R+B star USHER's new album was illegally downloaded more than half a million times before its release this week (26May08) - costing the star a fortune in royalties, the CM reported.
Here I Stand appeared online in its entirety a week before it was officially launched, and internet programs managed to track the number of times it was downloaded, reports CMU Music.
The album and individual leaked tracks were downloaded a total of 554,716 times via BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing application, alone.