When is a leak not a bad thing?

Curious: while in the UK, a bloke's just been arrested for selling promos on eBay, and in the US Universal has dragged someone to court for the same reason, Pat Monaco, executive Vice President of Sales at the Universal Monaco has been suggesting that the leak of Lil Wayne's album onto the net was a positive boon to sales:

"The accounts were bullish by 10 in the morning," reports Pat Monaco, exec VP of sales for the Universal Motown Republic Group. "The sales the first few hours were exceeding the rate that the Kanye album sold a year ago." (That one ended up selling 957,000 the first week; nothing has come close since.) "Wayne was one of these records that, because it was so highly anticipated, with the leaks and everything, it caused more people to go out at 8 in the morning to buy the CD."

Even more curious: both Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider blog and Undercover music news were carrying this quote earlier in the day, but it's disappeared from both.

[Thanks to Joe for the story tip]