If they were half the businessmen they think they are, they would find ways to make it profitable. They won't do that, though, because they're just lousy conmen.

lustmealways said:

If they were half the businessmen they think they are, they would find ways to make it profitable. They won't do that, though, because they're just lousy conmen.

Tehy are conmen alright, but lousy?
Tehy are doing a stellar job conning the gullible into buiying anything with Prince's name on it except the music. Teh PRiince store is like some overly expensive boutique store with low budget and bad quality merchandise. Would be nice if they started selling what made Prince a household name and I'm not talking about just Purple Rain.
But I'm a old fan so I and my over spilling wallet don't matter to them, only the young ones who can't even afford a wallet are somehow catered to.

fredmagnus said:

JorisE73 said:

For the last years since Lonny and Spicer took over we've been told we old fans aren't important or there target auddience anymore and that they are thrying to reach the newer generations and build a new bigger fanbase with the billions of people oiut there who don;t even know who PRince is/was. It's just now becoming clear that it's truly the case, we just didn't want to believe it I guess.

Under Comerica's management, curating the Vault had a monthly global cost of more than 90 000$.

If you do the math, it's 1,1 million each year.

Londell & Co decided to put a stop to that and choose a business strategy involving fewer expenses.

All that to say, until the same people stay in charge, nothing will change.

Honestly, it's not really surprising because during the probate period, Londell complained on several occasions that the way Comerica was handling the vault/releases etc was way too coslty. It's not rumors, it's written in the probate files.

I wasn't aware of ther 90k/month figure.

Do we know what was exactly comprised in "curating", though? I find the term rather vague in that context.

psyche2 said:

fredmagnus said:

Under Comerica's management, curating the Vault had a monthly global cost of more than 90 000$.

If you do the math, it's 1,1 million each year.

Londell & Co decided to put a stop to that and choose a business strategy involving fewer expenses.

All that to say, until the same people stay in charge, nothing will change.

Honestly, it's not really surprising because during the probate period, Londell complained on several occasions that the way Comerica was handling the vault/releases etc was way too coslty. It's not rumors, it's written in the probate files.

Then good luck to them selling Prince t-shirts and merch.

.

It's like complaining of running the Louvre museum and having to take care of the maintenance of the works of art, literally.

.

Overall feeling is that they just don't get what they are handling. Of course - figures, business, profits, maintenance ARE important. But they are missing the point that Prince was a musician and a recording artist foremost.

To be fair, public musems (and libraries) may or may not be a priority for states, and politicians may at times complain that such or such cost to much—but it's taxmoney that's at stake, nor private profits.

.

What I find terrifying in a case like ours (but technically, any other culturally and historically significant artist) is that someone, either because they're the next of kin or because they have money to buy the artist's estate when it's for sale, is free to dispose of it as they see fit without any public oversight whatsoever.

.

Should the current owners of the vault agree to burn its content, I suppose there would be no power on Earth legally capable of stopping them. Had Prince left a son or daughter behind him, he/she alone would have had the right to destroy everything as well. That, or just lock everything away from the public eye. Or sell the items to private collectors, like paintings (but without "pictures" of the painting available for mass consumtion).

.

When you stop and think of it, it kinda goes against public interest.

databank said:

To be fair, public musems (and libraries) may or may not be a priority for states, and politicians may at times complain that such or such cost to much—but it's taxmoney that's at stake, nor private profits.

.

What I find terrifying in a case like ours (but technically, any other culturally and historically significant artist) is that someone, either because they're the next of kin or because they have money to buy the artist's estate when it's for sale, is free to dispose of it as they see fit without any public oversight whatsoever.

.

Should the current owners of the vault agree to burn its content, I suppose there would be no power on Earth legally capable of stopping them. Had Prince left a son or daughter behind him, he/she alone would have had the right to destroy everything as well. That, or just lock everything away from the public eye. Or sell the items to private collectors, like paintings (but without "pictures" of the painting available for mass consumtion).

.

When you stop and think of it, it kinda goes against public interest.

1. Or a will (cough cough).

2. Not "kinda", it's borderline criminal. There are very serious political ramifications and societal issues at hand when relevant or thought-provoking culture gets trashed in a bin, or left to rot in an attic, with the intentional purpose to be forgotten, or reduced to a single best-seller.

What the left tried was to enhance history adding a critical angle, not to rewrite or "cancel" it (which would defeat the very purpose of critiquing the historical facts).

