http://www.boycott-riaa.c...icle/26203

Why Prince's Free CD Was Genius
Posted by Mike (Shmoo) on July 13, 2007 at 12:54 AM (printer friendly)


http://azoz.com/

Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired is on to something, but gets lost along the way because he ends up warning that, "If this idea catches on, artists and labels looking to duplicate Prince's success will have to proceed with caution if they want to avoid accusations of selling out."

So, in case you've been on a combat mission for the last week and haven't heard, Prince put free copies of his new CD in a London paper. Buskirk explains how that all worked out.

"Neither the Mail on Sunday or Prince's camp would divulge how much the newspaper paid Prince for the right to give his album away, but it's clear Prince was paid upfront, and that nearly 3 million Mail on Sunday readers -- plus everyone who bought tickets to one of his shows -- received the CD for free. The giveaway almost certainly contributed to Prince selling out 15 of his 21 shows at London's O2 Arena within the first hour of ticket sales. The venue (formerly the Millennium Dome) holds around 20,000 people. If the remaining six shows sell out, the series will gross over $26 million."

This makes Buskirk start thinking about the future of distribution, which leads to the observation about the potential of selling out. In my opinion, Prince sold out by making a deal with Sony/BMG in the first place (remember rootkits? lawsuits?), which is generally enough to make me ignore him completely. This situation, however, deserves a closer look because it illustrates several things.

The Charts -- Prince just sold more than 3 million copies of his new CD. It shipped triple platinum. That ought to put him firmly at the number one spot on the UK charts this week. But not one of the copies were sold at retail, because Sony refuses to ship copies to retailers in the UK. Does it still count? I'm betting not.

The Label -- Another quote from Buskirk's article: "Prince ensured that the Mail on Sunday version of his album looks identical to the one sold in stores, giving it the clear appearance of coming with the paper, rather than being of the paper."

To me, this implies that Sony didn't supply the copies to the newspaper, either. If they had, it would be "the one sold in stores", not "looks identical" to the retail version. So their distribution deal with Prince isn't exclusive. Prince shopped these out on his own.

The Myth -- Time to drag out a quote from the IFPI, which is the international version of the RIAA, "protecting" the record labels on a global scale. Recently, the IFPI's chief told a London audience this:

"At one time, artists would work and perform live for a low price to drive records sales. Now that records sales are damaged they are trying to drive ticket prices higher - and there's a kickback."

I've discussed these two sentences elsewhere, but not on my own pages, so...

It is true that artists once thought that they would receive royalties from the records they sold. After all, that's what their contract said. Then they discovered they could sell a million albums and still be in debt. If by some miracle the record label was forced to concede that they actually owed the artist money, then the trick was to get them to pay it, if you ever found out.

That worked for far too long. Almost everyone got ripped off by their record label and the labels consistently abused their position of financial responsibility. No artist with half a brain trusts a record label any more and for good reason. The purpose of the record label is to collect all the money and keep as much of it as possible.

The Solution -- So let's look at what Prince just did:

A) He sold 3 million CDs to the Mail. If he only made a dollar on each one, it's a tidy sum. 3 million fans all got a free CD, and Prince hears a big CHA-CHING! that he can actually take to the bank without waiting for it to trickle down through Sony.

B) Sold at least 300,000 concert tickets in an hour. We know that he didn't get all the cash from box office sales, but even at $10 per ticket, that's another $3 million and they'll probably sell most of the remaining 120,000 tickets. Yeah, he'll have to work three weeks to earn it, but...

C) His record label refused to distribute his CD in the UK. He didn't need them. In fact, Prince made a boatload of money and I'd hope that Sony never saw a dime of it because they had nothing to do with it.

D) People in the UK know what Prince's new CD sounds like, which may or may not have influenced ticket sales. People in the US who find out are subject to being sued at this point in time because Sony will distribute it here and it hasn't been released yet. Sony will probably continue to sue people after the record comes out, which may or may not influence ticket sales.

