Prince’s Death Prompts “Awkward” Piracy Surge

[Megalith]

Apparently, Prince once called a file hosting site personally to take down his music and explain why piracy is a terrible thing.

Prince’s piracy aversion was particularly strong. He was one of the first to threaten The Pirate Bay with a lawsuit almost ten years ago, as co-founder Peter Sunde recalled yesterday. With the help of Web Sheriff he also made sure that pirated copies were regularly removed from various pirate sites. At least, from those sites that honor takedown requests. Despite this strong anti-piracy stance, Prince fans have not shied away from torrent sites over the past 24-hours. On the contrary, just several hours after his death full discographies and compilation albums were uploaded all over the Internet.

 

[sfsuphysics]

And shortly after his death record stores (wherever they still exist anymore) sold out of his albums.

 

[Spidey329]

He doesn't have to worry, his estate will have the copyrights for the next 70 years or so (it's an insane amount of time because of S. Bono). So they'll likely start sending the DMCA's soon enough.

If I was an artist and had money to give my family, I'd have all of my stuff opened upon my death for non-monetary sharing. Unfortunately, a lot of artists go from wanting to share their trade as they bust ass in bars and clubs to just caring about the money even after death.