7e7e7 said:

the rolling around on the ground was just figuratively speaking.
as far as fans thinking prince owes them something, that is not
the initial point.

and if there are misunderstandings the reason for those are to
be found in the prince camp.

the npgmc charged people money for monthly downloads. most all
people were cool with that. sure, the material was sometimes a
bit iffy or re-hashed already released stuff but at least they
released stuff every week, a set amount of stuff.

the second year is when things got iffy. they charged you for
a host of things they advertised and then they didn't deliver
the things they advertised. they promised cd's, even printing
their titles in the tourbook.

the cd's never materialised, and to make matters worse, they
weren't simply replaced by other cd's. instead they tried to
make the one nite alone package seem like 3 cd's when it was
simply 1 release.

it's that kind of shady grey area business that got people up
in arms over their money vs what they got in the end.

imo prince did resolve the matter quite fairly in the end by
putting up the Xpectation album and, be it rather difficult
to download, C-note.

at the same time though, the titles of both albums show you
how prince himself felt. he felt like he'd been wronged, no
doubt about it. taking the title track off Xenophobia and
renaming it Xpectation and releasing C-Note as an album you
could only obtain at that moment by illegally sharing the
comfort links to single songs that different continents got.

he/they knew they were in the wrong. they would not have
released that stuff if they'd felt they were right. it sure
took them long enough to do it. they left it till the very
last day of the year.

iirc there was also a cover charge for the club, just to be
able to access the website, wasn't there? or was that in the
3rd year? i can't remember.

anyway, i don't care about the drm, it was obvious that those
files were drm protected but they could still be burned to a
cd. i burned them to cd and later, by some means, i forgot by
which, i ripped them as mp3 and still have them on my pc with
all my other prince albums that i converted to the same format.
people complaining about losing those files, imo, should have
been paying attention and burning them to disc at the least.

as far as the quality of material goes, i didn't care what he
released. what is good music anyway? as long as he put some
new tracks up or released the promised albums, i was ok with
anything we got. you can't expect to join something like the
npgmc and expect that every track will be catered to your own
tastes. especially not with someone who does as many different
styles as prince. so once again, pretty lame for people to be
complaining about that, i agree.

the thing i don't agree with in your post however is the idea
that one song could theoretically constitute one cd. come on
now, that's not the way it works, we all know that.

we got C-Note as a sort of kiss off/fuck you thrown in there
at the very end by various one track links to different fans
on different continents. a sort of grab bag where you had to
share the links in order to compile the album.

still, the "album" was only 5 songs, of live material. and yet
it is one of my favorit releases that came through the npgmc.
nevermind if it only had 5 songs. it was indeed an "album".

if the 4 albums had all been great albums, containing only 8
or 10 tracks like most of his 80's albums, i'm sure everyone
would have been fine. but that's me thinking out loud for
other people. i'm sure there are people who would bitch and
moan regardless.

but the vast majority of people on the npgmc were people who
were still supporting prince 6+ years after anyone else, be
it regular folks or labels or critics or stations, ceased to
give a f*ck.

i can understand the mishaps being a 2 way street, somewhat.
but in the end, prince offered a product and set up a format
that he single handedly ran into the ground. no content at
having failed at something that could have been a very good
business model for him he continued to act like a crybaby
about it.
[Edited 12/6/08 4:32am]

In a related note.

http://www.avclub.com/con...node/22523

Interviewed by Nathan Rabin
May 21st, 2003

A producer, musician, singer, and songwriter whose work has been covered by everybody from Big Star to The Isley Brothers, Todd Rundgren seemed poised for massive stardom in the early '70s, but chose to put experimentation and near-constant reinvention above commercial concerns. A doggedly devoted cult has followed him (and his groups Utopia and The Nazz) through each of his many sonic explorations, which include an album containing an equal number of covers and originals (1976's Faithful), a vocals-only album (1985's A Cappella), an album recorded live in the studio (1989's Nearly Human), an interactive album (1993's No World Order), and an album of Rundgren favorites re-imagined as laid-back lounge music (1997's With A Twist). Rundgren has also experienced considerable success as a producer for such dissimilar acts as Meat Loaf, New York Dolls, XTC, Cheap Trick, Patti Smith, Badfinger, and Bad Religion. Long a proponent of computers and technology, Rundgren has been focusing on Internet-related endeavors over the past decade, and plays an active role in maintaining his web site, tr-i.com. The Onion A.V. Club recently spoke with the rock Renaissance man about music, technology, and the ephemeral nature of pop stardom.

