COULDNT WAIT THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR ONE SATURDAY”

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Gaga later wrote, “Don’t worry. THE HAUS BUREAU is on the case.-TechHaus” indicating that her team was getting to work removing the leaked track.

Thousands of fans also condemned the leak and started providing links to a portal set up by Gaga’s label, Universal Music, where people can report sites hosting a leaked track, TorrentFreak reports.

Gaga even retweeted one of her fans’ anti-piracy tweets:

@ladygaga @DJWS Report all the #APPLAUSE leaks to this website: http://t.co/bsLTcaf765 please and thank you #TrueMonster #MonstersUnite

— KiKi (@Gaganoosh) August 11, 2013

Other fans bragged about reporting links to Universal, with one claiming to have reported more than 500 links to the label.

TorrentFreak does note that many of Gaga’s fans probably listened to the few seconds of her new single before reporting the link, but a leak like this one really just generates interest in hearing the whole track.

Despite this fervent anti-piracy campaign, Gaga later announced on Twitter that the single would be released Monday, due to numerous leaks. Listen to the track below.

DUE TO HACKERS AN ABUNDANCE OF LOW/HIGH QUALITY LEAKS…WE ISSUE THIS POP MUSIC EMERGENCY…MONSTERS SPREAD THE WORD

— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 12, 2013

MY NEW SINGLE ‘APPLAUSE’ IS OUT TODAY AND CAN BE HEARD ON UNITED STATES RADIO IN 15 MINUTES. INTERNATIONAL RADIO TO FOLLOW.

— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 12, 2013