Music Industry Threatens Prince For Giving Away Free Music
Jul 2nd, 2007 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music 
His royal purple badness, TAFKATAFKAP, aka Prince, is angering the music industry by releasing his latest CD for free with a UK Sunday newspaper.
The Mail on Sunday has revealed that Prince’s 10-track Planet Earth CD will be available with in an upcoming edition of the paper, making it the first place in the world to get the album. Planet Earth will go on sale on July 24.
Prince’s move to distribute his music directly with daily newspaper is a high-profile reflection of a larger trend of artists experimenting with ways to work around the mainstream music industry to get their music to fans.
“The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,” said Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk. “And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday.”
Prince’s later career has been dominated by his desire to have control of his music and identity, leading him to work for years with a symbol instead of his given name, because Warner Brothers controlled the rights to his releases as “Prince.”
“It’s all about giving music for the masses and he believes in spreading the music he produces to as many people as possible,” said Mail on Sunday managing director Stephen Miron. “This is the biggest innovation in newspaper promotions in recent times.”
“It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career,” Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk told a music conference. “It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.
via Synthtopia
“The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,” said Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk.
Who is he kidding? As long as retailers can keep turning a buck on the Prince catalog, they’ll keep selling it. It’s alway been about profit, not artist support.
[…] The Entertainment Retailers Association has gone so far as suggesting that Prince, and others that, like him, experiment with alternate ways of promoting their music, will be banned from the industry.‚ÄúThe Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,‚Äù said Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk recently. ‚ÄúAnd I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday.‚Äù Rate This Post: Bookmarking links: Related Topics: controversy, free music, music industry, prince Related articles: Music Industry Threatens Prince For Giving Away Free Music, Celebrate The Internet Radio Day of Freedom From Phil Collins Day!, 62% Of Music Execs Think Dumping DRM Would Improve Digital Music Sales, Zune Head Calls Jobs’ Challenge To End DRM “Irresponsible”, Free Music Site Spiraling Out Of Control? […]