The Onion: You recently appeared on a tribute album to George Harrison. What did The Beatles mean to you?

Todd Rundgren: It's nearly redundant to enumerate the reasons The Beatles are important. There are probably different reasons why The Beatles are important to a musician like myself and to the millions of Beatles fans who just enjoy listening to the music. Significant among those reasons is the fact that many of us would probably not be in the music business–or never would have been in the music business–had The Beatles not demonstrated that this kind of music, or this kind of performance, was actually viable as a career alternative. Previous to that, few people set about learning an instrument and putting together a band with the idea that it would become the only job they had. I think for the vast majority of musicians previous to that, it was, "Don't quit your day job." If you did have a band, you might get some gigs over the summer, and maybe some weekend gigs, but you'd never make enough money to live off of, let alone raise a family on. The Beatles demonstrated that four guys could do this for as long as they wanted to, as opposed to just doing it in your spare time and then eventually losing interest in it, because it didn't get you any attention or money. I know that, previous to The Beatles, I wanted to be in a band and I wanted to play guitar. But I dared not think that that's what I'd do for a living, and The Beatles sort of changed all that. There were a lot of bands after that. It's almost obscene, in a way. Everybody was in a band, and everyone did it with the expectation that they would get a record deal and become famous. [Laughs.] That's continued to this day, even if it's only a small minority who actually survives.

O: What do you think you'd be doing if you weren't a musician?

TR: Well, it'd be something like what I'm doing anyway, which is working with computers. I was very interested in what was a brand-new field at the time I graduated from high school, and if I hadn't had any success in music, I probably would have figured out a way to go to some technology school and learn how to program computers.

O: What did you find intriguing about computers?

TR: Aside from being interested in technology and curious about technology of all kinds, I think I was first interested in it because I was interested in robotics. I wanted a robot pal like Robby The Robot. And you eventually get to the issue of "What do you put inside the head?" Which was all a mystery. The other stuff all seemed very mechanical: levers and springs. That seems fairly easy to comprehend, but when you get to the artificial-intelligence part of it, that was very hard to comprehend. At the time, they had only just invented the term cybernetics, which they used to refer to the connection of logical operations that could get a transistor to perform. So I knew about the fundamentals of it while I was still in high school, but a computer in those days was something that took up an entire city block. It would be a while before you'd be able to seriously learn anything, and that would be due to the access created by the Apple II. But that's another story.

O: When did you realize that you wanted to be a producer?

TR: Well, I was interested in the things that could be accomplished with sound in the studio, so I was always sort of aware of various developments and trying to get them incorporated, even in the first Nazz records we did. But I decided to become a record producer initially out of a kind of revulsion with the experience I had with The Nazz, which was pretty over-the-top. We were pushed as the next supergroup, another of those Next Beatles. In the process, we got to see how weird show business can be. I decided that I didn't want to be involved in the politics of maintaining a band, I didn't want to be interviewed by radio DJs who had no real interest in you–it was just part of the gag–and I didn't want the traveling and the lonely hotel rooms and all the other stuff. I got a big snootful of it early on, and didn't really like it that much. So I decided that if I wanted to remain involved in music, I'd have to develop some studio skills, and therefore I could still work with bands, and I could still be involved with the music business, but I wouldn't have to endure some of those other, less pleasant aspects.

O: Did you like any aspect of being a pop star?

