Music industry attacks free Prince CD

Found on Guardian on Thursday, 28 June 2007
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The eagerly awaited new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD with a national Sunday newspaper in a move that has drawn widespread criticism from music retailers.

The Mail on Sunday revealed yesterday that the 10-track Planet Earth CD will be available with an "imminent" edition, making it the first place in the world to get the album. Planet Earth will go on sale on July 24.

One music store executive described the plan as "madness" while others said it was a huge insult to an industry battling fierce competition from supermarkets and online stores. Prince's label has cut its ties with the album in the UK to try to appease music stores.

The Entertainment Retailers Association said the giveaway "beggars belief". "It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career," ERA co-chairman Paul Quirk told a music conference. "It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music."

"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday."

A spokesman for the group said last night that the UK arm of Sony BMG had withdrawn from Prince's global deal and would not distribute the album to UK stores.

I haven't laughed so much for some time now. In all those fights against P2P, the music industry always pointed out that it was doing this to help the poor artists, who have to deal with massive losses thanks to piracy. But now one of those artists decides to hand out an album for free and suddenly, he is the bad guy who hurts everybody else. It is his own work, and so he can do with it whatever he wants. And "those record stores who have supported Prince" didn't do that because they liked his music; they just made money by selling his works. That's called business, not support.