"Cancel" was a term introduced by the (far) right to elicit paranoia in the white average man, to convince him his "culture" (audience laughs) was under siege.

What Trump and most of all, his psychopathic cronies (Yarvin, Thiel, Ellison, the GAFAM), are all about is to control the media, the CONTENT, and thus the narrative, to serve the masses a very narrow slice of human creation, one that conforms to their view of a dumb population whose only possiblity to flourish is to delegate all their choices and tastes, all their culture, to the elites (themselves).

The JFK center and other slashings in the culture budget are the visible tip of the iceberg (Bannon's usual flood), but the ultimate goal goes way deeper, and truly is terrifying.

When Umberto Eco wrote "The Name Of The Rose", he wasn't just writing a cool medieval whodunnit : the real subject was the forbidden book (the second volume of Aristotle's Poetics) and the absolute and dangerous power the elites have, to rewrite, or downright eliminate past history and culture.
He is reminding the reader (or spectator) that the powers in place never underestimate the power of culture and knowledge, they know it's their main enemy.
Ideas, whether political, scientific, philosophical or artistic, can mold societies and set humanity's direction.

Many cultural and scientific masterpieces were lost during the 1204 crusade (ah, "christians", always the good samaritans...) and specifically the arson of Constantinople's Imperial Library, which set humanity back a few centuries in terms of medicine, philosophy, arts, and a myriad of other subjects.
A ton of humanity's progresses and enlightenments were turned to ashes overnight because of ideology and supremacism.

I would strongly advise everyone to not just rely on the cloud for the backup of the files that are precious to you.
Never forget that all the internet hard drives on earth, the ones where we store all of our memories and artefacts, our very identities and lives, could very well be erased and formatted at the whim of a few madmen (if a stupid LLM with too much access doesn't do it first).

This may sound to some like a pretty paranoid view of the world, but the liberals and progressists major flaw has always been to underestimate who they face.

When the shit hits the fan in a couple of decades, like all ecological indicators in the red seem to point at (global loss of crops and/or potable water scarcity), trust me, these accelerationists psychopaths won't hesitate for a second to push the "reset all" red button, to exert full psychological control over hungry and angry masses. Either that, or mass genocide by T2000's cousins.

Oh, and do start learning not to get attached to objects, it will preserve your mind in the long run during the dark times ahead. Easier said than done, but when scarcity will become ubiquitous, I truly pity Muricans, and the Consumerist Western World at large.
It's going to be agonizing for the psyche, totally against their mindset (their "way of life"), and the first signs of this deeply existential mal-être are already showing.


Back on the subject, I must confess, at the risk of offending, that I'm pretty disgusted at the orgers brushing all this aside by saying "it's mainly a business" or something to that effect.
It truly shows how much Noam Chomsky is right, and the extent of their mental submission to a vision of human existence mainly defined by commercial transactions.

If there was anything truly clever to come out of Purple Rain The Movie, is the scene where Billy storms in The Revolution's dressing room and shouts "dis iz a bizness, motherfucker".

Precisely.

No, Billy, it's much, MUCH MORE than just that. That's what Prince and Magnoli were trying to convey. It's no accident it resonated that much with America's youth, this and the Tour's "speeches with God", in the times of Reagan and the upcoming generation of Gordon Gekkos. Yes, it's ironic that it was also a great commercial success, but this success was a byproduct of it, not the core.

And I hate to think that as the years went by, sadly, Prince gave up on Jaimie Starr, Christopher and Camille, gave up on true risk-taking, and too often disguised under "artistic integrity" his own falling for the material comfort, this soul-ruining endless and empty pursuit, no matter how much spare money he gave to charities to make up for his thousand pairs of shoes.

And I hate to think that all of this disaster we're witnessing,
is just Karma kicking in with a vengeance.

[Edited 1/30/26 1:37am]

Apperently he had multpile wills (one in the timecapsule under the NPG Store in Camden, one on the Paisley Park lot and proabbaly more) what his lawyers (Londell and more) did with them is anyones guess. It wouldn't surprise me if people like Lonny are willfully holding it back or pretending it doesn't exist just to con the family and line his own pockets.

BonnieC said:

databank said:

To be fair, public musems (and libraries) may or may not be a priority for states, and politicians may at times complain that such or such cost to much—but it's taxmoney that's at stake, nor private profits.

.