TR: Well, it's fun to perform for people. Once you get to the point in your life where you have a style and a comfort level and things like that, then performing can be a huge amount of fun, but there are other perks that I've had which I wouldn't if I were only a record producer. Such as sometimes you get recognized, and upon being recognized, you get some favoritism. It's just what everybody wants. You may occasionally be recognized in restaurants and get better service, or you get some sort of accommodation at the airport. You get through security faster, because a security guard recognizes you, and you're not just an average schlub. Then again, if you're Whitney Houston, you'll probably be singled out for extra scrutiny. It can make life a little bit more civilized for you, in that people recognize you and give you some deference. But I have to be honest and admit: I appreciate that, but what you get on the other hand, on the other side of that coin, is scrutiny of parts of your life and behavior that you'd probably prefer not to have to endure. Celebrities are the fodder of much of the media business, so they're always interested in making you seem provocative when you're not, or trying to bring you some sort of embarrassment by revealing something you'd rather not have revealed. That's the downside of celebrity. I have a pretty good balance, in that I'm not so notorious or recognized that I can't make it through the mall, but at the same time, a lot of people who are my fans are now CEOs of corporations, and things like that. Like, someone from Briggs & Stratton that I met at a Hall & Oates concert sent me a free power washer when he heard that the only significant machinery I owned was a big lawnmower. It wasn't a Briggs & Stratton, and he said "You have to own a Briggs & Stratton," so he, out of the blue, sent me a top-of-the-line power washer. These are perks you get from being a celebrity. At the same time, people publish books with versions of your life in there, or other people's impressions of your behavior.

O: Isn't that the cost of fame, that people are going to be more interested in your life?

TR: Well, you know, Michael Jackson is a cake-and-eat-it kind of guy. He has never recognized or accepted the fact that when you shove yourself in people's face, they're not going to look just at the part you're showing them. People want to see everything that's connected to the face.

O: It sort of seems like you're uncomfortable with being a pop star.

TR: Well, "pop star" is a significant sub-category of celebrity. There are people who are known for some contribution to pop culture, but that doesn't mean that you've survived solely on your relevance to whatever is currently popular. That's what a pop star is, in that sense. You might start out as a pop star, but that's just an opportunity to become more relevant, if you possibly can. [Laughs.] A lot of people never do. They're only relevant as long as the style that they're doing is relevant, and they become wedded and attached to that, and when that style is no longer popular, neither are they.

O: That's never really been a problem with your career.

TR: I suppose that early on, I was trying to succeed on pop terms, and I really didn't know the difference at the time between a longer-lasting celebrity and a celebrity that's founded in an emphasis on the art rather than the pop part of it. You figure out a way to create or sustain or last, that transcends fads. For me, I had to learn how to do that fairly early, because of my initial rejection of the experience of being a pop celebrity. Eventually, it got around to a more thorough evaluation of what I was trying to do from a creative standpoint. That's when I started to recognize the influence of pop culture on what I did. For instance, up until a certain point, I wrote lyrics about the same subject matter that everybody wrote lyrics about in pop music: being in love, getting your heart broken, or some sort of thing to do with boy-girl relationships. "She loves you, yeah yeah," and you bandy the word love about, like every single song would have the word "love" in it for some reason. And I came to the realization that I was doing this stuff out of habit, or rote. I decided to evaluate the form and content of my lyrics in a way I hadn't previously. That's when I started to escape pop culture. People have always said that I could have been a highly successful pop artist, if only that were my intention. It never was. My original intention was to be a kind of behind-the-scenes participant in music, to just be a record producer and engineer. And I made a record for myself just so I could have an outlet for my musical ideas. It had a fluke hit single on it, and I ended up being kind of dragged back into the pop-music scene. After that, there were constant expectations that I would follow that up, or that I would refine that approach and become an Elton John type of character, or someone who's solidly a pop-music artist who can write singles off the top of his head and have a constant string of hit songs. I continued to think as an album artist, and also continued to think more in terms of a personal style and a craft, as opposed to what you're supposed to do in pop music: The "pop" is for "popular." You are supposed to understand what is popular, or what people want to hear, and then make some of that. That's never been my greatest strength.

O: What would you say is your foremost goal as an artist?

