Tech
Prince invites you to listen to his music at his house instead of on YouTube
by Jeremy Mersereau
March 30, 2016
YouTube doesn't pay him enough, so Prince proposed an alternative.
The Purple One has once again deigned to descend from his cordoned-off digital cloud and explain to us mere mortals why he’s so diligent about swabbing concert footage form YouTube to his fans, who usually have to be content with streaming Powerline from A Goofy Movie videos whenever they want an online Prince experience.
Fans who have been uploading footage and/or music from Prince’s current, ultra-intimate Piano and a Microphone tour usually find their videos scrubbed from YouTube within hours, leaving us to make do with stuff like this.
Taking to Twitter to respond to fans’ questions about the practice, Prince tried to explain his reticence at allowing his music on YouTube or any other streaming platform (well, except Tidal), saying that YouTube doesn’t pay “equitable licensing fees.” Prince also let us all know he’s “kinda bored” followed by a photo of Don Knotts’ Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show sipping a soda.
Prince is right, of course. YouTube’s current per-stream royalty to artists is 0.0369$ USD, and I can’t imagine their licensing fees for official video are much more ‘equitable’ than that. It’s absolutely the right move for any artist at Prince’s level to hold out for more money from streaming giants, and the only people fans should be pressuring for official Prince videos is YouTube.
Of course, Prince’s suggested solution isn’t much help. Unless he’s serious about the invitation, in which case I’ll be waiting in the car. How far is Minnesota from here? 17 hours? Pfft, we won’t even need to stop.
