NPGMC made a rare nice gesture in giving away extra copies of the "One Nite Alone" studio album (the piano album) free with the 3 CD live set to club members - along with a suggestion "give it to a friend".

What happened? Immediately a large number of these people put the extra copies up for sale on eBay, with the typical "Buy it Now!" price being in excess of $60 plus shipping costs. The intention being, clearly, for these people to get back the bulk of what they spent on Prince's music in 2002. Worse still, there are individuals selling CDR copies of the album with photocopied artwork for approximately $20 plus shipping costs... Clearly this is nothing more than greedy profiteering off someone else's products.

Yes you can argue "well if people are that stupid to pay so much money..." and of course there's not much answer to that because people clearly ARE that stupid. But that certainly doesn't justify the action of these sellers.

Let's be frank - NPGMC can learn a valuable lesson from this. The lesson is that the majority of people are dishonest to some degree, and such well-intentioned gestures will always be turned into something ugly by the eBay racketeers. NPGMC would have been better off just selling the extra copies of ONA on the retail site for around $10 apiece - at least then the music is going directly to fans who want the music, and no third parties are making any cash out of it.

Honestly, I'd rather just do without than give one of those greedy f*ckers on eBay my cash - and I hope Prince's legal people clamp down on those CDR-selling mofos hard.

See...
I gave mine away.

yamomma said:

yamomma

Much love Pochacco

Those original CDs that were given to members, 1 or 2 copies (it doesn't matter) belongs to them now and they can do whatever they want to, it's their right.
If you buy something in the store, and get with it something else for free, you can still sell it if you want to, it's yours to do as you like.

The CD-Rs story is something else. that's against the law. I know ebay has rules about this and once they see such a thing they delete it.
About price, well, it's an auction, so actually the seller determines the price. If somebody wants to pay the $60, that's their problem. If you want something bad enough, and it's not available anywhere else, why not pay that price to get it?

If anyone lives in Toronto and you have an extra ONA piano cd, I would love to buy it from you.

'tis a shame indeed, ian...just so folks can make an extra dolla...i mean, c'mon now...


crackin up @ yamomma

I don't recall any of my emails or the liner notes of ONA Live telling me to give the extra CD to a friend. I did see people suggest that on here, but to the best of my knowledge it wasn't the official word of the club.

If Prince could demand that noone is allowed to sell any CDs they buy off him, what kind of precedent would that set for all the other labels out there? If I buy the new Pearl Jam album, and don't like it I'm not allowed to sell it at the used record store down the street?

People go on Ebay and sell junk from their house that they don't want anymore, sometimes people will pay big bucks for this junk. It's amusing that someone would pay 60 bucks for a CD, I know I wouldn't. To each their own.

If the club itself kept all the music exclusive too, I think fans would care a little more about doing it as well. I don't recall seeing year 1's tracks all over Ebay and Kazaa as much as year 2 has been.

Personally, I found it quite an insult when the Club added the extra ONA CD with the message to give it to a friend. I feel that it took away the exclusivity of what was, at the time, the only exclusive thing about membership. And I wouldn't say that the people selling them on Ebay are dishonest (although the ones selling the CD-Rs need a good slap), just opportunists.
I bet there's a good number of people who still have their spare copies sealed up, waiting for it's value to rocket so that they can take full advantage. And who can blame them? You, me and everybody tries to make as much money as possible in life, and let's face it, the message just said 'Let a friend play the extra piano Cd' - it didn't specify how much that friend had to pay you for the privilege.

ian said:[quote]Let's be frank - NPGMC can learn a valuable lesson from this. The lesson is that the majority of people are dishonest to some degreequote]


agreed, but I also think NPGMC can sometimes be dishonest, upon accident or not..

yamomma said:

Naturally I wasn't talking about you I've seen the photo history you put together

MissCute said:

I'm not talking about legal rights... that's not in question... I'm just talking about doing the right thing.

JWbrainwash said:

there was an email sent out to all NPGMC members saying "let a friend play your xtra piano" typed backwards

I am stupid enough to bid 50 pounds for this CD. I was outbid though so someone was even more stupid that I. Anyone got one for a more reasonable price?