TR: Well, I'd have to make something that satisfies my own need to express. There was a time when I didn't really have to think about that too much. I had so little other distractions. I had no family, my taxes were always paid, and I didn't have other issues that would distract me from opening my subconscious and somehow rendering it in sound. As time has gone on, there have been greater distractions and less of an ability to just drop right into a creative mode. The approach becomes, therefore, more and more highly refined as time goes on, inasmuch as I'm constantly trying to improve my techniques as a songwriter and as a performer, transcendent of whatever message it is that I'm currently trying to convey. Then there is, as always, the content of what you're singing about. That is not a product of something strictly musical. That's your personal philosophy, and that's something that has to be developed 24/7. How do you feel about the war, and why? Trying to understand what your mind is truly thinking about, what your subconscious is truly possessed with, and trying to render that with your tools and skills as a musician–in that sense, it's a lot less of a dependable process. I can't simply say, "This week I'm going to write three songs," because I don't know whether I've gestated the necessary impetus for three songs. It either happens because it happens, or it happens because of the pressure I've put on myself to digest and ruminate and come to some conclusion that's worthy of being rendered in musical terms.

O: If you had to articulate a philosophy that's being expressed through your music, what would it be?

TR: I've always said, rather glibly, that the message of my career has been about individualism, about getting to know yourself and taking responsibility, not just for what you do, but what you think. It's fairly common for people to go through their lives with someone to blame: my Jewish guilt, or my parents, or "Society made me do it." There are any number of conditions as to why your life didn't turn out the way you intended it to. My whole philosophy has always been that there is no way to change anything else in the world if you don't have the capacity to change yourself. Therefore, if you're not satisfied with the way the world is, or if you think the world can be better, you have to figure out a way to know yourself and better yourself. Then you have the assurance that something in the world has improved.

O: How you feel about musicians whose work is overtly political?

TR: That's their right. People who are factory workers are political. People of all stripes are political, and celebrities have a right to be political. I suppose they also have to be a little more careful or circumspect if they're going to leverage their celebrity to promote their political aims. The problem is that politics is about the accretion of power, and it's very difficult not to get giddy with power. Once you start entering the world of politics and leveraging your celebrity, you can get this kind of Richard Gere hubris going: "I am right, I am right, I am the only one who is right. It's because I've got the biggest megaphone and I can drown other people out. That's what makes me right." That's dangerous. Too many people are afraid to call themselves philosophical as opposed to political, as if that predisposed some cowardice, that you're unwilling to go to the mat for your beliefs. But the problem is that people believe too firmly things they haven't actually considered very seriously.

O: You've done a lot of covers over the course of your career. What is the appeal of covering other people's songs?

TR: Well, if you have a choice about which song you're going to do, then often, from a musician's standpoint, it's "Geez, I wish I'd written that song, but at least I get to perform it." I think whenever I do a tribute, it's always a song that I wish I had written, or that I felt I might have had the capacity to write. That's one good reason. Another is that it gives you an opportunity to reinvent something that you really appreciate, and kind of collaborate on that particular thing you are so envious of. Even if it's not a direct collaboration, if you add something of your own, and if you try to do it in a way that's personal, then it becomes something that you can justify.

O: On the other side of the coin, a lot of people have covered your work. Do you have a favorite cover of a Todd Rundgren song?

TR: Well, there are some less well-known covers. Some of the ones that I like the most are the most startling. There are any number of versions, and some of them are kind of half-covers. Recently, there have been a couple of covers where I provided the vocals from the original masters and people came up with whole new tracks. One was called Deconstructed. That was a bunch of club mixers, and DJs did whole new tracks underneath. Then there was another one that came out last year that I didn't even know about. It used the same original vocal performances, and had a lot of the most well-known soloists and guitarists–and I think Edgar Winter was on there, he played sax–and a production team would essentially create new tracks with my vocals, and then Steve Vai and Dweezil Zappa and all these other people played solos over my songs. These were people where I couldn't even have any assurance that they were aware of my material. That was somewhat thrilling, to have a bunch of other well-known musicians make a contribution to essentially a tribute album. But some of the ones that I like the best are actually by fans who are not professional musicians. They go to a lot of trouble to organize and record their own tribute versions, and there's been half a dozen of them, I think. Those often have some of the most original impressions, and sometimes the most sincere impressions, because these people are not making a name for themselves, put it that way. The records are fairly obscure, and only other hardcore fans will hear them.

