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July 2010

Prince’s decision to give his new album 20ten away as a newspaper covermount and NOT release it through digital stores has been controversial.

Many experts said that his intention to keep his music off the internet was ridiculous, as people would just rip the tracks and slap them on BitTorrent.

In other words, by not selling the album through legal digital stores, Prince would spark more piracy.

Is that true though? I asked someone who should know: BigChampagne CEO Eric Garland, whose company tracks P2P activity. And he says that 20ten has been “a real underachiever on P2P – album downloads in the thousands and counting”.

Garland says the album is additionally being shared via online file-hosting services, but even there he sees “very little activity”. File-sharers haven’t gone wild for the album, in other words.

What does this mean? To put it bluntly, perhaps people simply aren’t that fussed about a new Prince album. And those that are, if they live in a country where there was a covermount deal, may have just gone out and bought the newspaper.

Even so, it’s an interesting point: much of the coverage of 20ten so far has focused on the assumption that distributing an album purely offline will inevitably lead to large-scale online piracy.

But clearly the caveat is that if people aren’t that interested in the album anyway, they won’t seek it out on P2P services just to spite the artist.

http://musically.com/blog...acy-er-no/

Ehh, kind of a dumb article. If most of Europe already got it for free and nobody in America outside of his hardcore fan base even knows there's a new prince album out, who's left for there to be this big large-scale piracy?

[Edited 7/17/10 15:11pm]

Doesn't surprise me no one else besides Prince fans were interested in the album especially in the U.S.

Without promotion no one outside the hardcore fanbase even kmows that a new album exists.

Sounds like sour grapes 2 me just bcause he didn't release his cd through regular channels, so get over it already!

MajesticOne89 said:

Ehh, kind of a dumb article. If most of Europe already got it for free and nobody in America outside of his hardcore fan base even knows there's a new prince album out, who's left for there to be this big large-scale piracy?

Plus, the few thousand people in America who WANT the album, have it.

Identity said:

July 2010

"What does this mean? To put it bluntly, perhaps people simply aren’t that fussed about a new Prince album."

hmm

It means that people that shared it are much more likely to get busted!

oh, if the album was better it would have been shared much more.

ludwig said:

Without promotion no one outside the hardcore fanbase even kmows that a new album exists.

That's not true. When Prince dropped that "the internet is over" line, word spread like wild fire and even CNN reported on it and mentioned the new album in the process. People outside the hardcore fanbase...do know! They just don't give damn.

ludwig said:

Without promotion no one outside the hardcore fanbase even kmows that a new album exists.

Prince has been covered extensively in the mainstream media for several weeks. People aren't downloading 20Ten because his base has gotten drastically smaller and his music doesn't generate widespread interest.

I don't understand the big deal... I called a friend in Europe who'd gotten the album as part of his news delivery... I asked him to play the album and I recorded it through my telephone handset...

the quality of my recording is about as good as the quality of the album, 'nuff said!

Ahh, technology

Come on people what about the obvious!

In the UK the album was 65p! thats fuck all, why download it when u can buy it for next to nothing, i think that was one of the main reasons Prince did it.

" a read underachiever"????

I'm sure Prince is very, very upset that it's not being more widely pirated.

honer said:

why download it when u can buy it for next to nothing

cuz i can download it for free without lining the pockets of a trashy tabloid