When Black Sweat was released, someone on here posted "Why bother, the video is being shown on every music channel" and someone had responded "Because I can make a DVD".

$10 later, I find out this is NOT the case. When you download videos (in copy protected WMV format) they can't be burned to a dvd.

Which leads me now to agree with the original post...."Why bother...?" I can watch the video any time I want on VH1 or MTV.com. Why should I pay?

BUT, music that's downloaded CAN be burned to a CD.

Can someone please tell me what's the big difference between a video and a song?

If NPGMC is going to allow you to burn a song to a CD, why not the video? Hell you paid for it.

This has been a total waste of money for me. I just saw (and recorded) "Black Sweat" off of VH1 soul last night. The other things I purchased were to back up what had accidentally been erased from my DVR, "Te Amo..." and The Vanguard Jam" and "Reflection" on Tavis Smiley. All of these things were previously broadcast on TV. How can NPGMC charge money for these clips and then not allow you to do whatever you want with them? If it were that serious, the FCC wouldn't allow people to record off of TV in the first place.

You have a valid point - maybe you should post this at NPGMC?

The only thing I can say in defense of the NPGMC videos is that it gives many of his non-US fans a chance to watch them. Although our TVs are constantly filled with crappy American TV shows, we fail to get Tavis Smiley, Much More Music or the NAACP Awards down here in Australia Still, I do agree that it would be great to be able to burn them to DVD.

Self centered American here again, I didn't even think of that. Very Good Point.

...But you can still see the videos anywhere for free, I want my $1.77 back lol.

For a moment, I actually thought about how bootleggers would take advantage of

being able to make DVD's from files downloaded from NPGMC.... But in reality, that

really isn't going to make or break them. I just received an e mail the other

day about a bootleg DVD of Princes recent TV appearances including The Brit

awards. Once this stuff is broadcast on Television, it's pretty much public

domain from that point on. If people are going to bootleg and try to make a

profit off of his work they will. There really isn't much Prince or his

corporation can do about it. Prince, of all people, should know that the people

who are paying over the top prices for his bootlegs, are the same people who

are in the record stores on an albums release date, cash in hand ready to

support him. So what, if EVERY single person who's viewed your video didn't pay

to see it. Just when I think it's time to ease up on the man and NPGMC. the

song remains the same; as will my signature...see below.

FanofDaFascist said:

FanofDaFascist'

ssignature says:

And you keep giving it to him, don't you?

FunkMistress said:

Be Quiet! Lol you are sooooo right.

toejam said:

I found ALL the videos from free TV that were offered by the NPGMC in BETTER QUALITY MPEG-format on eMule. And I don't have a problem to download them from there and not to pay for them at NPGMC, because these videos were all shon on FREE TV. Also I can burn them to DVD with no problems.

I can kind of understand the npgmc wanting to protect their files from instant distribution for free over the internet. This obviously works more effectively with the wmv files - yes, you can burn the audio but you can't copy and distribute the video. Which of course is an absolute pain if you want to put it a dvd so you can watch it on your tv or whatever.

Yes, you can find and copy the promos from your tv - however, here in the UK, the only place you'll find music video channels is on freeview or digital tv, which not everyone has yet. Plus the video is inevitably going to have text and logos over it. If you want a 'pure' video, then the logical place for a fan to go is the npgmc.

With the increasing popularity of dvd recorders on tvs instead of vhs, it is going to be increasingly easy for people to record a video and put the audio and video up for free distribution on the net, it's just a case of searching for it online and bypassing the npgmc. Whether that's a justification for the npgmc to supply videos for free, I don't know - for example, simply because you can find entire albums for free download on the net does not mean they might as well be given away for free by the artist!

If you're net-savvy, you can get the npgmc videos for free from other sources in a format you can actually burn to dvd. If you're not, you'll buy them from the npgmc. I guess that is the market the npgmc is after - law-abiding non-net-savvy people!

So is the complaint over $1.77? Just how broke do you have to be for that to be something worth complaining about?
[Edited 2/28/06 14:47pm]

Good point lillywhite. I don't think poor people deserve to enjoy Prince's music, videos or concerts either.

There are so many stupid, poor people in the world for whom $1.77 is not a completely insignificant amount of money, so that if they buy something and they feel that it's not worth that price, they feel they have the right to complain. Poor, stupid motherfuckers.

Not like you, lillywhite. You gots the money, yo.

theblueangel said:

I seriously question the priorites of any poverty stricken person who is worried about the quality of downloadable Prince video valued at $1.77. Seems to me they coulda put that money to better use.

BSK3601 said:

Well, here in Thailand $1.77 is 70 baht, enough for lunch for two people, so it's a reasonable amount. I'm not so hard up that my priorities could be questioned were I to buy the download, and yet it's still a significant amount of money to me.

Fauxie said:

You people are all MAD! Truly Insane. First of all, it wasn't $1.77; the total was about $10 bucks. Second of all, the point WAS why pay for something if you can't do whatever you want with it? Would you feel comfortable if you went to the store bought a DVD, played it in your living room, and then went to play it again in your bedroom or at a friends house and wasn't allowed to do so because of some sort of copy protection? I think this is a little unfair, whether it's $1.77 or $177.00 it's still MY money, I still was under the impression that I was actually BUYING something (Meaning I owned what I paid for).