O: It seems like you have a very dedicated fan base. Why do you think that is?

TR: I don't know. There are a whole lot of vain things I could say. I've managed to just stick around, partly because a lot of people who take the approach that I do to music just never survive. I've become kind of a haven for people who like pop music, but that's not the only thing they like. They also like music in general, and want to be able to expand their own horizons. They haven't completely given up on music, and are willing to have somebody mediate new things that are happening in music to them. Often, I wind up doing that–I wind up incorporating influences that my audience has not been exposed to, or that they discounted, somehow repackaging it in a way that allows them to experience it in a way that's accessible to them. I have no compunction about rapping on a record. [Laughs.] Even though when I first did it, some of my fans took a bit of umbrage. Eventually, they get used to it, and they realize that the content of it is the same as the content of all the other stuff that I write about, and if they study it, something interesting will come out of it. The other thing I think about it is that they've made a connection to each other in a way that's more than just wearing the same T-shirt. There are other interests, for example, that I may have helped to pique–things like technology and computers, where they became early adopters of certain technology due to an understanding of it that other people didn't have, and that's useful and valuable to them.

O: Do you think the Internet has made music more democratic?

TR: That's helped. I've introduced my fans to the Internet by essentially, in the early '90s, extricating myself from the traditional relationships of the music business, and instead trying to build an alternative model. A lot of my fans are beginning to explore that new model. Hopefully, they'll be rewarded for enduring all this by being comfy and ready to go when whatever replaces the music business comes around.

O: What do you think is going to happen to the music business?

TR: I think the following should happen: First, artists should re-emphasize performance and de-emphasize recording. You always make more money if you have a healthy performing life than you will if you have even a moderately healthy recording life. Don't make recording the most important thing you do. Make performing the most important thing you do, and then you can make recordings and sell them at your shows, because record labels aren't going to be around to help you get on the radio stations, and the radio stations probably aren't going to play you anyway. The next thing in music is going to be more like Internet radio. Then, if I were in the record business, I would start getting out of the brick-and-mortar side of it and stop thinking of music as a commodity, and start thinking of it as a service, and develop models that more resemble cable television, where you pay a monthly fee and listen to as much as you can consume. If they can manage to do that, hey, if you get a million people paying 20 bucks a month, that's $20 million a month. That's $240 million a year, just off of a million people. So I think by that model, there's plenty of money to be made, but we've got to stop worrying about bootlegging and the economies around it. Make music a service that's easy to consume, and there'll be plenty of money for everyone.
[Edited 12/7/08 15:16pm]

Snap said:

true i would be annoyed at the downgrade of product. however, i still see an unreasonable expectation on the art of the "buyer beware" This was not a corporate entity delivering these offerings. suddenly this became an individual making mistakes while delivering on a vision not neccessarily followed through on before. people as individuals make mistakes when following a vision, especially one that noone has really seemed to make work in a profitable manner.

yeah, profit is an issue again. life is not cheap and limos and fancy clothes and ex wives cost money too. im sure the average shelf life of his product is shortening by months. this said, going back to your comment... if someone offered something worth a bunch of money for next to nothing? id say... "buyer beware"... AND "if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is" not as a sword of damacles, but simply saying that perhaps what sounded really simple and easy for yes men to agree with in theory became a thorn of reason.

cheers!
s=v=n s+v~n(sq2) 7.

BlaqueKnight said:

L4OATheOriginal said:

Dam ya'll got screwed big time, that sucks!

crzy4uluv said:[quote]

L4OATheOriginal said:

well thank u 4 the welcome 2 this world but i've been here 4 a while. so since u saw prince at the target center, it's safe 2 assume that u didn't get in2 the 1st ave gig where u would have heard sly covers.

as 4 getting screwed, the only thing i've gotten screwed by prince was the npg magazine where 5 issues were promised but only received 4 of them and then got the announcement of it was being discontinued and no refunds were being issued. so since that fiasco, every and all business adventures by prince i've been weary of. i never joined the 1st year of the npgmc but still got the music regardless. so if u can't understand y people would have issues with prince's business practices, let me welcome u 2 the world of prince fans

