CandaceS said:

I don't think Money is on Prince mind. I think he got more than his share from W/B already. I think he is more in2 keeping his fans and not losing the little he has left and at the same time, reaching out for a few more. I think he is targetting the younger generation. But with songs like TeAmo, he won't get to far.

Zelaira said:

Man, I am getting tired of this question/comment. Bottom line, we don't know the aspects of the WB contract, therefore, there will be no vault releases until WB or Prince decides to release them.

I, for one, believe that Prince's contract before 1983 was TOTALLY different than the contract after 1984. That was the reason that Crystal Ball contains several tracks during the WB years. By that time, P had the income to secure his own studio time (or use Paisley to record). Therefore, he could turn over to WB whatever he wanted. Pre-1983, he wasn't that big and I'm sure WB probably owns the rights to all of the unreleased recordings.

Bottom line, it is a wait and see thing. Who knows, P may decide when he turns 50 to release another career retrospective (without outtakes).

daPrettyman said:

That's true. But there's enjoyment to be had and information to be shared by speculating, from what we know and have heard



That argument makes little sense. The contract undoubtedly changed over the years, but Prince was still with Warner Brothers upto 94/95 ish, therefore the 'WB years' extend from the beginning to then. Crystal Ball doesn't just contain 'several' tracks from the WB years, it is chock full of them. Besides 'Cloreen Bacon Skin' dates back to 1983, the earliest song on there, proving that material from 1983 could be released.

Crystal Ball was released after Prince had left Warners. Therefore it is clearly possible that vault materal theoretically can be released; whether it takes the permission of Warners or not, it is simply down to the will-power of Prince to make it happen - which clearly, he does not, upto now at least.

metalorange said:[quote]

Abrazo said:

I just would like to say that altho' there is no evidence that WB was involved in CB it doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't.



--
[Edited 12/28/05 13:40pm]

metalorange said:

The whole WB contract story is one filled with dead-lock situations:

WB can't release unreleased recordings without p's permission and p can't do that without wb's permission.

WB can't release digital remasters of his (80's) albums without p's pemission and p can't release digital remasters (on CD at least) without WB's permission

and so the saga goes on and on...

TheCatWoman said:

If he wants to keep the fans left and if he has to work with WB to give the fans what they want (unreleased recordings and digital remasters) then he better start working with WB and they with him.

naw prince ended up getting the last laugh and he's probably still laughing!!!
he got them with the name change then getting it back a few years later. so i think warner bros got played!!!

Abrazo said:

There's not much evidence for any of this, so I try to approach it logically - Prince had bad-mouthed Warner's terribly for several years before he finally managed to get out from under them, for that reason it would be hard to believe Warner's obligingly helped him out on Crystal Ball without ever getting any credit for it.

Or is it more logical it went down this way: "You called our company a slave-ship, purposely released mediocre material to complete your record contract, released a song called 'Face Down - dead like Elvis' with the lyrics aimed directly at us, and now you want permission to release material we part-own without any involvement from us on distribution or otherwise and we won't even get a credit on the album?!! Yeah, okay, sure"

Even when Prince and WB were chummy he had no real interest in releasing alot of vault material.

Regardless of what his relationship or contract with WB would allow, for whatever reason, he's never seemed all that interested in releasing a substantial number of songs in the vault.


.
[Edited 12/28/05 14:39pm]

TheCatWoman said:

When was the lawsuit settled and what did he win?

What albums were regarded as "contractual"? The original contract from '92 or '93 was for 10 albums and 100 mill (I think). So what 10 albums would meet the obligation?

Symbol - ?
The Hits - ?
Come - Yes
The Black Album - Yes
The Gold Experience - ?
Girl 6 - ?
The Vault - Yes
Chaos and Disorder - Yes
[Edited 12/28/05 22:25pm]

I was wondering this about the Purple Rain 20th anniversary dvd release, I just bought it last friday and have loved it to pieces, but remember that prince pleaded with everyone not to contribute, I mean why would he do this, it was a great thing for him and the record company and the fans too!

metalorange said:

Exactly. All the evidence shows that Prince didn't get permission from WB for
any of the material released on Crystal Ball. Now whether he technically
should've done is another matter, but since no word ever leaked out
of WB taking Prince to court over it, or making any legal demands, I think
it's safe to say that they had no hold over the tracks.

Yes it's true that Prince recorded tons of songs while contracted under WB
that were never released, the truth is that WB only ever got to hear whatever
tracks Prince chose to submit to them as albums or singles. So they actually
have no (official) idea what songs are actually in the vault.

on this subject:

WB is a very very different company now. It's far far more corporate and run by the City investors. It's not a nice place to be, even Madonna was recently re-negotiating her contract. I don't see P having any confidence in them....BUT

the likleyhood is that WB will merge soon with EMI. EMI are a far more 'music' company. EMI distributed Emancipation so P has no issues with them. When the merger happens and the CEO's, presidents, VP's, etc comb over the newly inherited WB catalouge P's music will come up. If some of the key players that were around with Emancipation are still there, it's very possible the communication could open and anything could happen.

kinke said:

let's be honest, who was everyone laughing at?..... yes, Prince. He looked like a dick. WB are a corporate compnay..... did you see people giving up on WB as a company and boycotting thier albums?... no. People just thought Prince was washed up.

got played? they made a fortune out of Prince and still make money by discouting his albums and sticking them in the sales.

setyrmindphree said:

I don't think there was a law-suit.

