UK Newspapers Point Out That Prince's Anti-Internet Crusade Makes No Sense

from the logic-is-not-allowed-in-prince-world dept

Tue, Jul 13th 2010 9:18pm — Mike Masnick

We've already discussed Prince's bizarre anti-internet stance, and it seems that it's left an awful lot of people scratching their heads. As his latest album was released only via the UK newspaper, The Mirror, this past Saturday, the UK press is pointing out how this plan will backfire. Now, some will immediately dismiss these articles as complaints from competing newspapers who were not the go to offering for the latest Prince album. But their arguments do make sense. The Telegraph points out that, this anti-internet crusade seems like a huge commercial blunder, as most people will end up getting the album in ways that don't benefit Prince directly, even though he easily could have set things up to gain some of the benefit. The Guardian is running a similar article, pointing out that it seems odd that Prince -- who comes off as very much "anti-" the traditional music business seems to be going even deeper into traditional views of the recording industry: such as signing with Universal music and then shunning his fans online. Even if you don't believe that there are reasonable internet-based business models online, it's hard to see how pretending the internet doesn't exist at all is going to help you.

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Filed Under: business models, internet, music, prince

25 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2010 @ 9:34pm

INTERNET OVER!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2010 @ 10:14pm

Internet? What internet? :P
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AdamR (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 10:27pm

In Prince World there is no Internet! Only Prince and those he lets live in it!
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Jay (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 11:44pm

Something's not right...

He owes the Irish 3 mil and the county $300,000...

Arrogance is great, but it will leave you on a street corner if you decide to just ignore your responsibilities.

Why he would stop trying to find ways to make money is just an odd choice. Especially with all of the things he can do. Let's just pray he can make this work out for him.
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Allen (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 11:54pm

This is news?
Prince behaving irrationally? How could we have seen that coming?
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Allen (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 11:54pm

This is news?
Prince behaving irrationally? How could we have seen that coming?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 12:10am

Call me Ishmael,

If Cpt. Ahab there want to do that people onboard should let him, other from outside can only pray for the poor bastard.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 1:09am

His album will be on bittorrent whether he wants it to be or not, only he can decide if he wants to make money off iTunes and other internet mediums. He makes no sense.
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Mr Big Content, 14 Jul 2010 @ 1:14am

Prince Is A Genius
Give it a few years and all will become clear, once all this Internet thing has blown over.
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Griff, 14 Jul 2010 @ 1:44am

Obvious gag...
Tonight we're going to market like it's 1999...
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Richard (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 2:56am

Re: Obvious gag...
1899
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 3:20am

All your internets are be over!
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ftfy, 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:30am

Re: Prince Is A Genius
Give it a few years and all will become clear, once all this Internet thing has been censored.
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Simon, 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:48am

It seems to me that Prince has decided to take the easy route of selling his album for the advance that The Mirror is willing to pay him, and forgo any possible subsequent royalties from sales. Basically he sold the scarcity (the album that isn't out there yet) at a price that is acceptable to him and now doesn't need to worry about deals with distributors, illicit downloads etc. If he's happy with the amount they are willing to pay, then this actually makes a lot of sense.

All the pontificating about Internet being dead etc is simply marketing for the fact The Mirror will be giving away the CD.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 5:00am

Re:
"If Cpt. Ahab there want to do that people onboard should let him"

But if you remember, Ishmael was the only person on board that survived.
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Bapzzy (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 5:45am

Prince = MJ
Am I right?

Prince doesn't like elephants and monkeys though.
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out_of_the_blue, 14 Jul 2010 @ 6:25am

Maybe money isn't his only interest.
Though it's the only possible reason some can imagine: "a huge commercial blunder", and "Why he would stop trying to find ways to make money".

Maybe he *has* more money than he can spend, and just doesn't care. That's rare for anyone Rich, especially with the hangers-on of a popular musician, but it's possible.

OR, he knows that he's lost his *edge*, and doesn't want a "commercial" *flop* for material that's actually *okay*, just not great. That plus the above mentioned ease of making the deal: he chose a modest success over a flop.

And probably there's nothing much to the "internet is dead".
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Niall (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 6:42am

Re: Re: Obvious gag...
To be fair, more like 1989 - CDs but no 'internet'.
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Technopolitical (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 6:59am

We've already discussed Prince's bizarre anti-internet stance,
Mike , your stance is the bizarre one. Price is asserting his LEGAL powers of ARTIST CONTROL under copyright laws.

If you do not like , tough.
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Pixelation, 14 Jul 2010 @ 7:46am

Re: We've already discussed Prince's bizarre anti-internet stance,
I think Mike wasn't speaking about the legality of Prince's actions, just about Prince's sanity.
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Avatar28 (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 7:48am

Re: We've already discussed Prince's bizarre anti-internet stance,
Mike's not disputing Prince's right to distribute the album how he wants. Just pointing out that doing it that way and then claiming the Internet is dead and over makes no sense. More specifically he is pointing out that UK Newspapers are pointing out that it makes no sense.
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Grey Ferret, 14 Jul 2010 @ 8:48am

And yet we're still talking about it...
Seems his "Internet is dead" statement has generated quite a buzz. We're still talking about it now right? How much attention would this new album have gotten if he'd done something "normal"?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 12:56pm

As expected, the album is already available on torrent sites and, also as expect, no one really cares (it's not a very "popular" download).
Hey Prince! Newsflash for ya. It's not the internet that's dead, it's your career.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 2:31pm

Re:
Just glad we don't have to live in Prince's world.
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ben, 8 Aug 2011 @ 1:26am

the internet is a cesspool.
try and deny it.
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