Prince Gives Music Away for Free, Cashes in on WOM
The artist currently known as Prince understands that the best way to get fans to love his music is to give them an opportunity to hear it. While other artists are guarding their musical reserves from the threat of download-hungry, music-loving pirates, on July 15, Prince attached a copy of his new album, "Planet Earth," to every issue of London's "Mail on Sunday," putting his latest release in the hands of thousands of potential fans.
Prince's "give it away" model is part of his ongoing effort to use digital media in a meaningful way to work around the big box music distributors. As early as 2001, Prince fans could subscribe to receive his music for free online. In another example, his "Musicology" album was distributed for free to everyone who purchased a ticket to see one of the live shows during the album's tour -- a move that catapulted "Musicology" to the top 10 for a number of weeks, in spite of the fact that the albums weren't technically "sold."
Several U.K. music retailers were so displeased with Prince's decision to bypass them for the "Planet Earth" release that they've opted not to sell his new album. Given that his fans are happy and have access to his music, the move probably won't keep this WOM Prince up at night.
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1) Prince's free music giveaway seems to have resulted in a sought-after splashy, free publicity among the major news media. However, there are plenty of artists who have used MySpace and Amazon (Amazon has offered trial downloads of either 30" clips or full songs).
2) The digital generation has grown up with many free services and products via the Internet, and retraining them to pay for items previously offered for free would require a huge cultural shift in current climate of Internet usage.
I expect that CD sales are surely not as lucrative as they were 20 years ago (if someone has done the research and can confirm this, I would appreciate it). As such, Prince´s latest move also brings to light that artists are increasingly needing to find other sources of income while revenue from CD sales decline.
3) The need to shift to new income sources has been driving changes in other sectors, as well, and the companies who agilely embrace these changes will be the ones to prosper.