http://articles.sfgate.co...rn-marvels



Now imagine what would have happened if Prince had decided to cash in on the crappy YouTube uploads of his "Creep" cover by a) offering a pristine recording (audio and/or video) via one or more established services like Amazon and iTunes etc and b) advertised said recording next to those crappy uploads. He might have actually made MORE money than from Lotusflow3r.com and it would have given him tons of good press.

.
[Edited 4/9/10 6:25am]

Purp's stance on YouTube is just plain confounding. It's an available marketing tool that combines what radio and MTV used to offer, but on a worldwide scale and with little to no promotional effort needed on the part of the artist. Ad revenue or not, it's free advertising for your product.

Don't Play Me indeed.

BartVanHemelen said:

-----
May guess is he has been offered money by major companies like Amazon or could get money but does not find the financial terms satisfactory. He said that was the reason he was not interested in the Rock Band game.

At the end of the day I think we all need to remember that it is P's music not ours and he is going to have to make the decision concerning the financial worth of it.

BartVanHemelen said:

Why do you care? What difference does it make to you?

What's confounding here is Bart's stance! He only ever posts to put down Prince in some way.....whilst still wanting him to be successful

If Prince chooses not to make money out of something, what has that got to do with anyone? He announced a long time ago that he wasn't interested in hits, chart-placings etc and he's been true to his word. He CLEARLY is not interested in that anymore and he chooses how to make his money (or lose it) on his own terms. There are plenty of plastic, manufactured acts that are all about the money to be made - well, for me, I'm thankful that he's not one of those.
[Edited 4/9/10 4:23am]

I also note that you failed to highlight a pertinent piece from that article;

"earning money for the company through commercials inserted in or around the clips from major brands like Geico, ABC and Kodak"

This implies the money was made, not from exposure, but by advertising global brand-names. Is that what you want? Prince jumping in to bed with the major corporate machine that he's tried to turn his back on?

Prince can't win at the .org - if he makes money, he's a money-grabbing corporate whore who doesn't care about anything but the dollar.

If he doesn't put his music out on your favourite medium, he's an idiot with no business-sense and is missing out on a fortune.

If he really doesn't care about us (this subject comes up often) then IS IT ANY WONDER?

dang can i make money w/ mine?

Mindflux said:

[Snip - luv4u]

Yeah Corporate greed, commercial press owned by the corporates of course, greedy middlemen....Prince wants nothing to do with them. He's an artist in his own right and doesn't need them. He has OTHER interests. Money doesn't buy class & I think it's a classy move of Prince to avoid those sharks like the plague. If he's not hard up for cash, who cares what can be made, if you've got all you need? Just to follow the sheep blindly off the edge of the cliff? He's got better things to do.

Bohemian67 said:

Oh look, more fabricated nonsense, all disproven by facts.

Mindflux said:

Funny how you took that example, and not THE RELEVANT ONE: the one about the wedding video using Chris Brown's song.

Mindflux said:

You lot are NUTS. Hello? His last cd was released through a deal with TARGET.

You said on another thread that Prince has done nothing praiseworthy since 1998. Why do you care how/why/if the newer stuff like "Creep" is offered/distributed at all?

BartVanHemelen said:

:[Snip - luv4u]

skywalker said:

Come on Bart...give it up already

he can only make money off his stuff if he's actually got that stuff
to sell to the consumer.

nothing beyond 1995 is even in stores anymore or available anywhere
online, except for the few major label distributed releases.

it's all about money. if he owned all the rights and got all the $,
instead of just a cut from the warners stuff, he'd be flashing his
plateau sandeled petunia all over youtube.

BartVanHemelen said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Hahaha - you're confirming that you are selective then BTW, what happened with Chris Brown is not the norm. And, particularly, success on the back of a viral is almost certainly fleeting. The "norm" is fairly well described, by the Guardian, here; http://www.guardian.co.uk...eo-success

Furthermore, there was nothing particularly clever about it either. All we had there was an opportunistic grab by the Sony machine. By chance, Brown's track is used in what becomes a popular viral and Sony insert links to buy the music. Talk about milking the ride on someone else's coat-tails!

With regard to Target - so, striking a deal for distribution of your product is somehow the same as slapping a McDonald's logo on your product? And you're saying "we" are nuts?! Take some meds and then please tell us which brands you took
[Edited 4/9/10 20:53pm]

BartVanHemelen said:

Truly fascinating that you still, after years, spend your time obsessing about someone who is so obvioulsy unworthy of your attention and time. Why are you spending your valuable time on someone you know will never meet your high standards?

Prince has missed great opportunities to profit from not striking on the good reviews and public demand such as the Coachella "Creep" performance. It seemed a wide audience and the rock music community was a buzz and ready for a Prince moment and he let it slip away.
But folks are are not thinking clearly to believe that Youtube could in some way benefit Prince or anybody else other than Google. Youtube is a great service, but not for commercial content providers. At least not yet.

Prince has kinda got it right. No artist should devaluate their work by allowing it to appear on Youtube without compensation or at least their expressed consent. Apple is showing everyone how its done, yes they are pissing off the nerds and dorks by not allowing their work to taken advantage of, but at the same time allowing content to be purchased and readily available in a controlled way. Consumers get quality service and products, content providers get compensated and Apple gets to stay in business by making a profit.
If the music industry and all other content providers had the foresight to go the Apple route, it would not have needed apple to save it in the first place.
Innovation needs incentive, and money is one of the worlds greatest incentives. If producing a costly item that folks will shamelessly take without proper compensation why even bother.
[Edited 4/9/10 23:57pm]

violetblues said:

Go look up how much gets uploaded to YouTube every minute. Trying to regulate that is insane.

violetblues said:

Nonsense.

violetblues said:

Dude, wanna know what I did back in the early 1980s? My friends and I exchanged tapes of the LPs we owned.

