"Internet PR is about as useful to making a living as a ‘Boycott Israel’ twibbon is to a West...

“Internet PR is about as useful to making a living as a ‘Boycott Israel’ twibbon is to a West Bank school under mortar fire”

“What Prince has figured out is that the proportion of effort/return on pushing the internet user to actually BUY music is not worth the resources it takes to do so. When 80–90% of your PR effort disappears into non-revenue online areas (piracy, Spotify), the PR needs to be 8–9 times as ubiquitous as in the pre-internet era to make the same gains. He’s done the sums, and has figured out that even if he only stands to make a penny profit on each CD that goes out on the cover of various European newspapers, that it’s worth more to him than a hundred million people retweeting a video clip of his track on YouTube. Newspapers are an established physical distribution platform, to make them the sole legal source of your music is a mark of genius thinking. Why SHOULD Prince make his music available to be listened to at will, for nothing (or as close as dammit) on YouTube, Spotify or Mog.com? For YOUR convenience? So that you can enjoy his work and display your musical credibility to your dinnerparty guests without the painful business of compensating the artist in question? Oh how RUDE of dear little Prince to deny you the opportunity.”
–Here’s one take on Prince declaring the Internet “over.”