HERE ME OUT.

he already got PAID royally for the gigs. it's not NEW material. Prince is missing a trick. it's costs him nothing to put it up on the server and allow it to be downloaded. it then gets passed around, more people have it. it may help boost ticket sales. it may help shift a few more copies of musicology.

by selling it he's just squeezing fans for every penny. there's no other reason. it's not like he's fightin a label to hear his music anymore. we know the songs. we're going to the concert thanx. we don't need to be given the 'after sales' treatment.

i aggree mans gotta get paid, and if it was NEW material then cool. charge what you like. but it's not costing him anythin to make this video. so it sucks.

my 2 pennies.

bandwidth costs money, and servers cost money, and the people who maintain the servers costs money..

Universaluv said:

Thank You!!! I'm glad somebody KNOWS and UNDERSTANDS this!

Maybe not free...but certainly not 8 bucks for 11 minutes.

lovemachine said:

$5.55 the first 2 days...

Universaluv said:

Still that's 50 cents a minute. Not exactly value priced as many bands would give away a 11 minute clip to bolster sales for the complete product. But not our Princey...he can brag about making 500 large a night and then completely overcharge his fanbase for something that costs him next to nothing.

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[This message was edited Tue May 18 17:08:25 2004 by lovemachine]

It just occured to me that NME is onto something because iif he is making 500,000 a night he probably should give his loyal fanbase some downloads for free as a thank you. While there is cost with what he's making he can definately afford it.

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[This message was edited Tue May 18 17:12:33 2004 by lovemachine]

lovemachine said:

You got your thanks. It was relatively cheap concert tickets with an included CD.

Amazing, all you hear around this place is

"NPGMC should release more music, we'd pay for it!"

... they release something

"NPGMC should release free music, we don't want to pay for it!"

I don't understand the mentality that Prince, or any other performer, tries to squeeze their fans for every penny. Just because they make something available to the masses doesn't mean you have to buy it. And just because you are a "true fan" (how i loathe that) doesn't mean you are entitled to get it for next to nothing. Prince has more money than he will ever need. If he never performed again he would still be driving a BMW when he dies. He doesn't not need to sqeeze his fans for anything.

a lot of you are just so whiney!

you'll pay for the membership, you'll pay for the concert, you'll pay for a cd album, you'll pay for a dvd, you'll pay for download clips of vids and mp3s, and when something cool is being put forward you now want things for free!!

whatever...if you get it for free good 4u...oh well. Sigh.

lovemachine said:

You have to remember, this is still a business. Why don't you go and tell Bill Gates to stop charging for windows because he has $80 billion in the bank. If you don't want to pay for the downloads, you can find all the files elsewhere for free. And regardless of what you think, every action has does with music or videos on line, cost money. Just to put the music in the glam slam room on weekends, cost money. I do web design. Websites I work on, everytime they want an update, they have to pay me. And you also have to pay for the appropriate amount of bandwidth for traffic to your site. You go over that bandwidth, you have to pay. Please consider these things when you think everything is easy as pie and costless for Prince. He isn't updating these sites himself.

Universaluv said:

For the record $75 is not cheap and the cd is not for the hardcore fans its for the casual fan. Any hardcore fan would certainly have already bought the thing by the time the tour hits their town so he might as well be giving away a free Purple Rain cd for the good it's doing us.

The REAL reason Prince is giving away the cd is because he wants a hit album. Simple as that.

Honestly I don't really care what he charges for the download because I won't be buying and even if it were free I wouldn't download it because I don't really care to watch low quality video on my computer screen. But I still think it would be a cool thing for Prince to do since were making him and his Kingdom hall rich.

lovemachine said:

Well, cheap is relative. But I personally have paid alot more than $75 for much worse seats to a major concert.

As far as buying the cd beforehand, a number of the concerts and the movie screening were held before the cd was released (which is how I first got my copy).

I agree, it would be very cool if people gave away the things that I wanted for free. Unfortunately that's just not how most of the world works.

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[This message was edited Wed May 19 7:29:48 2004 by Universaluv]

lovemachine said:

For main floor, up close and personal, please $75.00 is very cheap. I've worked at entertainment venues in Detroit, and I know for a fact, that tickets can be as high as $250 for seats that close to an entertainer.

Life's too short for all the drama. Enjoy what you can, while you can, because you never know; tomorrow none of us may be alive to enjoy a damn thing!

Universaluv said:

EXACTLY!

Sowhat said:

Ditto with the handclaps.

I bet most people spent more than $8 today on their lunch alone.

I agree. I feel like Im being pimped sometimes. I dont like having to pay for every download.

Universaluv said:

Having someone on staff to shoot and edit the video costs money, and having someone adding downloadable files to the site costs money. I do that for a living and I don't work for free...not even for Prince.

if u want to see it buy it, if u don't want to pay for it, then don't buy it..simple as that
[This message was edited Wed May 19 21:04:51 2004 by missfee]

I don't think that stuff should be free. At $7.77 I wasn't going to buy it, at $5.55 with an audio only file I will buy it. I think $7.77 is overpriced for what it is and was not going to buy because I didn't want to encourage similar profiteering in the future. $5.55 is on a par with a CD single, well, in the UK at least, so that price for 11 minutes seems fair.

If they plan to sell the whole concert at 11 minutes a go for $5.55 each though, that's a whole different matter.

Hey, my/your TIME is worth money also! So to spend much time worrying about $5.55 one way or another would not be in my best interest! Either I will purchase it or not. I try to look at what they have to download overall the the store. IMO.

when I heard that he was giving up the downloads for 5.55 I thought imediatley it was so he could make alot of money quickly within that 2 day period cuz Heaven knows u will be able to get it for free elswhere. having said that, I still will pay. all I know is that Prince today gives up alot more now then he did in the past and it's all good. If I were him I'd do the same. get that mighty dollar!

They are free. For those who know how to shop.