Praise for Prince Was Mistake By George Ziemann -- November 8, 2007 Not too long ago, I praised Prince as being a genius for giving away free CDs in a London newspaper (see below). This week, any good will that the previous action may have garnered was negated when Prince's fan sites were threatened for the crime of having pictures of Prince or some such petty reason, proving that just because an artist has chosen to be independent doesn't mean they're deserving of any respect. I regret having written anything about this artist and will not make the same mistake in the future. I now question the wisdom of having touted other artists simply because they left their old label. McCartney is working with Mercury now. Radiohead's "pay what you think it's worth" deal had such a low bitrate that many buyers felt insulted, and they're dealing with Sony for distribution. The Eagle's new album is manufactured by Universal. Nothing substantial has happened yet, though I keep grasping at straws in hopes that a change is imminent. But the only thing that has really changed is that the list of artists I never want to hear again keeps getting longer and longer. FOLLOW-UP -- To clear up any misconceptions that perhaps Prince's label is the one attacking the fans instead of him, he has taken the extra step to make sure you know the hate comes from himself. Why Prince's Free CD Was Genius by George Ziemann -- July 10, 2007 Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired is on to something, but gets lost along the way because he ends up warning that, "If this idea catches on, artists and labels looking to duplicate Prince's success will have to proceed with caution if they want to avoid accusations of selling out." So, in case you've been on a combat mission for the last week and haven't heard, Prince put free copies of his new CD in a London paper. Buskirk explains how that all worked out. "Neither the Mail on Sunday or Prince's camp would divulge how much the newspaper paid Prince for the right to give his album away, but it's clear Prince was paid upfront, and that nearly 3 million Mail on Sunday readers -- plus everyone who bought tickets to one of his shows -- received the CD for free. The giveaway almost certainly contributed to Prince selling out 15 of his 21 shows at London's O2 Arena within the first hour of ticket sales. The venue (formerly the Millennium Dome) holds around 20,000 people. If the remaining six shows sell out, the series will gross over $26 million." This makes Buskirk start thinking about the future of distribution, which leads to the observation about the potential of selling out. In my opinion, Prince sold out by making a deal with Sony/BMG in the first place (remember rootkits? lawsuits?), which is generally enough to make me ignore him completely. This situation, however, deserves a closer look because it illustrates several things. The Charts -- Prince just sold more than 3 million copies of his new CD. It shipped triple platinum. That ought to put him firmly at the number one spot on the UK charts this week. But not one of the copies were sold at retail, because Sony refuses to ship copies to retailers in the UK. Does it still count? I'm betting not. ...Followup -- No, it doesn't count. The Label -- Another quote from Buskirk's article: "Prince ensured that the Mail on Sunday version of his album looks identical to the one sold in stores, giving it the clear appearance of coming with the paper, rather than being of the paper." To me, this implies that Sony didn't supply the copies to the newspaper, either. If they had, it would be "the one sold in stores", not "looks identical" to the retail version. So their distribution deal with Prince isn't exclusive. Prince shopped these out on his own. The Myth -- Time to drag out a quote from the IFPI, which is the international version of the RIAA, "protecting" the record labels on a global scale. Recently, the IFPI's chief told a London audience this: "At one time, artists would work and perform live for a low price to drive records sales. Now that records sales are damaged they are trying to drive ticket prices higher - and there's a kickback." I've discussed these two sentences elsewhere, but not on my own pages, so... It is true that artists once thought that they would receive royalties from the records they sold. After all, that's what their contract said. Then they discovered they could sell a million albums and still be in debt. If by some miracle the record label was forced to concede that they actually owed the artist money, then the trick was to get them to pay it, if you ever found out. That worked for far too long. Almost everyone got ripped off by their record label and the labels consistently abused their position of financial responsibility. No artist with half a brain trusts a record label any more and for good reason. The purpose of the record label is to collect all the money and keep as much of it as possible. The Solution -- So let's look at what Prince just did: A) He sold 3 million CDs to the Mail. If he only made a dollar on each one, it's a tidy sum. 3 million fans all got a free CD, and Prince hears a big CHA-CHING! that he can actually take to the bank without waiting for it to trickle down through Sony. B) Sold at least 300,000 concert tickets in an hour. We know that he didn't get all the cash from box office sales, but even at $10 per ticket, that's another $3 million and they'll probably sell most of the remaining 120,000 tickets. Yeah, he'll have to work three weeks to earn it, but... C) His record label refused to distribute his CD in the UK. He didn't need them. In fact, Prince made a boatload of money and I'd hope that Sony never saw a dime of it because they had nothing to do with it. D) People in the UK know what Prince's new CD sounds like, which may or may not have influenced ticket sales. People in the US who find out are subject to being sued at this point in time because Sony will distribute it here and it hasn't been released yet. Sony will probably continue to sue people after the record comes out, which may or may not influence ticket sales. Conclusions Record labels are already obsolete in the UK. Artists make more money by allowing people to hear their music instead of making it difficult. Artists can make more money by taking the label out of the picture entirely. Artists can deal with almost any other entity (newspaper, Starbucks) and get a more honest, straightforward accounting of sales and any money due to the artist than they will ever get at Sony or EMI. The artists are waking up. This should have happened years ago.