by trichordist

So Prince released his new album today Exclusively on TIDAL… how long will that last before it’s on YouTube?

Today Prince released his new album “HITNRUN Phase One” exclusively on TIDAL. The real question is, how long will it be before the album in part or in whole is on YouTube and every other pirate site in the world?

image001

You can listen to :30 of each song at the link below without signing up for the service.
http://listen.tidal.com/album/50767183

Music Tech Policy detailed why we can’t have nice things in the post “The Great Disappointment: Tidal Highlights YouTube’s Moral Hazard for All the World to See”.

Part of Tidal’s business model relies on artists being able to grant exclusives.  The concept of an exclusive requires property rights that are respected by other platforms in the channel.

Imagine if Showtime began showing rips of Game of Thrones day and date with its HBO release.  Forget that HBO would sue them and win.  The actors, screenwriters, producers and the vast below the line personnel would think twice about working for Showtime in the future.

And that’s exactly what should happen to YouTube.

Beyonce released “Die With You” on Tidal as an exclusive.  Everyone at YouTube knows that it was intended to be an exclusive just like everyone at YouTube knows that YouTube could keep the track from being uploaded to YouTube if YouTube wanted to do that.

YouTube has worked hard at getting the world to accept the concept of “user generated content” as some kind of great cultural event–even, when like “Die With You”, there isn’t anything particularly “user generated” about it, unless you call a one-to-one rip of Beyonce’s track that was distributed in clear violation of Beyonce’s rights “user generated”.

READ THE FULL POST AT MUSIC TECH POLICY:
https://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/tidal-highlights-youtubes-moral-hazard-for-all-the-world-to-see/

One thought on “So Prince released his new album today Exclusively on TIDAL… how long will that last before it’s on YouTube?”

  1. Without monetary value on any work, its completely worthless. We are in a very sad time, artistically. We won’t see good music again until technology catches up and forces everyone to pay for each and every song on each and every electronic device. Until then, goodbye, music.

Comments are closed.