Conclusions

Record labels are already obsolete in the UK.
Artists make more money by allowing people to hear their music instead of making it difficult.
Artists can make more money by taking the label out of the picture entirely.
Artists can deal with almost any other entity (newspaper, Starbucks) and get a more honest, straightforward accounting of sales and any money due to the artist than they will ever get at Sony or EMI.
The artists are waking up. This should have happened years ago.

Tip of the iceberg.....I'm sure that more things are 2 come.

Great article!

ditto great read

The only problem with the article is the fact that he says that PRINCE sold out his UK shows because there was a free CD in the deal, meaning that people just bought tickets for a free cd, which is insane, the dates sold out because people in the UK wanna see him play, its the same reason The Musicology shows all were huge sellers here in the USA, tons of people that went didnt even know there was a free cd, they were going to see Prince play his hits.

Nice article ^_^ Thanks.

lastdecember said:

The concerts were announced 2 months ago when there was no news of this being released through a sunday paper.

2020 said:

Record labels are those who give artist the opportunity to produce music and having heavily promotion. Without record labels, artists are obsolete.

2020 said:

Wrong again, Artists are making lesser money since the CDs sales are dropping. And more people and more people are downloading music everywhere.

2020 said:

Taking out the labels mean less promotion and advertising, which lead to less CDs selling.

2020 said:

Nope, only established superstars with strong fanbase can deal with any other entity (newspaper, Starbucks) and get a more "honest", straightforward accounting of sales and money.

And since you seem to be a very intelligent dude, you should already know that all the money due to the artists than they will ever get at Sony or EMI helped to :
Promote and advertising new talents
Make videos
Promote tours
Produce and promote new albums



Who paid for the over budgeted Prince's first LP ? Who spend millions of dollars to produce the Purple Rain movie, the big videos budget , and adverstising the tours around the world ? the artists ?

Oh yeah, you probably don't know but all the millions and millions of dollars spent to promote your favorite artist Prince came straightforward from accounting of sales and money due to the OTHERS artists who paved the way for Prince.

It has always been like that since day one.

2020 said:

When you don't know nothing about the music industry, don't talk about the music industry.

Prince just like all the big artists of the past is a straight product of major labels. And people tend to forget that.

Without major labels, there's no big superstars, big promotion, big tours, expensive videos, nothing. Period

Face it, Without Warner there's NO Prince, I repeat again, without Warner there's NO Prince.
[Edited 7/16/07 12:14pm]

I agree. Some wrong conclusions. And it isn't a RIAA article either, when I read the title I thought "why in the hell would the RIAA write anything positive about PE?"

Graycap23 said:

Please tell me "more things" includes a Planet Earth addendum in short order (as alluded to earlier). Cuz the first installment leaves a lot to be desired.

krayzie said:

Do you work for a label cause ya sure sound as ignorant as they are!

2020 said:

Oh really,
Tell me what's so ignorant about what I said since you seem to know so much about the music industry ?

krayzie said:

I didnt write the article - I just posted it

However I know alot about the music business and this article is spot on

krayzie said:

You know 2020 didn't write that article right?

krayzie said:

To say that Prince is a product of a big record company is ridiculous. I agree that artistry and commerce are forever linked but to think that Mo Ostin or any other label head could create Purple Rain, Songs In the Key Of Life or What's Going On you must be drinking the KoolAid. Warner Brothers took very little risk in producing Purple Rain (6 Mil Budget) and reaped the benefits (half Bil Profit worldwide for album, movie). Any company that markets art is only as profitable as the lasting creativity of their artists. And while technology changes what is happening to the great dinosaurs in which you give all the credit?

jdcxc said:

Not many unsigned bands have 6million budget to give over to a vanity project.

21 shows in London. He'll outnumber Michael for the longest concert series.

21 shows, that'll take a whole month.

TheSkinMechanic said:

By the time Prince made PR, he had developed a cult following through the hard work of constant touring. He had just released his most successful album, 1999, had great a critical (cover of Rolling Stone) and commercial storm swelling and was on the verge of mainstream greatness. Everyone, even a lame Warner's PR hack, could see this brewing. Giving the green light to a six million dollar movie (extended video in the MTV age) was a no-brainer. And your missing the point, Prince isn't your average unsigned band.