Are there going to be people who try to "steal" the content? Sure. But that shouldn't be a reason to NOT do something. If you're not going to win the war on the price front (free vs cheap), win it on the SERVICE front: make it EASY. Considering the hell hole that iTunes is, I'm frankly amazed Apple are the biggest player.

Then again, I'm not that amazed: what is the alternative? 10+ years this shit has been going on and the content companies STILL haven't figured it out. I've recently seen a demo of something and all throughout the demo I was biting my lip to avoid pointing out that all they were doing was making things hard for PAYING customers.

There's an image out there that describes all the steps you need to take to watch The Matrix on DVD vs an illegal download, and it's like 20 steps vs 1 step: who in their right mind PUNISHES the people who buy your stuff legit?

IstenSzek said:

The stupidest thing about that song he gave to a Minneapolis radio station recently: that you couldn't BUY IT. Yeah, it was shit. But I bet thousands of collectors would have bought it anyway if it had been available, and most certainly in multiple formats. Why is it so bloody hard for Prince to a) establish an ONGOING, CONSTANT online presence and b) get companies to do shit for you?

Would it really have been so hard to get a company involved to press up x amount of CDs, get them to take (worldwide) orders and send out the discs? What did he make from that track now? ZILCH. What could he have made? Well, a couple of thousands of dollars easily, perhaps more. And some goodwill from fans, who might not have liked the track but at least they could OWN IT ON CD.

He had both Montreux performances filmed in HD, and all we got were a couple of lo-fi videos with INCORRECT ASPECT RATIO on his website, and a couple he gave to some ditzy girl on YouTube. Utter insanity.

Mindflux said:

I'm just debunking the nonsense you lot pretend is holding him back.

Mindflux said:

WTF has that got to do with this?

Mindflux said:

Bullcrap. He's DESPERATE for a pop hit.

Mindflux said:

You lot just don't make sense. Are you really going to pretend that Prince couldn't have sold a bunch of copies of his cover of "Creep"?

Mindflux said:

My god, shit band doesn't earn money! Oh, and the reason that problem exists is because for 10 years the RIAA et al were not interested in making money from it.

Mindflux said:

Ah, I see: Sony making money from viral = stupid; Prince suing woman who uploaded video of baby dancing to Prince music = genius.

Mindflux said:

Basically, yes, when that distribution ties you to one particular chain store. Either he's independent or he isn't.

BartVanHemelen said:

Not good enough Bart - you're flapping in the wind.

Let's just take your last point - independent does not mean that you cut all ties with any corporations.....particularly a distributor! One-shot deals with companies to distribute your product is MAINTAINING independence.

I really don't know why you're not a millionaire - if you "see" all this stuff that all these other idiot companies don't, why aren't you setting up your own company and creaming it for yourself? You certainly seem to think you have all the solutions. One simple answer - cos its all hypothetical guff!

BartVanHemelen said:

Nonsense.


You cannot even try to compare the legwork and time it took to pass along tapes among certain friends to the instantaneous transfer of content on the net.
People to this day still complain about not being able to play earlier Prince downloads that required certificates. It works. It was a bump in the road and while not elegant it did what it was supposed to do.
Customers are willing to pay, there is no need to give it away. Even with DRM Apple, customers and content providers were covered.
iTunes accounts for 70% of worldwide online digital music sales, While most downloaded files have previously included restrictions on their use, enforced by FairPlay, Apple's implementation of digital rights management, iTunes initiated a shift into selling DRM-free music in most countries.

iTunes is universally hailed as the single thing to save the music industry.The reality is this type of model works. Just as now Amazon is doing the same with books and music, it is still the only model proven to work.
As for Youtube, everyone just lays lays oxygen deprived speculation and excuses as to its role in today's market. Other than "supposed" advertising, no one can show conclusive documentation as to how well youtube works as opposed other means of advertising, because Youtube is not really advertising any other product than the actual content on the site itself. They are advertising Youtube more than anything else.
Why make it easier to loose your shirt. Why tempt the consumer to rip you off. People will find a way to circumvent any system, most brick and mortar stores still have lots of old fashioned shoplifters, and people still speed and run red lights. Does that mean we should abandon any kind of enforcement?

And yes you are absolutely right about making it as easy as possible for customers to purchase content.
Nothing a consumer wants more than convenience, as we have seen with products throughout history.
Convenience will be the key.
[Edited 4/16/10 10:41am]

I believe it's Prince's business strategy to protect the value of his live performances- the real golden goose when it comes to his current worth. A Prince concert is a luxury item that cannot be compared to a bootleg, knockoff or cheap viral production.

The examples in the article are not live performances.

jdcxc said:

I'm not sure that he's done a great job of that, either. Look at the official DVD's released, like the Aladdin one and the Rave 2000 one.

In my opinion, if Prince is going to do an exclusive deal with Target and accept a bunch of money from them in return, it is like putting a McDonalds logo on himself. But he can still be an independent artist at the same time, because the cultural definition of a musician that is independent, is one who is not signed to a record deal (as opposed to a distribution deal). Since that's the generally accepted definition in our society, I would say Prince is an independent artist accepting sponsorship and distribution from Target.

As for the practice of allowing viral YouTube videos, I think Bart is 100% correct, of course, but I don't think Prince cares. I think he's too set in his "copyright infringement" ways.

Is this thread lost.....

Yep. Why is this thread in GD?

Adisa said:

What thee fuck? Is the org broken?

NOTICE: "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."


WMG is behind the youtube "controversy", not Prince.

If you upload a song that has been officially released it will get flagged with no delay, but his unreleased music will go under the radar because WMG doesnt own it.