CYBER-SLEUTHING

As if unauthorized downloading of music weren’t enough for record companies to worry about, another Internet problem has popped up. More and more pre-release copies of albums--advances sent to reviewers and radio programmers--are being sold in online auctions weeks and even months before the albums are available in stores.

The folks at Capricorn Records got creative after discovering that a copy of 311’s “Soundsystem,” which officially goes on sale Oct. 12, was being auctioned via EBay--despite the fact that they’d numbered and registered all copies that were sent out as a security precaution.

But rather than simply have EBay shut down the sale, company executives decided to play along and try to track the auctioneer.

So Capricorn executive Philip Walden Jr. made a bid on the disc under an assumed identity. Then company president Mike Bone upped the bidding, all the way to $105, also under an alias. The seller chided Bone that he should only bid that much if he was serious. Bone convinced the seller he was a rabid 311 fan and that he was ready to send a check right away. All he needed was the address. The guy gave it to him--and it turned out to be just outside Atlanta, where Capricorn is based.

A knock on that door from a Capricorn delegation is expected any day now.