Hi,

I was wondering, how is it possible that Prince is posting old tracks from the WB period on the NPGMC while he does not own the masters.
Did he make some kind of agreement with WB to use these tracks. This could mean that their relationship isn't so bad as it is thought to be.

Also, Prince has been posting quite a lot of extended versions from the WB era the last year. This means that he in some way has mastered this music digitally. Once you start doing this, these masters can also be used for higher quality use like a cd-reissue. Is this an indication that a cd-reissue of the remixes is being prepared by WB or Prince?

What is your opinion?

jazzz

Edit september 2006: I wasn't that far away! 'Ultimate' contains some remixes that were probably remasterd at that time!!
[Edited 9/7/06 14:29pm]

some of the old 12" tracks that got dug up on NPGMC in the past didn't sound like super gret quality to me - they kinda sounded like some of the bootleg collections of 12" singles that i've heard in the past, which don't sound horrible, but they don't sound professionally remastered to me either.

Ok, you are making a point about the quality. But remember that these tracks where given to us as low-fi mp3's, mono. The source for these mp3's was probably of a much better quality. I can't hear no vinyl clicks or so, which indicates that some sort of master tape was used or maybe even the multitrack tapes. Does Prince own the multitrack material?

But still, what sort of legal construction does NPGMC use to play these audio and video tracks. Some legal expert out there?

jazzz.
[Edited 10/5/05 9:08am]

Well, Prince has SOME rights over his music. Not a lot...but some. I think a for instance would be if someone wanted to do a cover of his...they could ask HIM and he could allow them to go ahead.

I am only guessing here...but artists do have some rights over their work. They can certainly stop someone from using thier music.

And I doubt WB would sue Prince over using his music on his website.

i think prince can do just about whatever he wants with his recordings, but so can warner bros. the only things prince can't do (and i'm speaking from a very naive place here) would be things that would hinder WB's ability to profit from the recordings...whatever those things would be. am i warm?

Anxiety said:

I think it's along those lines. Like he can't sell the recordings...but he can play them. I think he chooses not to tout his stuff cuz he gets very little of the money from sales that really line the coffer of WB.

The quality is low and the songs aren't up for download (despite how easy it is to work around). If newpowerradio can play classic Prince why not npgmc?

I see it like this, some Prince trax were just played on the radio!!! OMG did radio make an agreement with Prince or WB to play the trax???

NPGMC are not making the trax commercially available.

It's as simple as this: he's not allowed to put a direct download link to the songs other than just a streaming link... (but then again it's easy to DL a streaming file to your HD; but the point is that his website presents them as streaming files so they're doing nothing wrong, it's just a really childish rule...)

Neversin.

Universaluv said:

good point. sonic youth's official site offers fans a "mixtape" every month, which is a streaming mix of about 45 minutes of music by sonic youth and whatever else the band wants fans to hear. of course, NPGMC did something similar in one of its previous incarnations with its 'ahdio' mixes...i think they should bring that back for the glam slam weekend mixes, even if they only did one a month and gave us the same ol' same ol' all the other weekends of the month.

Anxiety said:

waaaaait a minute...so THAT'S what they're doing with them bootleggs they collected in that whole "ways of the pharaoh" thing!

Warners own the masters, which really means they own the rights to sell the songs from original recordings of those songs. Whether they own the actual physical multi-track tapes of those recordings I don't know; or whether they just own some compressed master; or whether Prince and WB own copies each; or perhaps Prince has the original multi-track tapes and that's why we haven't seen WBs re-master them - because Prince refuses to hand those original tapes over for them to make more money off him.

Prince still gets royalties from the music, and he can perform those songs, but he can't sell them directly without permission I guess - yet, if he re-recorded the music and re-created the songs, he could sell those, as he once said he was going to re-record his whole back catalogue, and as he did with 1999.

It's all a bit like an engineer inventing something while working for an engineering firm - the firm own the rights to that invention, not the actual inventor, because that is what they were paying him to do.

Technically, Prince has never 'released' any of the stuff in the Reflection/Glam Slam or Cyberclips rooms. We all know we can drag them out of our temporary internet files, but in a court of law he could always argue that it was never intended for downloading (which could hinder WB's profit).

Simply, it's not worth the effort from WB to sue him over low quality mp3s (especially when their tarnished relationship with Prince is already public folklore!). If Prince was selling 99c downloads of "Purple Rain" at 192kbps then I'm sure WB would sue his ass!

If anything, the Reflection room probably helps sell more WB owned albums than it does hinder their sales!

Hi,

thanks for your replies!

jazzz

I would also point out that the tracks in the Glam Slam and Reflection rooms are only available to members of the site, nearly all of which probably already own the songs being featured there. And, for people savvy enough to know where to grab the mono mp3s out of their temp folders, there are many more ways to get their hands on much higher quality audio files on the internet if they wanted to do so. So, I doubt very much that those rooms are a goldmine of any kind for people trying to get their hands on Prince tunes. The whole system probably flies quite low on the WB radar and, like toejam said, those rooms don't hurt WB in any way...in fact, they promote Prince's back catalog, which WB profits on.

jazzz said:

I'm wondering why you think the music has been "Mastered" digitally? The files are very low bitrate. He probably just popped in a CD and ripped the files. Anyone can do that! You can also bump up the volume and EQ as you're ripping them. But I would not call that mastering.

Listen to any of his Reflection tracks next to any of the new Musicology downloads. You'll see what I mean.

metalorange said:

I've thought about this too . . . whether or not Prince has the actual physical tapes and the ownership is just on paper (a legal ownership). Who knows.

I have a feeling that WB at least has the physical tapes from pre-1984/5 (before Paisley Park was built). Prince probably has a lot of physical masters in his vault. He just can't use 'em!

Doozer said:

So this means that Prince is in some indirect way working together with WB to promote the WB-era music, which benefits both parties.

What I meant earlier is that Prince is offering us music and video from the WB-period that WB themselves have not even reissued. Like some of the early remixes (Sexy dancer) or video's like 'Drive me wild'. To me this looks like Prince is bootlegging his own music from inferieur sources like vinyl, tapes or VHS. He might not use official sources/master tapes. Will WB tolerate this or has there been some sort of agreement?

jazzz
[Edited 10/8/05 6:49am]

Se7en said:

image of Prince personally popping in a cd to rip tracks for his website.


.
[Edited 10/8/05 7:22am]

Universaluv said:

superspaceboy said:

He can play the songs live because he wrote them and he owns the rights to the songs themselves (not the released recordings).

As for P not getting paid...think again. P's royalty checks from the WB years are still FAT (no doubt about that).