Prince's argument is far from new for anyone following the news occasionally, lol. Point is, different distribution models work for different artists. He's in a position to command a premium, others aren't. Everybody is going to start charging. Hulu, I think already? The NYT come 2011, etc. We'll see how consumers respond. One of the mainstream British newspapers started requiring readers to simply register for free to view news and they witnessed a 50% drop in online readership LOL. So, yeah, we'll see how all this will play out.
Prince: The Internet is dead
- Thread starter Jokerman
- Start date
I didn't read the whole thread so someone might have said this already. I just wanted to point out that Prince was one of the first artists to largely utilize the internet and what it has to offer. Also, he's usually been ahead of the curve when it comes to trends and what's new etc...So his comment is kind of a wtf moment but you never know
Obviously. But he's been a professional recording artist since 1977 who is one of the biggest selling artists of all time. Clearly - if there are different means of distributing your music where the end result is that the consumer gets it for free - you're going to choose the one that's gonna pay you the most. Most people don't have that option - but there's an unlimited amount of options to explore these days. Everybody has the ability to be creative. No major artist had done a deal like Prince in 2004, giving away his Musicology album to people who attended the Musicology Tour, which was the highest grossing tour of ANY artist that year.
No major artist had done a deal like the deal in 2007 when he gave his album "Planet Earth" away with the Daily Mail newspaper in England, in tandem with giving the album away with every ticket sold during his 21 nights sold out at the O2, a 25k capacity venue. So the Daily Mail has a circulation of about 2.5 million readers who also know he's doing a tour and get the album for free. 25k people x 21 nights of shows = That's an extra 525,000 people who have the album.
This time around he's done deals with magazines in different countries - UK, France, Belgium, Germany. Big newspapers and magazines like Rolling Stone. And he's playing shows as well so the concert goers get the album too.
He's been original and creative with his methods. So has Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails who alongside Prince has been the most successful with different distribution models - the NIN album "Ghosts I-IV" was a great example of variable pricing...this is from Wikipedia, because I couldn't be bothered to retype it lol
The $300 Ultra Deluxe set, limited to 2500 copies, sold out in 3 days. The shipping was something like 6-8 weeks for these editions, so they weren't even manufactured until all the money had been collected. So Trent made $750k in advance for a product that didn't even exist yet. That's incredible. Again, he's a major artist who's in a position to do that, but my point is that every artists, no matter the stature has the ability to be creative in order to monetize their art. If you're lazy and don't bother, you're only hurting your own bank balance.
Oh Carmi, for the record you have no idea what you are talking about. Prince never shut down any fan site. The site that shut down was Housequake. The owner shut it down voluntarily. Sure, Prince was being difficult with them, but it was still THEIR decision. Plus, some of the guys that were admins and mods there restarted a new site now - MoQuake which is a continuation of the vibe and community that existed on the previous site. So it's a complete misrepresentation of the truth to say that he shut down the site.
No major artist had done a deal like the deal in 2007 when he gave his album "Planet Earth" away with the Daily Mail newspaper in England, in tandem with giving the album away with every ticket sold during his 21 nights sold out at the O2, a 25k capacity venue. So the Daily Mail has a circulation of about 2.5 million readers who also know he's doing a tour and get the album for free. 25k people x 21 nights of shows = That's an extra 525,000 people who have the album.
This time around he's done deals with magazines in different countries - UK, France, Belgium, Germany. Big newspapers and magazines like Rolling Stone. And he's playing shows as well so the concert goers get the album too.
He's been original and creative with his methods. So has Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails who alongside Prince has been the most successful with different distribution models - the NIN album "Ghosts I-IV" was a great example of variable pricing...this is from Wikipedia, because I couldn't be bothered to retype it lol
The $300 Ultra Deluxe set, limited to 2500 copies, sold out in 3 days. The shipping was something like 6-8 weeks for these editions, so they weren't even manufactured until all the money had been collected. So Trent made $750k in advance for a product that didn't even exist yet. That's incredible. Again, he's a major artist who's in a position to do that, but my point is that every artists, no matter the stature has the ability to be creative in order to monetize their art. If you're lazy and don't bother, you're only hurting your own bank balance.
Oh Carmi, for the record you have no idea what you are talking about. Prince never shut down any fan site. The site that shut down was Housequake. The owner shut it down voluntarily. Sure, Prince was being difficult with them, but it was still THEIR decision. Plus, some of the guys that were admins and mods there restarted a new site now - MoQuake which is a continuation of the vibe and community that existed on the previous site. So it's a complete misrepresentation of the truth to say that he shut down the site.
^^ Which is all well and good for PRINCE. So he should have said "for me, internet distribution is dead."
To paint everyone and the whole internet with the same brush stroke, is, quite frankly, arrogant.
But it's Prince, and if anyone has a right to be arrogant, it's him
.
To paint everyone and the whole internet with the same brush stroke, is, quite frankly, arrogant.
But it's Prince, and if anyone has a right to be arrogant, it's him
.
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