From the blog:

Searching Prince fan sites such as Housequake, prince.org and a few others have led me to the fact that there pretty much is no way to contact Prince OR his camp in ANY form whatsoever. Also, there was never any mention to his fanclub (which I DID pay $25 to join) that they would no longer be supporting the DRM-laden files when the NPG Music Club went under. No other fans, or what Prince likes to call "Friends", knew what to do about the files either. The only suggestion I was given, which isn't possible now that the files cannot be played, was to burn the files to a cd and rip them back to mp3 if I want to put them on the ol' mp3 player. Well... the files won't play, so how am I supposed to burn them? It's just not possible.


Prince really has turned into a premiere douche-bag.

Would any of you reading this treat your "friends" like this?


.
[Edited 12/6/08 14:32pm]

So who didn't burn these to CD?

Anyway, just download them from your favourite downloading place. You've already paid for them, so just steal them back.

Sdldawn said:

Seriously! And a great many of us have stopped caring as well...so it's no one's loss but his own.

shittttt yahs had me worried about my files. IVe played most of them now and been having a funky ol time!!! All MY NPGmusicclub files play and are funky. This has been a great day!!! It's cold outside but it's WE Gon make it Funky!!! Playing right now heh heh heh....Dayummm that guitar owwwww

Some folks are loyal to Prince that they don't realize that he is fucking them without lube!

I bought most of the songs and videos for sale on NPGMC. At the time I purchased them I was instructed to backup the licenses and burn the songs to cds. I'm glad I was paying attention.

L4OATheOriginal said:

I doubt if everyone had a cd burner at that time, many people still use old machines today that dont write to disc. Years ago at work we had an external cd burner as the they werent built in back then.

you all seem to forget that it was pioneering and therefore by default the customers were entering into unknown territory. Its easy to be wise with hindsight.

The fact is we paid for something that was then taken away, no-one made it clear that the license might not be able to be renewed or that in the event of the site disappearing that another avenue would be opened. I think it must be illegle to still possess the monies paid as we no longer have the goods. The same goes for the membership fee for the club - which was for lifetime membership. Wheres our club now? wheres the news, etc or any benefit that we paid for. although we did get mailed by them with an offer for vip seats at £31.21 last year at the o2.

You cant sell something to someone and then take it away. At the time Prince seemed so huge that it was inconceivable that the site would go and the music with it.

I think the whole drm and itunes mp4 situation sucks. itunes even limit you as to how many macs it will play on - now my family has loads of macs, our house is run on one even and its so frustrating to have a tune we paid for on my sons playlists etc but cant copy it across to the main server as it is on 'too many' machines. If it was a CD I could copy it onto whatever number of macs I like.

We now have a policy of only buying CDs for that reason, which is a shame as I think digital music was originally about freedom but now the control freaks and business men have got their greedy claws in.


Oh and the earlier comment about cds not lasting BS! I still have my original cds when they had the explanation in the back covers as to what they were and how to look after them, they all play just fine - you might not get longevity with a home burned cd on a crappy quality disc but shop bought CDs are fine. shit we havent even had them in the world for long enough for anyone to know how long they are gonna last! and I think its fair to say that when the consumer KNOWS for sure that vinyl records have been around for peoples lifetimes that its a fair assumption that the newer technology will too and therefore it was fair to assume that downloaded digital music would also.
[Edited 12/7/08 3:27am]

syble said:

A qualifier to my CDs not lasting "BS"

The CDs I was referring to are data-backup CDs, not relevant to the current issue, but still a concern of mine....

I had several discs of old documents and files that no longer play. Some of them are completely unreadable, others can transfer some files but not others....

These were burned on high quality CDs, the solid-black surface discs, on a relatively good burner, which burned at a low speed. They were burned around 2001/2002, and promptly placed in envelopes. They were then resurrected about a year ago when I purchased a new computer.

I have read reports that CD-Rs are only expected to last around 10 years or so, compared to a shelf life of around 100 years for purchased CDs.