What I find terrifying in a case like ours (but technically, any other culturally and historically significant artist) is that someone, either because they're the next of kin or because they have money to buy the artist's estate when it's for sale, is free to dispose of it as they see fit without any public oversight whatsoever.

.

Should the current owners of the vault agree to burn its content, I suppose there would be no power on Earth legally capable of stopping them. Had Prince left a son or daughter behind him, he/she alone would have had the right to destroy everything as well. That, or just lock everything away from the public eye. Or sell the items to private collectors, like paintings (but without "pictures" of the painting available for mass consumtion).

.

When you stop and think of it, it kinda goes against public interest.

1. Or a will (cough cough).

BonnieC said:

If there was anything truly clever to come out of Purple Rain The Movie, is the scene where Billy storms in The Revolution's dressing room and shouts "dis iz a bizness, motherfucker".

I can't help thinking that their goal is to sell the Vault at some point. It has a huge value while to them it's way too costly to monetize it.

Maybe the message they sent early last year saying "The Vault is Free" was not like we thought aimed at us the fans but rather at potentiel buyers. I also remember Londel saying around the same time that it was important to get the rights back to the videos because it was much easier to monetize the assets with it. That would also explain why they don't release anything because the more they release the more it lowers the value of assets.

Though i don't doubt they would be willing to sell the Vault, with the licensing rights being parted between 2 record companies and probably an exorbitant asking price, i can't see it happening anytime soon.

Hence the current stalemate.

BonnieC said:

databank said:

To be fair, public musems (and libraries) may or may not be a priority for states, and politicians may at times complain that such or such cost to much—but it's taxmoney that's at stake, nor private profits.

.

What I find terrifying in a case like ours (but technically, any other culturally and historically significant artist) is that someone, either because they're the next of kin or because they have money to buy the artist's estate when it's for sale, is free to dispose of it as they see fit without any public oversight whatsoever.

.

Should the current owners of the vault agree to burn its content, I suppose there would be no power on Earth legally capable of stopping them. Had Prince left a son or daughter behind him, he/she alone would have had the right to destroy everything as well. That, or just lock everything away from the public eye. Or sell the items to private collectors, like paintings (but without "pictures" of the painting available for mass consumtion).

.

When you stop and think of it, it kinda goes against public interest.

1. Or a will (cough cough).

2. Not "kinda", it's borderline criminal. There are very serious political ramifications and societal issues at hand when relevant or thought-provoking culture gets trashed in a bin, or left to rot in an attic, with the intentional purpose to be forgotten, or reduced to a single best-seller.

What the left tried was to enhance history adding a critical angle, not to rewrite or "cancel" it (which would defeat the very purpose of critiquing the historical facts).

"Cancel" was a term introduced by the (far) right to elicit paranoia in the white average man, to convince him his "culture" (audience laughs) was under siege.

What Trump and most of all, his psychopathic cronies (Yarvin, Thiel, Ellison, the GAFAM), are all about is to control the media, the CONTENT, and thus the narrative, to serve the masses a very narrow slice of human creation, one that conforms to their view of a dumb population whose only possiblity to flourish is to delegate all their choices and tastes, all their culture, to the elites (themselves).

The JFK center and other slashings in the culture budget are the visible tip of the iceberg (Bannon's usual flood), but the ultimate goal goes way deeper, and truly is terrifying.

When Umberto Eco wrote "The Name Of The Rose", he wasn't just writing a cool medieval whodunnit : the real subject was the forbidden book (the second volume of Aristotle's Poetics) and the absolute and dangerous power the elites have, to rewrite, or downright eliminate past history and culture.
He is reminding the reader (or spectator) that the powers in place never underestimate the power of culture and knowledge, they know it's their main enemy.
Ideas, whether political, scientific, philosophical or artistic, can mold societies and set humanity's direction.

Many cultural and scientific masterpieces were lost during the 1204 crusade (ah, "christians", always the good samaritans...) and specifically the arson of Constantinople's Imperial Library, which set humanity back a few centuries in terms of medicine, philosophy, arts, and a myriad of other subjects.
A ton of humanity's progresses and enlightenments were turned to ashes overnight because of ideology and supremacism.

I would strongly advise everyone to not just rely on the cloud for the backup of the files that are precious to you.
Never forget that all the internet hard drives on earth, the ones where we store all of our memories and artefacts, our very identities and lives, could very well be erased and formatted at the whim of a few madmen (if a stupid LLM with too much access doesn't do it first).

