The NewsDemon Blog

Is it time to shut the Internet and Usenet down? Prince thinks so. Explaining why he’s giving his new album away free to readers of the Daily Mirror this weekend, Prince tells the paper that the web, on which some prominent media corporations have bet the farm, is now obsolete.

“The internet’s completely over,” he explained. “I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.

He added: “The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

Of all people to respond, Mr. G or Kenny G, says that if the Internet is dead, “then I must be dead too, ’cause I use it all the time,” adding with a laugh, “Maybe I’ve got a sixth sense, and I can only see dead people. I don’t know.” Unlike Prince, Kenny G said the Internet is vital to promoting his work.

Prince was an early adopter of internet-release platforms, making a number of records available through his music club subscription service, which was shut down in 2006 after five years. Since then, Prince has been a fierce opponent of content sharing, even threatening to sue a woman who put up a YouTube video of her baby dancing to one of his songs in 2007.

He’s surely fighting a lone battle against the internet, shutting his own website down and threatening to sue every legal an illegal download service out of existence. The singer-songwriter will give away his new album 20Ten with copies of The Mirror and Daily Record on July 10. The album will not be available to download.