The original contract was for $100 million, I think for 10 albums. But it was contingent on album sales. If his albums sold as well as Diamonds & Pearls, which sold 5 million, then he would get $10 million an album. But as his sales went down, he got less and less.

At some point, his deal was renegotiated to only 6 albums, of which the first 3 were the Symbol album, Come and The Gold Experience. The Black Album was a seperate one-off deal for $1 million upfront, Girl 6 and the Hits were also not part of the deal (I guess because they were not proper 'original' albums).

Then his deal was renegotiated yet again, so that he only supply 2 more albums instead of the 3 left - which were Chaos & Disorder and The Vault.

So he went from a 10 album deal to a 5 album deal, thanks to the negotiating skill of L. Londell McMillan and because Prince was causing such a stink Warner's wanted rid of him.

Well I don't know any specific details nor do I want to know. But I know there was a lawsuit. And he was very well compensated.
Prince as always would want the details private as well as any company or business would to save face and in this case it would be W/B.

TheCatWoman said:

Prince has had several lawsuits over the years, but I don't recall one against WB.

Regardless of how private they'd want to keep it, lawsuits are filed in public courts and are fairly easy to track down. They certainly had a contractual dispute back in the day, but I don't think it ever resulted in actual litigation.

metalorange said:

Thanks. Interesting progression. Lost track of what went down.

TheCatWoman said:

You don't want to know any of the details, but you do want to keep posting about this alleged suit and settlement!

Prince did not file a civil suit against WB, nor did he get any big settlement, either from a jury or via negotiations.

If WB had to pay out the kind of money you've previously claimed ($500 million) or anything close to that, it would have been in the news one way or another. They're part of a publicly traded company, they can't keep things that affect their finances secret...certainly not mega-million-dollar settlements.

Either post something to back up your claims, or quit claiming he won some suit/settlement...no one else has ever heard of this.

TheCatWoman said:

I dont recalled Prince sued WB either and do u have any proof to back up? I think had Prince sued WB, it would been publicized since Prince already had issues with them in the 90s.
[Edited 12/29/05 18:02pm]

So, what ever happend to all the albums that were distributed by W/B, Prince requested be sent in from his fans a few years ago? What purpose did that (request) serve?

metalorange said:

Well, I dunno about this one. Considering the fact that most of the stuff on "Crystal Ball" were different versions of the original stuff. If you listen to "Crystal Ball" that was released vs. the "Crystal Ball" from "The Dream Factory" sessions and it's very different. In other words, WB just may own that stuff as well and he just released a different version or take on the song.

If I am wrong on this, I stand corrected.
[Edited 12/30/05 7:51am]

TheCatWoman said:

If I recall correctly, they said that they were preparing to sue, but no actual lawsuit was ever filed.

Could they have reached a settlement prior to suing? perhaps.

Could they have determined the a lawsuit would be more trouble than it was worth? perhaps.

Could it have just been that Prince woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and decided to do something with no real intention of ever really suing? equally likely.

My vote goes to option 3, but only Prince and Londell know for certain.

But let me ask this, my friends. Do you think that evenutally something will be reached where the catalouge will be remastered? Do you think Prince's CDs should get that same treatment like Madonna, Michael, and Stevie Wonder? Seems like everyone has seen their catalouge remastered but Prince.

What's your take on this?

poeticrockstar said:

They can't release re-mastered versions without Prince's permission. So again it comes down to Prince. Some people have suggested if Warners is bought out by another record company (EMI has some interest apparently) then perhaps Prince will be more willing to work with new people. Though it could also be that he just won't co-operate until he has finally won back the rights to the masters completely, and it's very unlikely a record company would just hand those over for free. Or it could just be that Prince doen't want to concentrate on his past work, or want too much attention on it when he is trying to release new music.

NME said:

yes you are right, but he still got his name back and they never got black balled either, plus he's still hot!!!

If WB had any "control" over the unreleased recordings wouldn't THEY be actively pursuing bootleg distributors?

There's really no tellin' what kind of deal he had with them in his early days. I mean, look what happened to Tony Orlando, who wrote Tie A Yellow Ribbon - he can't even sing this song in public without fear of getting sued, and this song made him.

poeticrockstar said:

Not true, almost all of the tracks on Crystal Ball are identical to the so
called 'original versions'. Yes, the title track is different to the version
on Dream Factory, but it is identical to the version on the original Crystal
Ball album which was actually submitted to WB in 1986.

ImYours said:

Why? did he sell his rights ?
[Edited 1/1/06 12:32pm]