It looks like Sony and Columbia’s worst nightmares have come true: Daft Punk’s latest album, Random Access Memories, has just been leaked online and is now available for illegal download and torrenting. Despite the anticipated online stream of the album which was rumored and speculated for happening today, it looks like the leak of Random Access Memories beat the record companies before they could make it happen. Daft Punk’s leaked album has already taken the internet by storm, and the website HasItLeaked.com’s section for Random Access Memories has all but come to a standstill as their servers are, more likely than not, flooded with a ridiculous amount of web traffic from people searching for the leaked album.

With that said, this new leak will most likely push iTunes to forge ahead with the scheduled free streaming of the entire album. The website was slated (well, more like rumored) to have planned a live streaming of Random Access Memories in its entirety, as well as providing opportunities to continuously listen to the album in loop for fans online. The leak has all but assured that the stream will happen considering most free streams occur to offset poor-quality copies of the music circulating online.

Despite the enticing availability for illegal download, a surprising number of Daft Punk fans are remaining incredibly loyal to the band and are refusing to listen to the new album out of solidarity with the french duo. Many are actually advocating that everybody should just wait for the songs to be available on streaming via iTunes, or wait for the actual album to drop on May 21st. With that said, several fans are using the logic that since they already pre-purchased the album on iTunes, downloading a copy now wouldn’t be robbing the band of any money.

Any who, the album is out there on the internet, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before every website and torrent download hub has a copy of it for illegal distribution.