This may sound to some like a pretty paranoid view of the world, but the liberals and progressists major flaw has always been to underestimate who they face.

When the shit hits the fan in a couple of decades, like all ecological indicators in the red seem to point at (global loss of crops and/or potable water scarcity), trust me, these accelerationists psychopaths won't hesitate for a second to push the "reset all" red button, to exert full psychological control over hungry and angry masses. Either that, or mass genocide by T2000's cousins.

Oh, and do start learning not to get attached to objects, it will preserve your mind in the long run during the dark times ahead. Easier said than done, but when scarcity will become ubiquitous, I truly pity Muricans, and the Consumerist Western World at large.
It's going to be agonizing for the psyche, totally against their mindset (their "way of life"), and the first signs of this deeply existential mal-être are already showing.


Back on the subject, I must confess, at the risk of offending, that I'm pretty disgusted at the orgers brushing all this aside by saying "it's mainly a business" or something to that effect.
It truly shows how much Noam Chomsky is right, and the extent of their mental submission to a vision of human existence mainly defined by commercial transactions.

If there was anything truly clever to come out of Purple Rain The Movie, is the scene where Billy storms in The Revolution's dressing room and shouts "dis iz a bizness, motherfucker".

Precisely.

No, Billy, it's much, MUCH MORE than just that. That's what Prince and Magnoli were trying to convey. It's no accident it resonated that much with America's youth, this and the Tour's "speeches with God", in the times of Reagan and the upcoming generation of Gordon Gekkos. Yes, it's ironic that it was also a great commercial success, but this success was a byproduct of it, not the core.

And I hate to think that as the years went by, sadly, Prince gave up on Jaimie Starr, Christopher and Camille, gave up on true risk-taking, and too often disguised under "artistic integrity" his own falling for the material comfort, this soul-ruining endless and empty pursuit, no matter how much spare money he gave to charities to make up for his thousand pairs of shoes.

And I hate to think that all of this disaster we're witnessing,
is just Karma kicking in with a vengeance.

[Edited 1/30/26 1:37am]

I don't share your perspective on each and every detail, but I do overall, so thank you

[Edited 1/31/26 5:05am]

fredmagnus said:

BonnieC said:

If there was anything truly clever to come out of Purple Rain The Movie, is the scene where Billy storms in The Revolution's dressing room and shouts "dis iz a bizness, motherfucker".

I can't help thinking that their goal is to sell the Vault at some point. It has a huge value while to them it's way too costly to monetize it.

Maybe the message they sent early last year saying "The Vault is Free" was not like we thought aimed at us the fans but rather at potentiel buyers. I also remember Londel saying around the same time that it was important to get the rights back to the videos because it was much easier to monetize the assets with it. That would also explain why they don't release anything because the more they release the more it lowers the value of assets.

Though i don't doubt they would be willing to sell the Vault, with the licensing rights being parted between 2 record companies and probably an exorbitant asking price, i can't see it happening anytime soon.

Hence the current stalemate.

I don't think they'd advertise it as "free" if the intent was to sell it.

But if they did, by all means let them: it's already been sold, so who knows, the next owner may actually do better

JorisE73 said:

Apperently he had multpile wills (one in the timecapsule under the NPG Store in Camden, one on the Paisley Park lot and proabbaly more) what his lawyers (Londell and more) did with them is anyones guess. It wouldn't surprise me if people like Lonny are willfully holding it back or pretending it doesn't exist just to con the family and line his own pockets.

BonnieC said:

1. Or a will (cough cough).

I purposedly didn't bother following all the legal stuff at the time because it was cluttered with conspiracy theories and unrelated to my interest (the music and the creative process behind it), so IDK nothing about wills, but while IDK how it is in the US, in France things are very clear: if you wanna have a will and be sure it cannot be challenged, you sign and give it to a notary in front of two witnesses. Then, no one can do anything about it no matter what. Simple as that. If Prince didn't do that, it's on him.

So, let's look at Mr. McMillan's post's stats after 2 weeks.

.

VIEWS: 3.165. Nothing to be ashamed of, it's very good, but part of my job is to debunk fake news that make up to 20 millions views, so nothing to get crazy about either.

LIKES: 6. That's 0,19%. Nothing to brag about (even moreso since none of those 6 did bother leaving a positive comment).

SHARES: 1. That's 0.03 %. Nothing to brag about either.

COMMENTS: 33. That's 1,04%, which, unless you go viral, is rather normal, so OK, nothing to be ashamed of.

