The 52-year old musical icon, Prince, has announced to The Mirror Newspaper that “The Internet is completely over.” Now for someone like me who admittedly, spends all my time on the internet, using it as a resource for both work and leisure, I could not disagree more with Prince. In fact, I believe the music industry needs the Internet and above all, I don’t believe that record companies or indeed major musical acts can continue to be successful in these modern times unless they embrace technology.
Before I start my rant I have nothing against Prince at all, I can’t say I’ve listened to all his tracks or indeed many of his major hits but that is because he’s a little before my time. Regardless as a musical icon whose produced 10 platinum albums and over 30 Top 40 singles during his long career, nobody can argue that he’s very successful and very good at what he does. Yet his long standing battle against the internet continues as he pulls the plug on his own official website, and comes to the end of a long lawsuit against YouTube and The Pirate Bay amongst others, for using his material.
Nevertheless here’s what he had to say about technology and the Internet:
The internet is completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.
The Internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.
All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.
Source: Telegraph
I’ll start with the MTV statement first, you’re comparing the internet to a music channel? Seriously? MTV was in it’s heyday a go to place for people to find things like celebrity gossip and music videos. That was it’s purpose and that’s what it was built to achieve so naturally it peaked and then died off. The Internet 
on the other hand is not just an informational resource or a place which your only purpose in going is to see the latest music videos. It instead powers the core of global multinationals, it’s a learning resource for students, it’s a means of connecting people separated by hundreds of miles of physical landmass, and this is barely scratching the surface. That’s one of the beauties of the internet is that it’s scalable to meet the needs of many different consumer types.
The number of users on the internet has grown year after year and not just in absolutes but also in relative proportions. According to Internetworldstats, in December 1995 the number of users stood at 16 million people globally which was 0.4% of the world’s population. By December 2010 this number has dramatically increased to 1,802 million people globally which stands at 26.6% of the world’s population. These figures see no signs of slowing down with more and more countries aiming to provide lower cost and reliable high-speed internet. Finland only just recently made this very resource a necessary utility in the eyes of the law, something that’s been slowly echoed across the world.
All these computers and digital gadgets are no good and fill your head with numbers? Has the man ever used an iPod? Or even let’s say, a mobile phone? Since when was the last time anybody ever had their “head filled with numbers” from using digital devices? Whether or not this is literally what he means, being my own devil’s advocate, there is a point to his statement. The internet does have it’s bad side and can be very distracting.
Think of this, if you were to have a week whereby you would have all access to the internet cut off, would you not perhaps be more productive in your work/study? Would you perhaps naturally substitute this time you’ve gained with more social or hobbyist alternatives? Perhaps spend more time with the family or study more in your spare time? The answer you’ll all have probably come up with is yes. But think about this, if you had no internet, and you owned an online shop run from home or wanted to Skype your father who was away on business, would you be able to do this also? Then no. I think the positives of having the internet far outweigh that of not having the internet. It’s turned from being a simple distraction to a vital tool that everyone can use in their daily life. Personally as a student, the ease of use that the internet can provide is invaluable. The 10 seconds it takes to search something on Google and then to be reading on a relevant paper stumps the need of having to travel to your local library and digging through volumes of books for the same information.
Now on the subject of the iTunes music model, let me start by saying that I’m no expert on this. I can’t say that I’ve looked at every possible angle or from indeed every possible actor in this use case. However the notion that a company must pay the artist in advance for music sales that he/she has not yet achieved sounds wholly unpredictable and like a terrible market mechanism that must surely lead to diseconomies of scale and lapses in market coverage. Can iTunes accurately predict how much Prince will make on his next album and pay him an exact contract? No, they can’t. Can iTunes budget for this album and fit in the costs of distributing his music effectively? Nope. That is why so many artists have transitioned to online music services because not only is there, in my opinion, a more fairer deal but also financially it works out better for the artists. The cost of producing and distributing physical CD’s is massive relative to the cost of uploading it to a few servers and letting users download it at a cost. What is the problem with musicians being paid on a per download basis with iTunes getting a slice of the revenue. Surely it’s a more accurate method, if it can be described in such a way, of having an artist on your distribution list and paying them their correct due fee. Also check this site for some interesting facts on how much music artists actually earn.
Either way this rant has just scratched the surface in what I think is fundamentally wrong with Prince’s statement Last word on the topic, but maybe Prince should think about the CD’s and the DVD’s that he puts his music on before he starts complaining about the internet and digital goods.
