All you metro Detroiters, check this out: Heading Northbound on I-75 almost to 14 mile road is a Chevrolet billboard. It has the back end of a red Corvette and the words "Little Red Corvette, Baby U're Much 2 Fast" and Prince's Symbol.

Now, I know Warner's can do almost whatever they want with the lyrics and music (someone posted that Warner's is making music available for commercials), but isn't Prince's symbol copyrighted???

[No, it's not; it's trademarked, but not as a "name". I don't think there's really any legal issue here. -Ben]

A friend of mine just told me there is a billboard along Cleveland,s Shoreway with the same message on it. Weird

At the soundcheck in Chicago during ONA tour in March, Prince asked Chicago fans how they would feel if he gave permission for Chrysler to use "Little Red Corvette" as the theme song to celebrate the anniversary of the Corvette on commercials and billboards. It seems Chrysler contacted him to use the song and he obviously wanted to run it by fans to get their feedback before he decided to make the money and let them use the song.
This was definetely Prince's decision to let them use his song for the car advertisement, though I am confused because I thought WB owned all rights to his early music??

There is one in Clearwater on the US 19 southbound lanes view going over Ulmerton Rd. I tripped out. In my 20 years being a fam i have never seen anything commericial since the Prince Spaghetti who Prince sued in the mid 80's.

This ad is also in various magazines like InStyle July 2002 last page

NuPwr319 said:

For crying out loud: if you don't know what you're talking about, shut up.

WB can NOT license music to commercials since this would require an okay from Prince, since he's co-owner fo the recordings. As for using lyrics, that's part of PUBLISHING, which has got NOTHING to do with RECORDING. And Prince's publishing is handled by Universal, which you'd knwo if you'd take a look at the TRC CD, or the print ad of the above described campaign.

On top of that, why drag WB into this when it's OBVIOUS that Prince -- and Prince alone -- is responsible for giving the okay to use his lyrics in this ad, considering he's ASKED whether he should do this at a soundcheck a couple of months ago. (Not that Prince has waited for the answer of his "supporters", this deal was signed much earlier than that, if you consider the time it takes to set up such an ad campaign.)

I'm guessing independence is not treating Prince's bank account very well. Kinda funny, considering that a real artist like Tom Waits fights this kind of use of his music and songs and even drags people into court for it.

And once more proof that Prince was bullshitting when he claimed not to know of Tina Turner's cover of Baby I'm A Star being used in those Target ads some time ago.

FACT: if you want to use a song in an ad campain, you need to get permission from the copyright owner of the song (not the recording, the SONG), which is Prince's case is Prince in 99% of cases. If you want to use a particular recording of a song, you alos need the permission of the copyright holder of that recording. In Prince's case (when it comes to the WB masters) this is both WB and Prince.

CamilleStarr said:

Dream on. See also: "what should the NPGMC 2.0 be?" (they'd already decided on the CD format before they even thought of asking this to fans) and "How much would you pay for the Celebration?" (that $250 price tag was already set by then).

My problem is that his name was Prince when he wrote those lyrics & his name is Prince now... Why did they use the Symbol after the quotation?

the same thing is in S.I. mag...from the May issue I believe.