IstenSzek said:

Precisely because it's hardly a 'gift' anymore when it took the Better Business Bureau to deliver it, too little and too late, I didn't bother anymore.



I agree.



Right, how can he 'xpect' that when he would pissed off too if he would have paid up front to have a specifically promised product delivered.

His childishness and bitterness even went as far changing an album title from Xenophobia to Xpectation.

I thought that was proof that he didn't give a fuck about that album or the presumed message that the title 'Xenophobia' carried after 9/11.

If he changes an album title just like that, just because he didn't deliver and wasn't man enough to admit it, he treats his music as disposable 'art.

BlaqueKnight said:

For some that just feels good. Why dog it?

I agree with your post. Music is not made to be restricted. What he did with DRM, again had nothing to do with "free music". And it's a scam when people weren't properly notified their files wouldn't play anymore after some time.

7e7e7 said:

He did not deliver what he specifically promised.



So you are saying Prince is a con-artist releasing new tricks every year? I agree.

-
[Edited 12/7/08 5:11am]

swdee said:

In other words, you have examined nothing.

IstenSzek said:

'Xactly'.

Well said. A clear case of shady business practices.



Indeed they knew and indeed they did. And I am positive it was Prince who told them too.

For some narcistic reason Prince thinks he can sue anybody he likes but he himself is always in the right and when people don't put up with his shit anymore he gets all defensive and childish.





If he had done that I would have been perfectly fine with it because he would delivered what he promised. But he didn't.

From my understanding, MP3s cannot be DRM'd due to their file structure. That is why any website that sells music with DRM sells WMA, AAC, or anything other than MP3 files. Year One of the NPGMC were MP3s (and, if you were resourceful enough, so were the Reflection room songs).

Something changed to make him add the DRM and switch from MP3 to WMA -- he probably saw the Year One songs appearing on Napster/Limewire/etc. and it pissed him off. My point: Prince himself knew what he was doing...he was protecting his music, but in so doing he restricted fans' rights.

I think DRM should stop -- but what I am in favor of is digital watermarking. No passwords are needed to play - ever - but your identifying information is embedded into the file for artist protection. So if any of the music appears on sharing sites, they could track you. Honest users should have no problem with this.

A comment was made earlier that anyone who didn't burn them to CD immediately was a fool -- true, but in my case I'm on a Mac and Windows Media Player support is very limited (i.e. no burning). I didn't have access to a PC to burn them.

eaglebear4839 said:

And now you have a crappy converted copy of a crappy rip from an unknown quality source. Remember: these are the guys who brought you a CASSETTE rip of a track that was available on CD (Horny Pony). These are the guys who kept posting low-quality mp3s made with crappy encoders. Don't forget that there's a topic on HQ where they compare the various versions of songs released via NPGMC -- I sometimes wonder whether some of these differences aren't just caused by sheer incompetence.

But man, weren't things bad when WB "forced" Prince to release music regularly, on drm-free media? I mean, who cares about buying a song on CD and playing it whenever you want when you can be grinding your teeth at unplayable WMA-files on a HD?

Meanwhile, Trent Reznor gives mp3s away for free and charges very little for flac files (or Apple Lossless), includes ridiculously great artwork via PDF files (and includes often different artwork in the files themselves, including lyrics), gives out free FULL QUALITY multi-tracks so fans can remix his songs (and gives them a place to upload the remixes), and recently he's added Flickr- and YouTube-channels to his site so you can easily find amateur pictures and videos (of concerts) via his official site. Oh, and occasionally he'll distribute DVDs and other media he cannot legally release via The Pirate Bay. And he's never attacked fan websites even when they trade recordings of gigs.

Oh, and he still makes a ton of money and he's hugely popular and he doesn't give a shit about the media or major labels and isn't even afraid to piss off influential websites.

What a maverick that Prince guy is, hm? Compared to who -- grandpa Simspon?

And people like me have been predicting this outcome for years.

Oh well, let's just wait until the next turd he drops via the next major label that has been stupid enough to cough up money for the next great Prince record. I mean, what could go wrong? It's not like just about anything he's released in over a decade has quickly vanished into oblivion while records he released 20+ years ago remain steady sellers -- oh, wait...

