....are you managers of young bands with paper rounds to support themselves thinking what I`m thinking?

"...eagerly awaited new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD"

Eeekkkk!

What?

Guardian linky

As has been correctly pointed out by what I believe is one of our regular contributors on another board, Prince has probably done rather well out of it, the record company probably hasn`t.
It seems quite a logical step to me , and one that follows Sir Paul`s Starbucks deal.
I too, was horrified at first, but with the amount of giveaway material any release has to have behind it in promotion this is just the next step.

From a journalistic point of view, I do hope the Mail on Sunday give the album an honest review, nobody is going to take a 5 star review seriously from the paper that is behind the release.
Don`t forget the cd is also free to Prince ticket holders.

Everone who reads a review in the Mail on Sunday will have a copy anyway.......

I've got two questions concerning this kind of deals. Maybe someone knows the answers.

1. Did the 500.000 pounds Prince got from the Mail On Sunday include the publishing rights (composers royalties)?

2. What is the role of the MCPS in this kind of deals? Can artists (as writers) do direct deals or has the MCPS (under British law) to be involved?

Thank you!

Hi DJ,

I think the royalties may well include the publishing but i can't be definite yet. As far as MCPS is concerned if you are controlling all the compositions they have no jurisdiction if you don't want them to. They have standard measures of dealing with this sort of thing as well.