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November 13, 2007 9:33 AM PST
Prince: The artist who formerly liked the Internet
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He was among the first major recording artists to sell music online. This summer, Prince distributed more than 2 million free copies of his album Planet Earth as part of a newspaper promotion in the United Kingdom. Last year, he was honored with a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for his "visionary use of the Internet to distribute music."
Prince was a pioneer in his efforts to give away music in order to promote concerts and merchandise. Long after he gave online distribution a shot, bands like Radiohead have, as recently as last month, made headlines with a similar plan.
But Prince, one of America's most successful recording artists for three decades, seems to have had a dramatic change of heart. Within the next few days, he is expected to cap an aggressive two-month legal campaign to protect his copyright by suing The Pirate Bay, a popular BitTorrent tracking site best known for helping people find unauthorized copies of music and movies. As reported Friday by CNET News.com, Prince plans to sue The Pirate Bay in three countries for encouraging copyright violations--the United States, France, and Sweden, where the Pirate Bay is based.
In a matter of months, Prince has achieved the unenviable distinction of being the musician with the most combative stance against file-sharing networks since Lars Ulrich, drummer for heavy-metal band Metallica, waved a list of 335,000 Napster screen names outside that company's Silicon Valley office in 2000.
But determining exactly why Prince decided to get tough with Internet piracy isn't easy. A representative for the musician said he wasn't available to discuss his views. In fact, he very rarely gives interviews. But the people helping his case say Prince has to take a stand, as unpopular as it may be.
"Prince is obliged to come up with the plan because no one else has done anything about this blatant piracy," said John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, the antipiracy firm Prince hired to coordinate his copyright fights. "These guys are operating a huge piracy operation, but Prince means business. The Pirate Bay has had the ballpark to themselves for far too long."
Frustrated artists, cranky fans
File sharers who are now cursing Prince should remember that for nearly 10 years he has tried to solve a problem that has stumped the beleaguered record industry: how can you make money from digital music?
Prince was the first major artist to distribute an album exclusively online, though he later decided to release the record on disc. He continued releasing music over the Web after leaving his record label, Warner Bros., in the mid-1990s. It was only last summer, after giving away millions of albums for free, that a spokesman told The New York Times that "Prince's only aim is to get music direct to those that want to hear it."
Some believe Prince was disappointed by his online experiments. Whatever revenue he generated from Web sales doesn't appear to have been enough to prevent him from going to the record labels for help distributing his music on CD. Sony was due to release Planet Earth in the United Kingdom this year but backed out when Prince inked a deal with Britain's Sunday Mail to include a copy of the album with every newspaper circulated on July 15. The promotion also angered the country's music retailers.
Online distribution arrangements developed by other musicians have yielded mixed results as well. Last month, the British band Radiohead told fans to download its album In Rainbows and pay whatever they wanted. ComScore, an Internet tracking service, reported last week that it estimated only 38 percent of those who downloaded paid anything at all. Radiohead's representatives responded on Friday by saying ComScore's data was "wholly inaccurate." Accurate or not, it wasn't the first--and not likely the last--novel music distribution idea that has disappointed.
Perhaps Prince decided the time for experimentation was over. In September, he announced he was planning to sue YouTube, The Pirate Bay, and eBay for allegedly encouraging people to violate copyright. Since then he has sent cease-and-desist orders to YouTube and unauthorized fan sites. Each order requested removal of copyright content he claimed to own.
Other moves by the longtime musician have drawn hostile responses from fans. Critics ripped Prince after his handlers sent a take-down notice to a Pennsylvania woman who had posted a video clip of her baby dancing to a few seconds of the Prince rocker "Let's Go Crazy." The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focusing on civil liberties issues on the Internet, filed a suit on behalf of the woman, alleging that Prince had violated the woman's free speech because her use of his song was protected under fair-use provisions of copyright law.
Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America, said Prince should expect to take some public-relations hits. After all, a headline about him suing the mother alongside a photo of a baby boy bopping to a snippet of Prince's music just isn't going to play well. But Carnes argues this is another example of how file sharers persecute the victim. If Prince is mistakenly chasing mothers and their home movies, Carnes points out, it's likely an unfortunate mistake brought about by his attempts to protect his music from more lethal threats.
A great deal of Prince's material is indeed being exchanged online. A check of The Pirate Bay on Monday turned up links to unauthorized versions of Prince's 1984 hit film Purple Rain, several concert performances, and multiple albums. Prince has to stick to his guns no matter what is written about him, declares Carnes.
"Of course there is a risk to Prince," Carnes said. "Prince is going to be completely destroyed on the Internet by the system that they got in place to dismantle artists who speak up for their rights. Do a Google search on Lars Ulrich. Look at all of the millions of negative things they wrote about him. It's all right. We're used to it."
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he can to make headlines. It's time to get in that little red corvette
& head to the old folks home, sorry Prince your time has come &
gone...
You make the BIG money is selling your brand and not in having the label peddle disks.
Get over it and get you butt back on the road. Didn't Prince have the 1K seat price for small venue concerts?
Shame on him.
his prodigious talents. Being Internet friendly and being a mark
for thieves are not synonymous.
Only someone out of touch would need to ask who Prince is. He
is one of few artists who's careers began in the 1970s who is still
producing excellent new material.
The way you make music, is from your fans. When you tick people off, and have less fans, I expect you should make less money.
I remember the old prince fondly, but I have no plans to purchase anything this guy does ever again...the bitter geezer out there now, is not the Prince I knew as a youth.
Only Prince has the right to give away his music. No one else automatically has this right. Strange how the media is encouraging this behavior. What will happen when people starting pirating your (writers) content?
we shall see.
http://www.gooplesdigiworld.com
Let us now boycott Prince!
You are quickly becoming irrelevant in the music world. The music
industry needs a good wake up call. Most of the garbage you
produce is no more unique than the new house down the street
from me.
the 80s?
New business models are beside the point.
...and there are emerging "societies" that believe in killing to make a point...should they pass laws to enable this as well?
Don't make wild ASSumptions.
I guess the real point here is that the RIAA built and opened their own Pandora's box...I can't wait for the day when everyone buys their music directly from the artists. A guy with a reoutation like Prince should have no problem doing this. Of course once it is digital and on the internet, it's fair game.....
But, I'll give the man credit for his musical achievements back in the 80's, for his pioneering work in providing music via the internet, and for the good he's done the industry as a whole. Perhaps it's time for him to retire on past laurels.
Lars Ulrich said over and over if it hasn't been for the bootlegged tapes and free exchange of Metallicas' music, they wouldn't be the 'mega-band' they are. Then when he/they became famous, the goes after the bootleggers and music exchangers. That is called being hypocritical.
Prince, after passing his music around freely, and encouraging file sharing, now is saying FOUL because that is exactly what is happening, and wants to take his ball and go home. Also, the video clip of the dancing baby... if it hadn't been for the article saying what song it was, I wouldn't have known.
No amount of walking around in assless pants will save him then.
- Diminishing Returns
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by DAL
November 13, 2007 9:27 PM PST
- I propose to all artists and record companies that you price all items on a diminishing scale. Today, I'll pay 99 cents for a song I really like - sans DRM.
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See all 54 Comments >>Twenty-five years from now, that song should only cost me about three cents.
Isn't there a "public domain" document agreement that after 25 years, any music can be used for any purpose without compensation? I might be wrong about that. Am I way off?
Either way, Prince is not befriending many with this action. I agree he can stand up for his rights as much as he wants. He is entitled to whatever he has created and should be compensated fairly. But if Pirate Bay goes down, something else will rise up and take its place.
Whether or not Lars Ulrich made any friends with his retaliatory stance, everyone remembers what he did. He stood up for his rights as an artist.
Admirable...if not questionable.
Tally HO!