Prince was nothing if not prolific, generating music steadily for more than 30 years and releasing 39 albums and perhaps hundreds more still unreleased recordings. So why, then, is it so hard to find his music online?
There are plenty of covers of his songs on YouTube, along with a few clips of his Super Bowl and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction performances. But there鈥檚 no Prince video channel and no easy way to listen to his original music online.
Why is that?
In short, Prince was intensely and fiercely protective of his music.
Long before Taylor Swift was pulling her albums from streaming services, and Radiohead was offering music online for a pay-what-you-want price, Prince was bucking the traditional music publishing rules.
鈥淗e wanted to own everything,鈥� musicologist Michael Williams told CTV鈥檚 Canada AM Friday.
The Minnesota-born artist was always irritated with the traditional music industry, and hated the fact that even if an artist made millions with a new album, the record label that funded it would always retain full ownership rights.
In the mid-1990s, he began an open war with the music label system that resulted in him changing his name to a symbol. Prince rarely granted interviews and offered few insights into the conflict, but according to Rolling Stone, the fight began when Prince鈥檚 label at the time, Warner Bros, asked him to release fewer albums, to maintain his cachet.
Prince was having none of it, and instead decided to do the opposite and increased his album pace, changing his name to the symbol, and writing the word 鈥渟lave鈥� on his cheek.
Eventually, he completed his deal with Warner Bros., which promptly dropped him, leaving Prince to bounce from label to label for the next few years.
Upon learning of the artists鈥� death, Warner Bros. released a statement saying, 鈥淧rince鈥檚 untimely passing is deeply shocking, reminding us that unique artists who chart their own course and move culture are precious few and irreplaceable.鈥�
When internet downloading, YouTube and music streaming began to revolutionize the music industry in the early 2000s, Prince fought back and bucked the trends.
In 2007, he gave the British tabloid the Mail on Sunday exclusive rights to distribute his new album, 鈥淧lanet Earth鈥� for free with the $3 newspaper. Calling the move 鈥渄irect marketing,鈥� Prince not only deprived his record label of sale revenues, he also managed to cut out music stores and online music retailers.
But he earned the money back in a series of 21 concerts in London that quickly sold out.
In 2014, pull everything down from his official Vevo channel on YouTube (except for one track,鈥� Breakfast Can Wait,鈥�) without explanation.
That same year, he sued 22 Facebook users for linking to bootlegs of his recordings. He said the users, who mostly ran Prince tribute pages and fan sites committed 鈥渦p to thousands of separate acts of infringement and bootlegging鈥� and demanded $1 million each from them.
Faced with instant backlash that he was hurting his own fans, Prince dropped the suit a few days later.
Then last year, he streaming service and moved it all over to Tidal鈥� the service started by Kanye West, Jay Z, and other artists.
Prince鈥檚 albums have remained for sale on iTunes. With news of his death Thursday, sales have, not surprisingly, spiked.
