Culture

Prince Sues to Block Tribute Album

by Jordan Yerman | June 28, 2008 at 08:01 am

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For a guy who revolutionized online music distribution, Prince seems to be getting more and more lawsuit-happy, making Lars Ulrich look like Joss Stone.

Fifty artists who recorded Prince covers in honor of His Purpleness' 50th birthday June 7 have been slapped with a lawsuit by the short-tempered star. His lawyers now demand that all copies of the tribute be destroyed. Shockadelica had reached No. 8 on Norway's album charts and received several popular reviews by the Norwegian press.

There is a question of compulsory licenses here -- as Norway requires about $0.10/song, and with 81 songs, that's about $8 per album. The label (potentially incorrectly) believed that since it wasn't making any money on the album, it didn't need to pay.

In this case the artists are wrong- even if they aren't profiting, they still must pay the owner of the original work. However, Prince's reaction was really short-sighted: if you were a celebrity musician, how many of your die--hard fans would you want to alienate?

If Prince were really thinking, he'd simply ask for a retroactive licensing fee, or just say "thanks for the birthday present" and be glad that others are working to keep his (awesome) contributions to popular music relevant.

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