Its a free market, that why i love living in the USA. If i received a cd for Christmas that i don't like, I pop that baby on ebay in a minute. I start the bidding at $3, if some fool wants to give $10, $20, $30, $60, $100, thats up to them not me. Remember, I would have been happy with $3.

I am reading a book right now that says if you win the election with 55% of the vote, there are still 45% of people that wish someone else had won. You can never make 100% of the people happy. Life is a test. Now when I see the threads 'Who hates TRC cd' or 'Who loves TRC cd', i know its always 50-50. Life is way too short to even bother.

I disagree entirely with Ian on this one.
Heres what happenned to me:
I bid on a box set with the Piano included before Christams. It was removed by eBay almost straight away. However, the freindly seller set up a mini private auction between those who bid - and I won it.
Not only did I receive the set in time for Christmas from America, but he also copied me his Jill Jones CD, Madhouse Cds and Rave IN2 - free of charge.

All this cost me the £50 that the 3 discs would have cost from HMV.

If that is what anyone would describe as a rip off etc, then I would disagree. If you are prepared to pay £40 for one disc, its up to you - but eBay isn't just full of rip off merchants.

I have 2 extra copies. Anyone needs one let me know.

I believe the reason eBay is able to pull the sale of the club merchandise from their site, is because in the Members Agreement, we all agreed that anything that we recieve as a part of our membership cannot be sold.

I never feel comfortable saying stuff like this, especially with the website down, and no proof to give. This agreement has been posted several times, but it's too hard to search without the search function.

Well, with the new Xpectation album, people have no choice but to pay bootleggers. There are club members who cannot download music. That's why people joined this year -- because the club mailed out the music instead of the downloads.

Then the X album was released as a download and club members who couldn't download have to pay someone to burn a copy for them.

DreamInWs said:

That's a single isolated incident, and I'm delighted it worked out for you. I've also had hundreds of positive experiences on eBay - by no means am I suggesting that everyone selling stuff on eBay is a scam artist. That isn't what I said at all. I said something entirely different.

No offence but I notice that sometimes people only read the first line or just the title when they hit reply

Batdance said:

I'd like to see NPGMC beat the bootleggers by just making all the new music available to anyone to purchase on the retail part of the site - and affordable, to discourage people paying for CDR copies etc.

Also, people do have a choice... they can choose to either pay for the music from a legitimate source, or they can choose not to have the music.

It is just infuriating to see a positive gesture flipped on its head like that... the majority the people selling the ONA studio album are demanding around $60 or more plus shipping costs... and with some of them selling CDR copies for $20 a pop their entire cost of NPGMC membership is quickly paid for.

ian said:

You've got me there. I must admit, I couldn't be bothered reading it all and then later discovered my error. Still, I thought I'd re-tell my story anyway...

DreamInWs said:

Well it was a good story!

Ya know...if it would go on eBay for $60...Prince could surely cash in himself somehow...imagine Prince selling the stuff on eBay for a moment--it would be completely legal and would dilute the bootlegger's profits...

Batdance said:

Oh PLEEZE, people DO have a choice! Is anyone gonna DIE if they don't get it in their hands RIGHT THIS MINUTE?? Come on! I think people are just over zealous w/ this shit, I can't believe some people would rather wet themselves & pay bootleggers for something they've already paid for. He releases something & people kill themselves to have it, assess it & report on it as soon as possible. What's the rush?? It's a friggin' album, not a cure for the dying.

Members who are having problems w/ the downloads should try to find fellow members to burn it for them for free. Members on this site have always been generous that way - investigate your fellow Orgers before you go running to a bootlegger, please!

CalhounSq said:

A M E N !!

yamomma said:

Hey yamomma, who's the cutie??

alexnvrmnd said:

I'd give her my copy of ONA too, if I had one!

ian said:

I'd give her something else too! LOL!

ian said:

I do totally agree with on those just do things for profeteering... And they said Prince rip us off... You better get yo house in order guys...

ian said:

Hell, I would give her my copy too. And ya'll know where
I'm coming from.