And let's not remind ourselves again that while so many records get expanded and enhanced editions, Prince's legendary albums have not had an upgrade since they were first released on CD 20+ years ago.

japanrocks said:

Meanwhile Trent Reznor has just added a YouTube-channel to his website so fan-posted concert clips will be automatically accessible to his fans.

And that's just one of MANY fan-friendly things he's done since becoming free from his record label.

He's still making a ton of money, too. And he has a ton of happy fans.

Oh,and he is playing his latest music in concert, he doesn't have to rely on performing the same old hits again and again to get people to come to his shows.

Now imagine that Prince wasn't a total ass and actually did the same -- wouldn't that be a lot nicer than the crap he's been doing for over a decade?

The fact is: what you said is the kind of stuff that's said by record company bigwigs to explain why the same old crap isn't working anymore.

alandail said:

iTunes is just as crap as any NPGMC "solution" we've seen though the years. Paying for crappy lossy, drm-protected files? Hell no.

Fans who know their shit have told Prince to release LOSSLESS files for over a decade.

IstenSzek said:

IIRC they failed to deliver the minimum on most months. Plenty of times the MP3s were the same as the MOV files. Plenty of times substandard encodes were released and later on were replaced by better encodes after a lot of fan protests.

IstenSzek said:

Which is the same crap record labels do.

IstenSzek said:

The same pattern over and over again: puck-up -> attempt at cover-up -> attempt at making up

IstenSzek said:

Converting mp3s->wav is more or less reliable. However, converting drm-protected WMA->WAV is far less reliable. I've bought one album in that format and converted it to WAV via the ONLY(!) program that could do this (outside of burning it to CD and ripping it again), and it was so much hassle that I decided to never do this again.

IstenSzek said:

I disagree. We got a couple of tracks for free at the beginning as a taste of what was to come -- and instead we got music that had been released, lame rips from videos, and IIRC virtually nothing from the 1980s period, despite one of the sample tracks being from that time. Often the "Ahdio" tracks would be far more interesting than the actual MP3s (excerpts from parade live shows etc).

Time and time again the NPGMC was a huge disappointment, even though plenty of fans kept offering vastly superior business models.

Alexnmind said:

Just make sure you burn them before you upgrade your pc...

savoirfaire said:

exactly - purchased cds last , cdrs?????

Tremolina said:[quote]IstenSzek said:[quote]

I agree.

I think this is an interesting point. I have always had this confusion between the man we perceive to have ultimate control over his 'art' and the guy who treats it all as disposable and moneymaking - its a conflict - I think Prince maybe the the Tracey Emin of the music world.

"O: What do you think is going to happen to the music business?

TR: I think the following should happen: First, artists should re-emphasize performance and de-emphasize recording. You always make more money if you have a healthy performing life than you will if you have even a moderately healthy recording life. Don't make recording the most important thing you do. Make performing the most important thing you do, and then you can make recordings and sell them at your shows, because record labels aren't going to be around to help you get on the radio stations, and the radio stations probably aren't going to play you anyway. The next thing in music is going to be more like Internet radio. Then, if I were in the record business, I would start getting out of the brick-and-mortar side of it and stop thinking of music as a commodity, and start thinking of it as a service, and develop models that more resemble cable television, where you pay a monthly fee and listen to as much as you can consume. If they can manage to do that, hey, if you get a million people paying 20 bucks a month, that's $20 million a month. That's $240 million a year, just off of a million people. So I think by that model, there's plenty of money to be made, but we've got to stop worrying about bootlegging and the economies around it. Make music a service that's easy to consume, and there'll be plenty of money for everyone."

EXACTLY! a channel.

cheers!
s=v=n s+v~n(sq2) 7.

http://www.joshrouse.com/

J'Ro is doing it right these days.. for 29.99.. he has given his fans rare, unreleased and live tracks.. all top notch drm free tracks. And a free year prescription of Paste Magazine.. also includes his upcoming studio album.. Every month he updates us with live and rare tracks..