Prince is the man!
Looks like Prince has pissed off the RIAA & Pirates at the same time with a free give-away
Prince has angered the music industry and stirred up trouble among British retailers by giving away his new album with a tabloid newspaper this weekend.
“Planet Earth” will be packaged with the Mail on Sunday at a price of $2.80.
The giveaway has been roundly criticized as a major blow for an industry already facing rapidly declining CD sales. It has led Sony BMG U.K., Prince’s local label, to pull the plug on its own sales release of the CD in Britain.
International sales launch for “Planet Earth” is July 16; the U.S. launch is July 24.
“The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,” said Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, referring to a period in the 1990s when the singer famously stopped using his name to protest a binding record deal.
“It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career,” Quirk added.
Also fueling retailers’ ire is what they see as a traitorous move by one of their own. After initially harshly criticizing Prince and the deal, music and books retailer HMV, which doesn’t normally sell newspapers, decided to sell the Mail on Sunday in its 400-plus stores across the country.
“Like it or not, selling the newspaper is the only way to make the Prince album available to our customers,” HMV said.