SUPPORTIVE COMMENTS: 0. That's 0%. Now this is getting embarrassing, isn't it?

CRITICAL COMMENTS: 33. That's 100%. Oooops...

.

WHO, then, are those people "supporting" Mr. McMillan's? I don't have grudges with no one so I won't name names, but looking at his profile's other posts/reposts, a few good willed and very well mannered people, and a couple of others who appear to naively think sucking dick will get them Duane's old job as a Vault curator (spoiler: it most likely won't).

.

CONCLUSION:

Wherever "everyone, new and older fans" are, they're not on X following Mr. McMillan's. On the other hand, the "small load group of older fans who want all the music released now" are pretty much the only ones paying attention to what he has to say. So, basically, the very people Mr. Mc Millan antagonizes with such posts are... the only people reading the posts in question. But they're not the target audience, right? An interesting marketing strategy to say the least...

.

Make of that what you will...

.

[Edited 1/31/26 5:44am]

databank said:

So, let's look at Mr. McMillan's post's stats after 2 weeks.

.

VIEWS: 3.165. Nothing to be ashamed of, it's very good, but part of my job is to debunk fake news that make up to 20 millions views, so nothing to get crazy about either.

LIKES: 6. That's 0,19%. Nothing to brag about (even moreso since none of those 6 did bother leaving a positive comment).

SHARES: 1. That's 0.03 %. Nothing to brag about either.

COMMENTS: 33. That's 1,04%, which, unless you go viral, is rather normal, so OK, nothing to be ashamed of.

SUPPORTIVE COMMENTS: 0. That's 0%. Now this is getting embarrassing, isn't it?

CRITICAL COMMENTS: 33. That's 100%. Oooops...

.

WHO, then, are those people "supporting" Mr. McMillan's? I don't have grudges with no one so I won't name names, but looking at his profile's other posts/reposts, a few good willed and very well mannered people, and a couple of others who appear to naively think sucking dick will get them Duane's old job as a Vault curator (spoiler: it most likely won't).

.

CONCLUSION:

Wherever "everyone, new and older fans" are, they're not on X following Mr. McMillan's. On the other hand, the "small load group of older fans who want all the music released now" are pretty much the only ones paying attention to what he has to say. So, basically, the very people Mr. Mc Millan antagonizes with such posts are... the only people reading the posts in question. But they're not the target audience, right? An interesting marketing strategy to say the least...

.

Make of that what you will...

.

[Edited 1/31/26 5:44am]

Cracking up at that one, @databank

What the left tried was to enhance history adding a critical angle, [...]

Clap clap clap

bozojones said:

happyshopper said:

Fingers crossed they actually have a plan (and then follow through with it) for 2026!

This says it all. Or you could substitute Charlie Brown with a bull, the football with a red cape and Lucy with a matador. Either way it sucks being so bull-headed.

whodknee said:

bozojones said:

This says it all. Or you could substitute Charlie Brown with a bull, the football with a red cape and Lucy with a matador. Either way it sucks being so bull-headed.

It's truly appropriate in the eyes of Peanuts connoisseurs.
Londell's promises are the same as Lucy's, and the enablers' gullibility is Charle Brown's.
The very definition of a running gag.

Peanuts may be the best philosophical and psychological comic strip ever made.

From Schroeder's autism and Beethoven obsession (much like us orgers),
Linus' Puer aeternus traits and indomitable faith in The Great Pumpkin,
Patty's contant social oppression of never being clever or beautiful enough
(Schulz's thinly veiled critic of capitalism's constant stream of frustrations that constitute its fuel),
and Charlie Brown at the center of it all, with its unrequited love, existential angst and his ever losing baseball team,
it is more helpful to the soul than a decade spent sitting in a shrink's chair.

Of course it wouldn't be the masterpiece it is without Snoopy the philosopher,
looking at us all from a distance, taking it slow and knowing imagination
is the only effective weapon to prevent from going insane in a dehumanizing system.

And finally, it's a work of a Minnesotan, so what's not to like?

Treat yourself with any one of the great Fantagraphics' anthology volumes,
especially the ones covering the sixites and the seventies, you can't go wrong
(go past the ads if you're curious).

[Edited 2/2/26 6:19am]

BonnieC said:

Peanuts may be the best philosophical and psychological comic strip ever made.

Do you like Calvin and Hobbes as well?

All these off-topics comments put me off.